Thought my site was dead when I was actually getting 2-300 visits/day, and just earned my first $1!
Sharing this because sometimes people (me, in this case) give up because of ONE metric that's bad.
In this case it was because my plugin measuring the metric was misconfigured. But it might also be because you're measuring the wrong thing, or valuing it incorrectly.
In brief:
- Six months ago I started building a new website, basically on a whim while in mandatory quarantine (after coming back home from abroad)
- I built a few pages, paid $2,000 for some contractors to build a bunch more, but was pretty sad to see the initial rise in traffic to drop away to nothing (0-5/day) after a few months.
- A few months later again, I realised that my Google Analytics code was wrong (due to a plugin misconfiguration in WordPress). I realised this after randomly seeing lots of clicks in Search Console, and wondering why they weren't reflected in GA. I updated the analytics plugin and voila, I was actually getting 2-300 visits a day!! I was shocked.
- Threw in some Amazon Affiliate links, and they're not working too well, but last week I earned my first $1.89.
There's a lot more to do — I have to build more pages, optimise the website for sales and conversions. I have a lot to learn. It's not a high purchase-intent website, so I can target RPMs of around $20, but I'm still wayyy below that.
And as a side note — the first money earned on any new website always feels great!
PS I don't really want to reveal what the website is because it's too early and there are many copycats (who are better and who will beat me) and negative SEO people out there. Plus lots of people who'll just spam me to sell me things. Sorry, I know that's frustrating. It's almost immaterial though as it won't tell you anything new.
Nice work, it's always a surreal moment!
Curious to know what your current content strategy has been to generate the daily traffic?
Looking forward to learing more about the product once you start sharing more 👍
Hi Lachlan, happy to share that.
Firstly this isn't the only SEO strategy I use, and secondly, SEO is one of those things riddled with echo chambers of hearsay and incomplete science. I've learned infinity in two years of blogging and still know nothing, and half the things I "know" might be wrong. Every day I sift through research and hearsay. My various blogs get between 1000-2,500 pageviews a day, which is good, but is also way below what I thought I'd be at by now.
So with that caveat...
My only unfailing strategy that I truly believe in is to a) write really high-quality things that people need b) in a format that makes it easy for them to find and parse.
For high-quality things — this site is a reference site. It answers long-tail keywords that have so little volume you wouldn't find them on things like ahrefs or ubersuggest.
But I google those keywords a lot for personal use, and I know people do because they're frequently-asked questions on message boards. I generally have to sift though those boards, PDF manuals, and out-dated blogs to get that info.
The information out there was super disorganised on this subject so I decided to organise it, because I figure it must be useful to some people... right?
Every page has a a ton of useful info, meaning when someone finds the page, they'll go "wow, this is awesome, and the best thing out there" and keep coming back.
That buys me dwell time and will increase my rank.
To get myself ranked anywhere, I need to make it easy to find and parse.
This means:
All of that has me ranking in #1 and sometimes in the snippet for many keywords. It takes a few months for each page to get "found". I think I can hit 500 daily sessions by EOY, and 1000 in Q1 2021.
Appreciate the detailed response. I couldn't agree more. Quality content will always triumph.
Looking forward to following your progress.