5 Simple Ways to Get Traffic Fast to a New Website

Starting a new niche site is incredibly exciting. However, it can soon get frustrating if you don’t get the results you were hoping for.  It’s happened to me more times than I can count.

Once results are disappointing, you lose motivation and often just quit the site looking for something better that promises faster results.

The fact of the matter is it can take a while to get to 100,000 plus page views per month without other online assets to leverage such as other sites to link to your new site or established social channels or a large email list.

While I like publishing and ranking content that can pull in thousands of search visits per month and/or enjoys nice social media volume, swinging for the fences when starting out is likely going to take you a while to get traffic.

What this article sets out is 4 ways you start getting some traffic to your new site fast.  Mind you, it won’t be millions of visitors, but at least it’s something.

IMPORTANT: The important thing about website traffic is “traffic drives traffic”.  When you get visitors and your site gains a little traction, that’s when things start happening such as:

• People may search later for your site by name which can help SEO (called branded search),
• Other website publishers will find you and may link to you, and/or
• People may share your content which drives more traffic.

Yes, even a little bit of traffic can beget more traffic.

The key is to get that initial burst of traffic to your site so you can grow it from there.

Here are 5 ways you can get some traffic very quickly to a new website

1. Target extremely long tail keywords

By “extremely long tail keywords” I’m talking about targeting phrases that no other website directly targets in their title.

Now this doesn’t guarantee you’ll get ranked immediately or at all because some authority site may rank for it because the phrase is a heading or in the text or the intent of the article covers the phrase topic.

However, if you focus the content on that very specific topic (i.e. long phrase) you increase your chances of ranking fairly quickly.

Even though my niche sites are reasonably well established and have some authority, this is still my main SEO approach.  I’m a prolific publisher publishing several pieces of content each day.  Most pieces target extremely long tail keywords.  That said, I also do target higher search volume keywords too, but remember my sites are established and those pieces of content fit within the related longer tail articles.

An extremely long tail keyword is one that includes several descriptors so that it’s very specific.

Examples include:

• How to Safely Fly a 4-Rotor Drone in a Neighborhood
• Pros and Cons of Carbon Fibre Fly Fishing Rods
• The 5 Main Types of Three-Wheeled Scooters

Do not confuse long tail with short, lousy articles

Just because you’re targeting extremely long tail keywords does not mean you publish a piece of junk.  The article must be outstanding; written as if you’re targeting a competitive keyword.  Put your all into it.

2. Participate on Quora

I use Quora for one niche and while it doesn’t generate loads of traffic, it does deliver some traffic.  The best part is it didn’t take all that long to start getting a trickle of traffic from Quora.  I just answered a couple a questions related to my niche several times per week.

Quora is loved by Google.  I see Quora rank for so many searches that it’s ridiculous.  Quora ranks so well, I recently checked to see if Google owns Quora (they don’t).  This means it’s a great opportunity to get some exposure for your website.  Here’s what you do.

You can put your website name in your profile credentials.  For Fat Stacks it would “Found of fatstacksblog.com”.  This credential shows up under your name for every answer you give.  No, it’s not a hyperlink, but it does get your website’s name viewed a lot, which in its own way offers potential for branded searches, which apparently can help with site SEO.

Branded searches are when people search in Google with your website name as the search term or part of the search term.

Here’s a screenshot of the past 3 months of Quora activity:

 

You can also occasionally link to a super helpful, non-promotional article on your website.  Caution: do not overdo it when linking to your site.  Do so very rarely and be sure frequently link out to many other sites.

As an aside, Quora can help you come up with extremely long tail keywords to go after.  After all, questions are keywords too and often long tail at that.

3. YouTube

It’s ridiculously easy to get fast exposure for a niche site on YouTube.

Here’s a screenshot of a YouTube channel I started for a brand new niche site in 2017:

The above channel only has 13 videos.  I have not added a video for 2 months.  In fact, I’ve done very little with this niche site because I’ve been too busy (but do have every intention of continuing with this niche site in the long run).  Those 13 videos took me about 22 hours to create.  While the ad revenue is a joke, the website exposure and resulting traffic isn’t bad.  Not life-changing, but an easy way to get the traffic ball rolling.

Had I continued adding a few videos every week, those numbers would be double, triple or even quadruple what they are.

For each video I put links to my site in the description and use YouTube Video cards to also drive traffic to my niche site.

The thing with YouTube is you can views to video almost instantly.  I’m talking hundreds of views within 48 hours.

The other thing is my videos are not professional.  I made them with my iPhone.  On average they take about 1 to 2 hours to produce.  If I paid for some solid editing and voice-overs, I’m sure my numbers would be much better.  I may do that down the road, but my approach with every niche site is to get it earning first and then add reinvest those proceeds to make it better.  This prudent approach helps me avoid throwing away lots of money in case the site is a dud.  This site, however, is not a dud; it has great potential as indicated by the fast success on YouTube.

What type of videos?

• Product reviews: There are products for sale in almost every niche.  Just buy a few of the products in the niche and do a video review.  This will also provide great content for an on-site review.  This is the type of videos I made for my new niche.  I just bought a few of the products in the niche and did demo videos and reviewed the product.  It’s super easy (and I’m pretty bad at these).
• List videos: List videos can garner millions of views.  I don’t do these yet, but
• Slideshow videos:  I use these in another niche and have 1.8 million views.  You can make these slideshows with Facebook’s slideshow video tool and then download the video into an MP4 from Facebook.  Alternatively you can use software such as Animoto.
• How-to videos:  These are more involved, but a quality how-to video can become super popular for months or years.

Check out the best-performing videos in your niche and make similar types of videos.

4. Guest Post on Huge Traffic Websites

You need to bring your A-game if you want to get published on top-tier websites.  However, if you craft the right article and it’s awesome, there’s no reason you can’t get it published on some A-list sites with big time traffic.

I’m not suggesting you do this for the backlink, although that’s a bonus.

I’m suggesting you get your article published on a website that will actually drive traffic to your website.

A great way to get people to click to your site from a guest post is to include a link to a super engaging article on your site.  You could write a byline as follows:

Joe Pilot is a drone junky with his own fleet of 6 drones.  He’s particularly known for his insanely popular article “15 spectacular drone crashes (videos)”.

You would link “15 spectacular drone crashes (videos)” to that specific article.

Keep in mind you will want a highly engaging article on your site to which you can link to from your guest posts.

5. Facebook ads

The above 4 “fast traffic” methods are free.  This is a paid option, but can be a great way to grease the traffic wheels without spending too much.

Again, you will want to publish a highly engaging article.  Make it awesome.

Then create a Facebook ad promoting that article.  Set your budget to $5 per day.  Assuming you can get clicks on average for $.15, that means for $5 per day you’ll get 33 visitors per day.  That’s not tons, but it gets the process going.  Over the course of a month, that’s 990 visitors which is not bad for $150.

You’ll probably recoup some of that cost with on-site ads, but consider it an investment into growing your website.  It’s not an expense you need to maintain forever or for every article.  Be selective about which articles you buy traffic to and once it starts ranking, you can turn the ad off.

Please note that buying Facebook traffic offers no guarantees of ranking success or revenue.  It’s just a low cost way to start getting some traffic to your site.

Be sure to leverage your hard-won traffic

After you’ve worked hard to get the starting spurt of traffic, you need to make sure your site is set up to leverage that traffic.

Read my article “How to funnel traffic to cornerstone content“.

It’s definitely (and Unfortunately) a hustle

Even though you can get traffic within 30 days using the above methods, I realize it’s still a hustle.  It’s a lot of work answer questions thoroughly on Quora, creating videos, finding awesome long tail keywords, writing epic content and getting some decent Facebook ads going.  I know because I’ve done it all and continue doing it.

But it’s worth it.

This type of hustle not only helps you get traffic going, but it’s also a decent way to find out if your chosen niche has sufficient interest or whether you have the ability to serve the niche.  If no matter what you do doesn’t generate any results, either the niche isn’t great or perhaps you’re not a great fit for the niche.

But if even one of the above works, that’s some decent validation to keep going.