Is SEO the best marketing channel for indie hackers?

The best? Not even close. Probably, the last I'd say. It's better to do LinkedIn/Reddit/Twitter reach-outs and email campaigns.

SEO can be a great marketing channel for indie hackers, but it's not the only one. Many other channels can be effective, depending on your product, target audience, and budget.

For a long-term strategy, definitely yes. But if leads are needed today, then of course not.

SEO is great but it takes time to set it up. Indie-hackers can try different marketing methods, one thing that stands out the most is building a personal brand for yourself

I've been in the SEO space for some time now - launching our second product in a couple of weeks, and this is my take on seeing some of our users thrive and others simply not getting results. 1. SEO is not the best distribution channel for small projects that don't have a reputation yet - it takes time to build and on limited budget/time, it's hard to gain the traction needed 2. There are still industries with a lot of white space on Google where thought leaders can rise quickly to the top results and get organic traffic 3. To be a thought leader, however, requires a lot of passion for writing. If you truly enjoy talking about the hot topics in your industry and are eager to combine this with SEO research and implementation, that can work - but it takes time and there might be channels to give you better results, faster at the beginning.

Maybe, because search engines will soon be obsolete.

Not always. Depends on the niche. But, free organic traffic is sweet.

I am unsure about this. SEO takes time to yield results and the current landscape is changing so quick, you don't know if your product will be relevant in 6 months. I am going to try programmatic SEO.

Indie hackers are bootstrapped and would need to go for speed and steady near-term growth / results. SEO is a continuous, long-term process that sets the foundation for your organic web traffic. Start-ups, big companies and indie hackers alike should put in consistent effort to generate good content and build links (which are like actual relationships with other websites). This will help the site grow organically in the long run. So, SEO is a must-have long term strategy and pairing it with some initial paid awareness campaigns would make up for speed.

If you're in a space where your potential customers are actively searching for solutions that you provide, then SEO can be a goldmine. The idea is to be right there when they're looking for you, and nothing serves this purpose better than a well-optimized site. One thing indie hackers should definitely look into is link building. Since you're typically running a lean operation, you might not have tons of time for marketing, but link building can offer an excellent ROI for the time you invest. Here's a solid guide on successful link building strategies to get you started. That being said, no marketing channel should stand alone. SEO can be a vital part of your strategy, but it works best in conjunction with other methods like social media marketing, content marketing, and email campaigns.