u/Melvino32

30 days ago I started building tools I actually needed for editing my own YouTube videos. I kept running into the same problem: every free tool either added a watermark, required an account, or capped the file size right when I needed it most. So I built my own. VidClean is a free online video and audio tool suite. No watermark, no account required, files deleted after 15 minutes. The idea was simple: follow the iLovePDF playbook. Build single-purpose tools, keep them free, monetize later.

Here's what actually happened.

What I built

8 tools live in 30 days:

• Remove silence from video/audio
• Extract audio
• Compress video
• Mute video
• MP4 to MP3
• Trim video
• Video to GIF
• Resize video (with TikTok/Shorts mode)

Stack: Vercel (frontend) + Railway (backend, 2 replicas) + Cloudflare R2 (storage, 1-day lifecycle) + Redis + ARQ queue. Total cost: $16-20/month.

The numbers

• 262 total visitors, $0 ad spend
• 33 clicks from Google, 155 impressions, 21% CTR
• Google, ChatGPT, Bing, and Copilot all sending organic referrals
• 16 backlinks confirmed by Google
• Averaging 17 visitors/day in the last week, up from 10 at launch

The ChatGPT referrals were the biggest surprise. I added llms.txt and explicitly allowed GPTBot and ClaudeBot in robots.txt on day one and it seems to be paying off already.

What went wrong

Two things I'm still fighting:

The new domain trust gap. I'm ranking at position 5-6 for several keywords but only getting 155 impressions in 28 days. Google clearly thinks the content is relevant but it just won't surface it broadly because the domain is 7 weeks old. No shortcut here. You build, wait, and let authority compound.

Not being able to get into all the directories I wanted. Some have quality or age requirements that a brand new domain can't meet yet. Something to revisit in a few months.

What actually worked

• Reddit comments in relevant subreddits drove the first backlinks and most of the early traffic. Genuine helpful comments, not spam.
• llms.txt + structured FAQ schema, AI search was sending referrals within the first two weeks
• Comparison pages targeting competitors with recent pricing changes gave me a timely hook that's still getting impressions
• Keeping the stack lean, $16/month means I can run this indefinitely without pressure

What's next

• 4 more relevant tools by July 1
• Emailing bloggers who rank for "free video editing tools" and "free Descript alternatives" to build domain authority
• Keep doing what's working on Reddit

Happy to answer questions about the stack, the SEO approach, or the iLovePDF playbook in general.

vidclean is free, no account, no watermark.

https://preview.redd.it/b2wwuw82nq0h1.png?width=2626&format=png&auto=webp&s=42b294907f09452f23ea36752a00206f216f7eca

I launched a free video tool suite (vidclean.net) 7 weeks ago. DR 0, no backlinks except Reddit comments and one IndieHackers post, no paid traffic.

This week ChatGPT sent me 5 referrals in 7 days. Two came on a single Saturday with zero Reddit activity that day. It's been consistent since week 4.

I'm not an SEO expert. I'm a solo founder trying to figure this out. But I did a few things on day one that I think are responsible for it.

What I did:

Added llms.txt and llms-full.txt on launch day (structured markdown file describing every tool with descriptions)

Explicitly allowed GPTBot, PerplexityBot, and ClaudeBot in robots.txt

Added FAQPage schema to every tool page with specific, quotable answers

Made the tool descriptions concrete and specific ("removes any gap below -35dB lasting 0.5 seconds or more") rather than vague marketing copy

Current stats for context:

7 weeks live, $0 ad spend

34 clicks / 160 impressions / 21.3% CTR (3 months GSC)

Position 5.6 average

Referrers this week: Google 15, ChatGPT 5, Bing 4, Copilot 3

~17 visitors/day trending up from 10 at launch

The 21% CTR at position 5 on a brand new domain is the other thing I can't fully explain. Titles and descriptions seem to be working but I'd love feedback on whether that's normal or if I'm reading too much into it.

My actual questions for this community:

1. Is the ChatGPT traffic from llms.txt or is it just that GPTBot crawled the site and cited it organically? Is there a way to tell?
2. Is 21% CTR at position 5.6 genuinely good or is it inflated by branded searches?
3. What would you do next to accelerate indexing on a new domain? I have 12 tool pages live but 6 are still "discovered but not indexed" in GSC.
4. What common SEO tactics do you think solo founders overlook or miss entirely at this stage? I want to make sure I'm not leaving obvious wins on the table.

Happy to share more data if useful. Trying to learn this properly rather than guess.

vidclean.net free video tools, no account, no watermark.

Hey everyone, I started making YouTube videos a couple months ago and kept running into the same problem, spending way too much time cutting out the dead air and silence between sentences. Every tool I found either required a login, slapped a watermark on your file, or had some kind of limit to force you to upgrade.

So I just built my own free tool. vidclean.net. You upload your file, it automatically removes all the silence and dead air, you download the clean version. That's it.

It just started supporting audio files too so podcasters can upload MP3, WAV, or M4A directly and get a clean version back without having to mess around with Audacity or sync anything back to a video timeline.

No account. No watermark. No subscription. Completely free. Files get deleted after 15 minutes so nothing is stored on my end either.

Hopefully saves some of you the pain of manually scrubbing through your recordings. And yeah maybe with this I'll finally upload more than 3 videos in 2 months lol