So how long until that whole new site traffic wears off? I’m getting about 3 to 5 hits a day on my site and I’m not even on google. I would imagine it’s all techs and stuff because I’m WAY too new to be getting any kind of actual traffic…
Here’s my reply:
Another way of asking that is “how long until I start getting organic traffic”? The ballpark is a few months to a year (or never). My blog took a couple years to start getting organic traffic, then I switched domain name and it basically went back to zero, and after a year I’m only averaging 10 or so visits a day.
It’s a chicken and egg situation: search engines think your site is junk until people start linking to it and visiting it; and people will never link to it or visit it because search engines think it’s junk and so don’t ever show it.
To break that cycle (and get more “organic” visitors), you need to do some good ol’ hustling…
1. Tell your friends about your site on social media (bonus points if they add links to it too).
2. Add links to the site yourself. Eg tweet about it, post to applicable subreddits, ask to be listed by local community or interest-based websites
3. Make useful comments on other blogs, Reddit, Twitter, etc. If permitted, link to your applicable posts etc.
4. Make sure Google knows about your site (eg if you’re on WordPress, you can use the [XML sitemap plugin ](https://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/) to tell Google you exist
5. Probably the biggest, ask to guest blog on someone else’s established site (although don’t go straight to asking the biggest players, they’re unlikely to take interest in a tiny no-traffic site owner; try sites from the second or third page of Google results.) Then make sure there’s a link to your site in your author profile.
Generally, you’re wanting to learn about the domain of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is a potentially huge topic. But the above reflects my best understanding so far.
Please leave a comment (you’ll be applying tip #3!)
A great post, however if you do follow proper SEO and be consistent with a quality content you can do pretty good after a year as first 6 to 9 months your sight just get to sandbox and relax their. SEO is pretty straightforward however, I agree with you You do need to work hard at that. Great content, quality back-links and consistency will put you well on your way to get organic traffic.
Thanks for the insight!
Yeah I didn’t mention consistency… I’ve heard it’s important, but never understood why. I can see why its important so folks know to check your blog regularly for new content, but that doesn’t seem as essential if they can get notified of new content by email or in-app etc… but I accept consistency might be one piece of the puzzle I’m missing.
Email or app are not part of the SEO campaign it’s part of the marketing campaign. Google is hungry for a new content and people are fighting to get zeero position in the SERP land hence, you need to be consistent with good content to build better authority which automatically helps to improve your DA/PA/TF and citation flow. SEO is indeed hard but absolutely worth it. It’s challenging and you just want to keep going with it.