How to Increase Your Website Traffic

One of the frequently asked questions by new bloggers is ‘How do I increase traffic to my website?’

It is very common for a new website to get a few visitors to zero traffic in the initial couple of months. It probably has happened to the best bloggers out there. But what makes a successful blogger is staying committed to blogging even when the analytics screams at you to give up.

Getting a low traffic to your website in the initial weeks and months can be a positive thing. What? You may ask.

Well, for one, you do not have a lot of content to keep your visitor engaged. Secondly, there may be some usability issue and you can use this time to fix it before your blog explodes with visitors and you have people leaving your site. Next, you can create foundations across social media and create your presence and work on strategies. Lastly, your resilience to blogging becomes stronger.

Assuming that you write quality content and you are still not getting any traffic to your website, there are few things that you can do to start getting organic traffic.

How long does it take for a new website to get traffic?

It takes time. Let’s be honest here. If you have a niche that is very competitive then it is going to take some time. How much time? It can take anywhere between 5 – 6 months before you can start to see some organic traffic to your website. If you target long tail keywords with lower search volumes then you can start seeing visitors to your website in 2 – 3 months.

Consistency is the blueprint to success. Write blog posts and publish them regularly. Focus on long tail keywords. Some article ideas can be:
1. Answer a specific question in your niche (How to, why does, are great starting points.)
2. Review products or services
3. Write pillar posts. (Large articles with as much information that you can share about the topic. This should be over 3000 words)

Now let’s take a look at some of the most common reason why you blog is not getting any traffic.

1. Blog post / page is not indexed.

You may have indexed your website sitemap. But there may be issues with having your post indexed. To fix this, go to your Google search Console à Insert the blog post / specific page URL in the inspect any URL section à If the result says URL not found on Google, then you can request Indexing. If your blog / page is not indexed by Google, then your page / blog is not going to show up in Google search results.

2. Your Page is too Slow

Search engines are partial to websites that load fast. See how much time it takes your website to load. Remove unwanted images and plugins from your site. Google Page speed and GTMetrix offer solutions to speed up your website. Fix any issues that may be causing a low page load.

Ideally, your website should load in less than a second.

3. Content is not Fresh

This does not mean you have to write about a topic that has never been written before. It simply means write better than your competitor. Read your competitors articles, write down your approach to writing that article. Make a list of points that your competitor does not talk about. Add value to your article, provide videos, images and infographics that will add value to your readers.

4. You are Targeting Highly Competitive Keywords

As a new blogger, your website has a low Domain Authority, you have low backlinks, and low engagement on your site. Your site does not stand a chance when you compete for highly competitive keywords. Target Less competitive long tail keywords with a search difficulty of less than 50.

5. Your Keyword has a Low Search Volume

You may have written an article that is not searched enough on the internet. It may be because it is seasonal or out dated. You should do keyword research before you start writing an article. A good keyword research becomes a guide to your article. Take advantage of the similar keywords people are searching for. Build your article around those questions or topics. 

List of Keyword Research Tools

Keyword Planner, Keyword Anywhere, Answer the Public,  Google Trends, Ahrefs, MOZ Keyword Explorer, Semrush, Soovle

6. Do a SEO Audit

As a beginner, you may not want to invest in a SEO tool and you don’t have to do so right away. But as a beginner, it is important that you maintain a SEO Checklist for every posy you publish. Check that you have a user-friendly URL, H1 tag, H2 – H5 tags, name your images properly, provide internal links within your site, have a unique focus keyword to your site, meta description, etc.

7. Set up an Email List

Build an email list. Send emails to your subscribers when you have published your post. Provide value to your audience. Give them reason to look forward to your email. Give away products, discount code, recipe books, digital products, designs or anything else that is specific to your niche.

Tools – Campaign monitor, sendinblue, Get Response, Mailchimp, constant contact

8. Set up and Build Social Media Presence

Set up accounts on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, twitter and join groups where your posts help the community. Start Sharing your posts on social media sites. Start where you already have a network – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp. Analyze your posts that you post on social media platforms. Analyze which social media platforms is driving traffic to your site. Lastly, engage with your audience.

9. Blog Regularly

It takes time to get a regular stream of visitors to your site. The more articles you publish, you have more opportunities to drive traffic to your site and for keywords to rank on search engines. Stay motivated and don’t give up.

The traffic first starts to trickle in before it starts to flow…