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TRAFFIC.
The most frightening word in online industry.
Starting a blog takes only 3 minutes (I actually set the timer to calculate the time), and writing an article takes another 1-2 hours (if you are writing an average article).
We feel awesome after setting the blog and publishing our first article.
Then we sit calm (putting hands on each other) and wait for the traffic.
We feel that we have written best article in the world, and people are going to love it.
That confidence is speechless, because we have made our first article live, and we are looking forward to solve the problems in the world.
Refreshing… Refreshing… Refreshing…
We are refreshing our Google analytics to see the spike of traffic.
We are waiting for some enthusiastic people to read our masterpiece article.
Is it picking?
ohhhhh it's not.
“That's my first article, so I am not going to get any traffic”, we say this to ourself and then move to next article.
Now the second article is also live.
Another masterpiece.
But again, Google Analytics is not showing anything.
hmmmmmmmmm..
Let's write few more articles.
We spend many days to write 20 spectacular blog posts and the Google analytics is still showing only 10-15 visits a day.
What's wrong here?
I think this is the story of every new blogger.
They start their blog thinking that it's easy to get traffic.
They are inspired by the income screenshots, traffic screenshots, and the lifestyle of a blogger.
Everyone is running for traffic.
They all want HUGE traffic, but no one is willing to actually learn the art to drive traffic.
If driving traffic on any blog was so easy, everyone would become a blogger in this world and start making money from home.
Think about it.
Blogging is no less than a real business.
It's almost equal to opening to store in your city and getting the clients to buy the products.
Look around.
How many shopkeepers in your city are successful?
Are all driving equal sales? or are there some best shops which are always getting clients?
and interestingly, ask them how much did they invest to open that shop?
Is it in hundreds, thousands, lakhs, or in millions?
They invested the money to start a business. They learnt how to run a business and get clients.
and here, we are thinking that it's much easier to drive traffic on the blog because we are online.
I would rephrase my statement.
If driving traffic on any blog was so easy, everyone would become a blogger in this world and start making money from home.
Now let's come to the point.
Let's search “Start a blog” on Google.
Very high competitive keyword, and they are ranking at top of Google.
Once I opened this blog, and tried to find how old this blog is and how many backlinks do they have, I found this.
Around 10,000 backlinks.
And when did they start this blog?
2009.
They secured this position in Google after continuously working for 11 years.
and here you are worried about your 8 months old blog.
and you can find such countless blogs which are online from the last 5-10 years.
They are continuously producing the new content, ranking them in Google, and ultimately making money.
Let's find the reasons why you aren't getting traffic.
#1. You Are Looking for the Shortcuts
I hate it when people ping me at Facebook and ask, “Sir I am not getting traffic on my blog, is there any shortcut?”
Stop doing this.
Driving traffic on any blog is an art.
It takes countless sleepless nights, a lot of reading, understanding and dedication to master the skills to drive traffic.
Shortcuts are the biggest dream killers.
You drain your energy while hunting for the shortcuts. You underestimate your power, because all you want is quick success.
There is no shortcut.
I strongly recommend to understand the basic first. Spend your time to analyze the big blogging players in the industry. See what type of content they are writing, what type of promotion they are doing, how much efforts they are putting to stand out in the crowd.
#2. Your Writing Style Sucks
Please don't mind it.
Even I used to write Shit when I started my blogging career in 2011.
Once I started reading some awesome blogs in the industry, I found that they all had an awesome tone. They were writing articles in such an awesome style that I used to feel completely lost in the articles while reading.
They were hitting my subconscious mind with their words.
Being a blogger, your biggest duty is to solve the problems of your readers.
and we do this with our words.
Focus on improving your writing skills.
This would be the biggest skill you would ever have to become a good blogger.
#3. You Don't Think It's a Business
Blogging is a pure business.
A white hat business where you make the money with your words.
Until and unless you consider this as a business, you cannot drive traffic on your blog.
Start investing in your business. Buy a professional logo, a well-designed WordPress theme, awesome stock images to make your articles awesome, and try to make it more professional.
#4. You Don't know What SEO is
SEO aka Search Engine Optimization.
If your articles are not SEO optimized, don't expect any traffic from Google.
Google's algorithms find SEO optimized articles, they calculate the authority of the articles (by understanding backlinks, link juice etc.) and finally they give you ranking.
If you are not doing SEO, you are already out from the Google's ranking algorithm.
Start investing your time to understand SEO.
Technically there are 3 types of SEO techniques.
- Black Hat SEO
- White Hat SEO
- Gray Hat SEO
I strongly recommend to go for white-hat SEO if you are looking for long term results.
#5. Information Overload
I hate this the most.
Being online, we stumble across many things on the internet.
People upload their MaxBounty screenshots, AdSense earning, traffic screenshots, YouTube earning and many other shining distractions.
We stop doing what we are doing and start digging for that method to make money.
After trying for 2-3 weeks, we don't see any success and then we jump to next shining object.
Information overload kills your productivity.
If you have started a blog, focus on it.
Read many case studies about getting traffic on your blog. Read other good blogs to find out the ways to promote your blog.
Don't get overloaded with the online information.
#6. You are Trying Old-School Methods
Blog commenting, directories submission, article submissions are one of them.
You can strengthen your relation with the blog author by repetitive comments on his blog, but comments are not going to give you any traffic.
Directories submission and article submission are the dead methods.
No one reads directories and article submission sites these days, because the content on such sites is totally crap.
There are many tools in the market which auto generate the content and submit them on such websites, which are totally crap articles.
Ultimate Demon is one such tools which many link building guys are using to spam the internet.
Stop looking for the old-school methods and start doing some creative work.
Running a giveaway can be a good way to drive the traffic, doing roundup post on your blog is another good method to get traffic.
Keep trying for new methods and say bye bye to all old methods.
#7. You Are Not Building an Email List on Your Blog
Selling to old customers is much easier than acquiring new customers.
And this same phrase is also applicable for blogging industry.
Getting recurring visitors is easier than attracting new people on your blog.
Email marketing is the best solution for this.
If you are not building email list on your blog right now, you are losing your potential customers.
Customers which can help you make thousands of dollars.
let's make it easier.
If you are reading this blog post after receiving my email in your inbox, you can understand why am I saying this.
With just a single click, I sent this article in your inbox and you are here reading this blog post.
What is the ultimate thing I achieved here?
TRAFFIC.
Yeah, TRAFFIC.
I got thousands of people reading this blog post just with an email.
I cannot stress this more here because I have written a separate article on Why Should You Start Building Email List Today?
Start it right now and thank me later after few months. 🙂
#8. You Aren't Sharing Your Blog on Social Media
Social media brings huge traffic, if you use it in a right way.
An awesome title of your blog post can attract people to visit your blog.
But before proceeding further, let me share some tips:
- Have attractive social media share button on your blog. I am doing this with plugin Ultimate Social Deux.
- Make attractive image for your blog posts to get people click on them. I make most of my images with Photoshop and few of them using DesignBold.
- Share your content on social media on peak time. In India, the peak time is in between 9:00 PM-11:00 PM.
- Activate twitter card for your blog posts and show your article's featured image in twitter as well.
- Join some good Facebook groups and start sharing your content there.
I have driven a lot of traffic on my niche blogs with right angle and by sharing at the right time.
#9. You are Afraid of Guest Blogging
We are afraid of rejections.
We feel that most of the bloggers will say NO if we pitch them to submit a guest blog post on their blog.
With this fear of rejection, we never pitch other bloggers.
But here is the universal formula.
For every 100 people you pitch, you get 5-10 YES.
So the question is – Are you pitching 100 people for submitting your blog posts?
I can see your face right now…. because the answer is NO.
#10. You Are a Newbie
Believe it or not, it will take few months before you start getting some traffic on your blog.
My biggest money making blogs still get 3000-5000 visits a day. As they are highly optimized around the buyer intent, so I make money with even low traffic blogs now.
I made my first dollar after 7 months.
Being a newbie, it's very difficult to drive traffic when you don't actually know the basic fundamentals.
Here are some crucial aspects
- Your post title plays a big role to get the traffic when you share them on social media
- Your blog design should look professional to attract recurring visitors (we visit the blogs again when we find them professional and neat).
- Write in-depth article to deliver the value. Gone are the days when people used to read “7 tips to boost Alexa rank.” Write something valuable from your own experience.
- Spend time to improve your writing skills.
- Invest. Invest. Invest.
Final Words
I cannot stress more on this topic because you already know where you are lacking.
You know what right (or wrong) you are doing.
If you seriously want to become a good blogger, get the traffic on your blog, and ultimately make some money with your blog, ask yourself above 10 questions.
See where you are lacking and where can you put more efforts to drive quality traffic on your blog.
Traffic is the outcome of your efforts.
The more efforts you put the promote your blog, more traffic you are going to attract.
If you have any suggestions which can help newbies to get traffic on their blogs, feel free to share them in the comment section.
Now Your Turn!!
Share this article with your best buddies to help them understand the reality of getting traffic on their blogs.
Once they know these bitter truths, they can start putting more efforts to make their blog successful.
I am finishing this article by saying All the Best to you.
Hello Kulwant Sir 🙂
I wanted to thank you a lot more for the amazing website you have made here. Great Post, very informative and Educating 🙂
Google alerts and viral content buzz are great ways to get traffic in few time. But it’s also important to have useful and interactive visits.
I join different plateform for seo include quora, yahoo, and some other big website please tell me what is best for me more?
I am just beginner in the field of blogging. Please Guide me, what I should do to get traffic and increase keywords ranking on google. My website is BlogDada [dot] com, This is 7 Year Old Domain and DA – 43. I need a little favor from you, please help Sir 🙂
Thanks for valuable information Getting Traffic.
Happy Blogging 🙂
Thanks for visiting again, Pavitra.
Yeah Google alerts are one of the best way to get yourself updated about the articles in your niche. You can analyze those blog posts and see what type of content they are writing.
Quora is no doubt a crazy platform to know more about your industry and get awesome ideas.
Answer of your question – read this article again. 🙂
Thanks again for being here.
Hi Kulwant bro,
Very nice tips that can help any newbie or even experienced ones struggling with traffic. Not guest posting and not optimizing the blog for on page SEO is the number one mistakes most do.
Yes traffic and money does take time to come so if someone is hoping to get traffic from day one, I think it would be tough unless you already have an audience por the amount of money to leverage paid ads.
Nice tips.
-Swadhin
Guest posting is a killer weapon to build the authority and get quality backlinks. I have seen many cases where bloggers got huge success when they started doing guest blogging.
Traffic comes with efforts. The one who is ready to put the efforts, get the traffic. 🙂
This is really AWESOME article and I would say everyone who don’t get proper traffic on their blog must read this article. This article surely will give your pain point. 🙂
Another thing I would say that “Strong network plays big role in every business” so we try to build strong network with our industry players.
@kulwant nagi, Would you share some tips for building strong network with industry players?
I wrote this article keeping newbies in my mind. Hope it will help many of them.
Thanks for your comment. 🙂
Hi Kulwant
I think writing the long blog post is also important for beginners. Now making longer post does not mean write more words it “put more knowledge” [my mistake]
Knowledge sells. 🙂
Hey Kulwant,
Again a nice article. You are always straight forward and I never see any sugar coating in your articles. You are absolutely right that a newbie always thinks that he/she start making money in just 3 to 4 months. But the reality is that blogging required determination, hard work and patience.
Thanks for always showing the reality 🙂
Thanks for such an awesome words man. You made my day. 🙂
Blogging is easy when you do it with the proper mindset and planning. Once you know your audience and your goals, you can easily get the traffic. 🙂
Respected Kulwant Sir, Good evening. Sir, I am your big fan. I read your blogpost every day. this is also an epic post. you have described each and every thing very well to drive traffic. Sir, one thing I expect from you should share your monthly and yearly traffic and income status like harsh agarwal because, I think that you are fastest growing blogger in India and also you are very transparent. I read your blog posts per day. some time I read your blog post like that this is my online course to learn blogging related stuffs.
Thanks a lot, Prakash.
I will share stats on my other blog very soon.
Nice post sir, I read your story so far. You are Real content guider. Thanks for the one more step to be motivated. I am taking help from Yoast news and reliablesoft on my blog. My blog is just one month old.
This is absolutely amazing. Especially the first one. What I hear most is, “Why is my website not ranking on Google”
I usually have to start explaining that the website is new and is still in Google’s “sandbox” etc.
I am definitely going to start referring people to this article when they start wondering why their blog is not bringing them money even though their domain name is not even two months old.
Thanks for this 🙂
Damola.
Thanks a lot for visiting my blog and showing so much love. 🙂
Hi Kulwant,
This is yet another wonderful article from your side. You have very rightly mentioned, making money with blogging is not an easy job like it seems at the beginning. The more you go inside the stuff, you come to know lot many things that needs to be done to achieve the top position in terms ranking and success. But once you decide to work with good dedication and efforts to out rank things, success definitely come to you.
It’s all about putting efforts every single day and becoming good at things one by one.
Is there any detailed post regarding 3 types of SEO techniques???
a. Black Hat SEO
b. White Hat SEO
c. Gray Hat SEO
Google is your best friend. 🙂
but sir, we want articles from your own written which should be based on your own personal experience
Then I’ll publish it soon. 🙂
Sir, which kind of Off page SEO do you do for driving traffic on your website? Do you really don’t do blog commenting, article submission and directory submission? If not, then what type of off page activities do you do for better ranking of a blog post.
May I know what is monthly unique visits blogging cage gets? and how much percentage of them comes from search engine only?
Describe about Black hat, white hat, and Gray Hat SEO
Hi Prakash. No, I don’t do commenting, directory submission, or article submission kind of stuff for my blog.
Sorry, I cannot reveal the figures.
Hey Kulwant,
So you are back with really informative content. I have also gone through this type of things. But finally I got that doing work by our own is best key to learn things. I think newbie should stop asking to others unless he has given 100% to find solution.
By doing this they will first learn how to use google and use other tools for seo. That can make change.
Hello sir,
Very informative article, especially for the newbies. I also used to do these common mistakes when started.
It’s good you pointed out every major point which every newbie should follow.
Thanks for such a huge information.
thanx sir, for sharing such a valuable post for a newbie.Being a newbie this post is wonderful because very simple daily language which can easily understand.
my question from you is;-
I am working on facts niche but I don’t get how to save myself from copying because I don’t create facts.I am helpless to copy from others.So, help me to find out the solution.
Can providing backlink to source doesn’t harm my website after copying
Sorry, I don’t know how these copied stuff sites work.
Hi kulwant,
Perfect piece of content …. keep sharing blogs like this… Good luck …
Thanks a lot. Such posts will keep coming. 🙂
Thank you for all your help this past year.
I have taken my site from 55K in 2015 to over 100K in 2016.
Considering the bulk of my content is Movies and Sports, there is a ton of competition, so I can live with doubling. Would like to do better, but again, it’s like opening up a clothing store next to a Target across the street from Walmart.
Of course, I do get tired of the content is king, when I have 2 great writers (I’m a poor third on my own site) and neither really skyrocket the traffic, but bottom-feeder crud on certain sites get 200x the traffic.
Oh Well, hoping for 250K this year (and profit)
Cool. Best wishes for big numbers. Cheers!!
Hey Kulwant,
Excellent article! I learned many new techniques and will now use Google Alerts to get Traffic on my Blogs!
Thanks a lot and keep Sharing knowledge 🙂
Keep visiting. 🙂
Competition is a big thing and beating one competitor isn’t easy. It will only grow bigger in coming days.
No one can grow with this mindset. 🙂
One more thing about guest posting is “Why people afraid of guest posting?”
* They don’t no how to start with
* Fear of Rejection
* Guest posting sites wants money for guest post (Fear of money loss)
* Don’t know how to find sites for guest posting
-and more like this …..
Yeah, all points are true.
Hi Sir Kulwant Nagi…
Glad to read this important post.. After reading this post, I think I must improve my writing style lol… Thanks a lot sir
Do it. 🙂
Hey Kulwant,
Now-a-days, due to high competition almost every newbie blogger and some experienced one get overwhelmed when it comes to topic traffic to website but we know very well it need patience and time for smart buildup. Writing is very rewarding, but sometimes our work doesn’t meet our expectations. We’re always seeking perfection, and we can be so hard on ourselves.
Blogger outreach is mainly we need to considered about building relationships in blogosphere for genius consequences. This is still useful if we provide really good content. People will link to great content and they want to know about it But our success really depends on our approach. Content strategy should seek to produce and distribute content that is consistently shared by our audience, but that also can be shared easily. Eventually, thanks for sharing your valuable tips with us.
With best regards,
Amar kumar
Hello Sir,
I read your article and it is really informative. After reading the article I am able to understand the problem which I am facing in blogging. I learned from your article that it requires special skills to write a blog in good words so that it can attract traffic. Blogging is such a difficult task if you don’t have a good vocabulary. As a beginner in blogging, i got to know so much from your article. Thanks a lot, Sir.
Kulwant,
Thanks for this amazing, In-depth and simple explanation of understanding one of the most critical problems every blogger faces. Traffic. I have been blogging for a bit, and I have been having issues in clearly understanding what exactly needs to be done to overcome this classic problem. Thankfully, I found your post! and I can’t thank you enough for this comprehensive outlook about how to tackle this problem.
I am bookmarking your blog! and coming back for more!
Thank you!
Raghu
Nice article bro
i crossed all that things
i face above all the problems but after banned of google adsense
I really improve my skill to get traffic for my blog
thanks Mr. kulwant bro to encouraging us.
Hello Kulwant Sir,
You Blog writing is the exact match up with my thinking…..Really awesome. I started by blog at 15 Aug 16 after taking some tips from you. I learn lots of things from you. But my website traffic is slowly moving, Now after reading this blog I understand where I was wrong.
You are great!
Thank you so much for giving answers of my questions.
Great and very informative post. Getting traffic to the blog is very important job to make your blog established. Well to drive traffic a blog owner must have quality and engaging content on his/her blog. This is the major issue among new comers. I hope this article will help them a lot.
Quality always wins. 🙂
Hi Kulwant,
You nailed it..!
Blogging need 2P, first passion & second patience.
Yeah, It’s difficult to drive traffic for NEW blog by search engine but once we understand the power of social media we can drive good amount of traffic from very first day.
Google love old domain domains, if we will buy old domains and by write long, unique content on less competitive keywords we can rank in soon.
Nice suggestions.
Hi Kulwant,
Nice write-up.
TRAFFIC is the buzz word.
Whenever someone starts a blog, the expectations of receiving organic traffic are very high; but it doesn’t happen soon. And because of this many newbie bloggers get disheartened and they stop investing in their respective blogs.
I believe whatever the initial response one gets, one should keep their focus intact and keep learning and building their blog.
If they are working hard and doing all the right things, the traffic will come sooner or later. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers!
Gaurav
Very well said, Gaurav.
Focus and vision are the keys. One should have confidence to build a big blog to make the things easier.
Guest Post is the best way to get high quality backlinks but getting traffic is a tragedy one. By looking at your tips i hope it will help to get traffic. Thanks for sharing this useful post. Keep on updating.
Good luck. 🙂
Hello,
Well this post seems like an eye opener for most of the bloggers who are struggling to get search traffic. You have shared all the mistakes which bloggers usually make.
Thanks
Thanks for the feedback. 🙂
hello sir , thanks for writing why the new bloggers getting traffic. now i will work on these problems and increase the traffic of my blog. thanks for sharing
Best wishes. 🙂
Kulwant,
Great post mate. You pretty much covered all the aspects one can go wrong on. I am sure most of us don’t think about these as factors which can hamper continued traffic to the site. Thanks for the information!
Cheers..
Hope many newbies will know these things now. 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing this post sir
But I have a question that
Is there any way by which we can check our website’s health?
Thanks again for this post
Check the tool “Website Auditor” in this article – https://www.saasultra.com/seo-powersuite-review/
Awesome one mate. Thanks for sharing. You have outlined it well. I am sure this will help a lot.
Hi,
I read your it’s very cool because the content you have it is very nice. Now, come to the point. I want to start a blog from scratch but I’m stuck with lack of knowledge.
A)How to select a niche?
B) I’m not sure about my English written skills and it’s good or not.
C)I too want to earn money and I don’t wanna take any shortcut.
Share your thoughts please?
Regards
Sumit
Hi Sumit,
Here are the replies.
1. Read this – https://www.saasultra.com/perfect-niche-for-blogging/
2. Keep learning from good bloggers, soon you’ll succeed. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by.
I am also a new blogger
This is my first blog post which I read without blinking.
I understood that what mistake i am doing .
Thanks for this post
Really nice tips, Kulwant.
Even when a blogger puts the right efforts and publishes numerous killer blog posts, it will (yes, it will, not it might) take time to make money.
I think it will take at least a complete year for a blogger to see the fruits of his hard work in terms of both traffic and monetary benefits.
A new blogger should also know where to look for information.
He must only follow credible blogging sources, as in current scenario many pseudo bloggers are popping up on YouTube who promise that the real essence of blogging lies in doing event blogging, copy pasting shayaris, etc.
Hi Kulwant,
Nice article as always 🙂
My takeaway is “There is no Shortcut to Success!”
Thank you for sharing this amazing post on your website.
I will be following the steps one after the other and I believe it will help me drive more traffic to my website.
Regards
Segun Wonda