As we discuss in each post, in order to make money online first you need to get traffic to your site which leads the most basic question, how to get to your first site traffic! To get found online, you need to start somewhere and manage your expectations. When you first start blogging it can take time to be found online which means you need to put in the work and trust the process. If you do, over time – which you should read as months or up to one year, you will get to where you want to go.
When trying to get to your first site traffic there are various approaches you should consider. There are some tasks you can complete which will give you same day results to start the process of brand awareness while you work on a longer-term strategy of being found. To repeat, you do not want to do both at the same time to keep yourself sane, gain momentum and setup your site for long term success.
How to get to your first site traffic with short term wins
Once you have your website established with your initial domain, hosting and overall website theme, the first thing you need to do is add some content to give your traffic something to read and understand the value you are trying to bring with your blog. Typically getting started with about ten to fifteen pieces of well written, quality content is enough to start the process. If you try to get found before you have content there is no limited returns as any traffic has nothing to do there to understand what it is your blog represents. Here is a list of quick actions you can take to get your first site traffic to your blog once you have setup your initial content.
- Share on social media. Social media platforms such as twitter or facebook are great ways to get same day results and traffic to your blog. They maintain a large audience who are looking for new content to read and allows you to share your link to your blog to redirect their traffic to your blog for an initial audience. When you take this approach, be sure you tag your posts on the social sites correctly to get the largest audience.
- Email everyone. If you have started a blog and want readers, start with who you know and let everyone know about your blog and content. This will give you some traffic and awareness but also give you an audience you know and hopefully trust to give you feedback about your site and content. Reach out to them and hear their thoughts on what they liked or what could be improved.
- Paid Ads. While ranking on search engines and being found organically can take time, using paid ads get you some traffic but with a cost. To see if paid ads make sense for you to use to get to your first site traffic you need to do the easy math. If you think you will make X amount of money from affiliate marketing or an ad banner on your site and you need to pay Google X amount of money to get the click through from the search you need to determine if you are losing money on the transaction.
- Be active in your niche online community. There are many existing online communities around your niche topic that exists with active readers. Ensure you join those and participate. Be sure to update your signature or about you section of your profile to include a link to your blog. Try to engage those readers who are passionate about the topic and see if they would be willing to give you feedback about your blog.
As you can see the best way to get to your first site traffic is much more active than passive. If you want immediate traffic, you need to earn it by doing immediate and active engagement with online traffic to try and get that traffic to find your blog and read it. This is the best way to get started as it will build you momentum to see your traffic increase while you build out a longer-term strategy of more passive traffic by allowing the search engines to do the work for you to bring in readers.
If you are like me, I need small wins to stay motivated. If traffic does not exist or grows very slowly, I start to get frustrated and without a win in sight, I can lose interest. By doing these quick hits, you will get traffic and engagement which will keep you going to work on your long-term strategy and keep blogging fun.
