I Have a New Website with No Traffic! Help!!

So, you’ve just created a new website and now what?  Having the website is a good first step, but now you need to figure out how to get people to your site.  So, how do you do that?

New sites are different from established sites and it’s a lot harder to get traffic to a new site than it is to increase traffic to a site that’s been around for a while.  So, you can’t necessarily follow the same advice someone gives for established websites.  You need strategies specific to new sites.  So, here are some tips for people who have a relatively new site (or one that just hasn’t ever taken off) and are having trouble getting visitors.

8 Tips to Get Traffic to New Websites:

1. Get the word out.  You have friends and family, church members, co-workers, those people on Facebook who you’re not really sure if you ever knew, tell them.  Talk about it and do it more than once.  Don’t become annoying with it, but let them know and remember that most people need to hear it several times.
2. Create valuable content and share it.  You can tell people about your site and they may visit, but if you more than just your Mom to come back and you want them to tell others, you have to make your website something they really like and find valuable.  And make sure you share that content on the social networks as well (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, etc.)Whether it’s interesting, helpful, or funny, give people a reason to WANT to come back and Want to share it with others.
3. Share other people’s content.  You need to create some content yourself, but not all your content needs to be from you.  Pay attention to the content the other people in your niche are creating and, if it’s great, write a little post on your blog about it and share it with your audience, maybe adding a little extra value to it and complementing the person who created it.  That will not only help you to have more content to share and convey value to your audience, but will help you with the next tip on the list…
4. Connect with other people in your niche, especially bloggers.  Today is less about competition and more about cooperation.  Connect with the other people in your niche, comment on their blogs, share their content, have conversations with them.  That will expose you not only to them but also to their audience and they may even start sharing your content with their audience.  Plus, it will also almost always make you better at what you do.
5. Start building an email list.  Blogs are great, but don’t neglect email.  Email is still the best way to stay in touch with people, deliver content, and bring people back to your website.  Just make sure you are providing good value in your emails.
6. Use Facebook ads.  Facebook has great capabilities of targeting very specific people and it’s still relatively cheap.  So, figure out who will make your best visitors and create some ads that specifically target them.  Remember to make the ads eye-catching and your offer valuable.
7. Do an Adwords campaign.  If people are searching for what you are offering and it makes financial sense, create an Adwords campaign to target some decent keywords.  It’s a way to get into Google for whatever keywords you want, instantly.  Just be careful, those budgets have a way of adding up quickly.
8. Don’t forget SEO!  SEO isn’t quick, which is why I recommend Adwords first.  For a new site, you won’t be able to rank for many of the keywords you want right away.  However, you need to start your SEO work now so it has time to build up.  Eventually, if you do things well, you will be able to rank for those really competitive keywords and you won’t have to keep mailing Google a check every month for that traffic.

You may have noticed one thing that just kept coming up in the midst of all those tips…provide value.  If you have an average site that isn’t offering anything remarkable, then you will find it very hard to grow your traffic.  If you aren’t producing content that people really like and want to share, again, it’s going to be hard to grow your traffic.  So, be really good at what you do and offer some valuable stuff on your site…and don’t forget to tell people about it.  If you do that, especially following the tips above, you’ll be able to watch that traffic grow month after month.

What Do You Think?  Leave a Comment Below.

• Do you have a tip for people to grow the traffic to their new site?
• What has your experience with your website been since you created it?  Share your story.