Traffic Authority

Get More Traffic

How Long Should it Take to Get Traffic?

A lot of people give up on promoting a website before they ever reach their full potential.

There seems to be something of a mistake belief that we should be able to create a new website, fill it with content and then start making a full-time income in a matter of months.

This is not the case. In fact, it is far from the truth.

Instead, it will likely take a year if not several years until you eventually reach that point. You may never reach that point and you should never take it as a given.

If you take a look at some of the biggest brands on the web and the biggest names on the web, you might think they have it easy and you might wish that you had their website.

But guess what? They probably wished the same thing a few years back. Most big blogs and sites will admit that it took them years before they gained traction!

Of course, there are certain things you can do to speed up the process.

A number of growth hacks can really work and most of those big sites do describe there being some kind of catalyst or turning point at which they started to gain momentum – maybe they were shared in the local paper or they got a link from a big site.

These things tend top be the result of luck rather than their effort but they made that luck by continuously plugging away and by creating those kinds of opportunities.

But the single most important thing that all these sites did and that they have in common, is that they didn’t give up.

If you are tempted to give up on your site because it hasn’t become massive overnight, then you will never know if you might have started to see rapid growth in the next month.

Or the month after.

This is why it is so important to make sure that you are truly passionate about the topic that you cover.

If you’re not, then you won’t have the drive to keep on writing even when the views aren’t there.

The other thing to keep in mind is that your growth will be exponential.

The more views you get and the more influence, the easier it is to get even more views and even more influence. So don’t give up!

Top Mistakes That Are Limiting Your Growth

Is your site not growing the way you always imagined it? Are you tired waiting for your site to stop getting 100 views a day and to become a massive hit?

What’s going wrong?

Well, there are actually any number of things that might be going wrong here.

This is good news really, because it means there are lots of opportunities for you to improve your strategy and thereby increase your growth rapidly.

Let’s take a look at some of the top mistakes that might be preventing your site from taking off as quickly as you might have hoped…

You Are Writing Generic Posts

One of the most common mistakes I see, is that people write generic posts. That is to say that they write content that is boring and that is derivative.

You know the stuff ‘How to Get Six Pack Abs’. Really? Like your audience haven’t read this a million times before!

Content marketing only works when you have some genuinely interesting and unique content to share.

So think harder about what you want to write and who might read it!

You Aren’t Sharing

Building the best site possible and filling it with incredible content is THE most important thing you can do to encourage growth.

However, it is also not enough on its own. The problem is that this doesn’t ensure people will actually know about your content!

So you need to make sure you also share your content and let people know about it!

That means posting to social media, it means posting in social sharing sites and it means writing guest posts.

Whatever you do though, it just means getting the word out somehow!

Bad SEO

I’m not talking about SEO that is badly done and so doesn’t work!

I’m talking about SEO that is overdone and so actually starts to actively detract from your potential success.

In the worst case scenario, this means keyword stuffing: filling your website with key phrases and terms you think Google wants to see, not recognizing that this actually does a lot more harm than good because it puts real readers off of sticking around!

Patience

The other problem you might be experiencing? A lack of patience! Perhaps your expectations are just too high for what is likely to happen in the first month?

Don’t assume your business will take off overnight but instead keep plugging away consistently.

The Power of the Route to Market

If you want to have limitless success on the web, then there are several concepts to bear in mind.

One of the most important and the most powerful though, is the “route to market”.

This is a business term and one you may have heard of if you’ve read books like The Personal MBA.

But it’s not one that is so well known in internet marketing circles.

Which is why you should learn about it now.

So, what is a route to market and why does it matter?

Essentially, a route to market is a route to a specific market.

This is a way in which you can reach the audience that you have defined as the target audience for your product, service or perhaps website.

There are lots of routes to market you are already using.

For instance, you might be on Google which is a route to market.

But typically, the term is usually used to describe much more focused and direct routes that specifically cater to your audience.

So a good example might be something like a subreddit.

If you are selling a supplement aimed at martial artists, then the r/martialarts subreddit is actually a great route to market.

But there are other routes to market that are less often considered and once you start to think in this way, they can begin to present themselves to you.

For instance, if you wrote an eBook on gardening, then your route to markets are places where gardeners congregate.

That might mean a gardening website but it also means Gardening World magazine.

It also means the gardening club that meets in your local area. And it means gardening centers.

If you can access those, then you can reach the right audience and potentially enjoy a lot of success!

Why This is Important Next time you’re thinking of how to promote your site and gain traffic, think about routes to market both offline and off.

It is said that the secret formula for any successful business is to solve a problem for a group of people and then find a way to show that to a group of people.

Routes to market take care of that last aspect.

Another powerful tip is to think about the routes to market you might already have access to.

And if you have any very valuable ones maybe create a product for that market instead of vice versa.

If you’re best friends with the editor of Gardening World use that!

How Content Marketing Works (Actually)

There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding when it comes to content marketing.

The problem is that content marketing sounds incredibly simple.

Content marketing simply means posting to a website regularly so that there is content for people to read and so that Google will find the content right?

As long as you post regularly, it doesn’t really matter what the content you share is.

Once someone reads your posts and sees they’re coming in regularly, they’ll start to follow your site… for sure.

Hopefully you can already see the problem here when you say it out loud! In reality, this is how content marketing actually works…

Slow and Steady

Contrary to popular belief, people don’t get wowed by your website on the first visit for the most part.

Normally, we are reading the web because we need some information quickly or we fancy a bit of entertainment.

Thus we search Google or we click that link our friend shared.

We scroll down the page, dismissing the pop up asking us to fill in our email (why would we??) and we read.

We never even notice the logo at the top of the page.

Things only start to click into place if we then visit that site again. And again.

Through fluke on Google, or because a friend keeps sharing the content, we start to see the same brand crop up a few times and because that’s happened, we start to recognize it.

It’s only at this point that we then make a mental note of the site and think of it as one we trust and one we’d like to hear more from.

And now, instead of searching for ‘how to lose weight’, we search for ‘how to lose weight breakingmuscle’.

Because that’s our ‘go to’ site for that kind of information and we want to know what they have to say.

Eventually, if they keep on impressing in this capacity, then we might go on to start reading their regular posts, or we might just subscribe to their feed.

And only then do we start to get to know the person behind the content, start to know them and trust them and consider subscribing to their email list and maybe buying from them.

Conclusion

The conclusion? Content marketing isn’t a magic bullet. It is hard work and it is only effective at all if you consistently put out excellent quality work.

Influencer Marketing Done Right

What do you think is the ‘ultimate’ growth hack?

The answer HAS to be influencer marketing. This is a marketing strategy that ticks all the boxes that an ultimate strategy should tick.

It is highly effective, it works instantly and it’s easy.

If you get this right, then you can get hundreds of thousands more people to your website overnight and completely transform your success in the process.

An Introduction

So, what is influencer marketing? Simply, this is a form of marketing that piggy backs on the success of pre-existing influencer.

An influencer in this context is simply anyone who has their own website, social media account or other means of reaching a large audience.

You then team up with those influencers and in doing so, you get them to post about your content or just give you a ‘shout out’ even on their site.

This then means that you are exposed to hundreds of thousands of people who have the right interests and you’re also getting a testimonial of sorts from someone that they trust.

Imagine if you got a recommendation from Tim Ferriss over night: it would probably mean you could quit your day job the next day!

This happened with a big YouTuber named JackSepticeye. He is now very wealthy all thanks to one shout out from Pewdiepie.

How to Make it Work

This is an exciting opportunity for growth, but it’s very difficult of course to get those influencers to respond. So, what’s the solution?

The first tip is to start from the bottom and work your way up. If you approach Tim Ferriss tomorrow, he will ignore you.

But if you approach someone with the same number of visitors or even fewer than you, then you will likely get a response. Don’t dismiss this!

That still doubles your exposure at least!

Another tip is to actually meet these people in real life or at least to have a phone conversation if you can.

Networking is far easier in person and you become much harder to dismiss once someone has actually met you.

So, attend networking events and do what you can to get an introduction.

Failing that? Hire the person you want to use as an influencer. If you hire them, then they have to answer you.

And once they’ve answered you, they won’t easily be able to ignore you in future!

More Traffic Ideas and Insights are in the Traffic Authority Program