Reader Ari asks a question about niche sites and when to give up on them – and when to expect more from your SEO. You can read it below:
Hi Jamie,
I have a new question:
The bulk of my sites (5) and articles (150) are on sites that are 3-5 months old — and they’re barely getting any Google traffic. How big of a difference (for organic visits) does it make when they age a bit more and get past that 6 month barrier? I’m worrying that all the work might have been for nothing.
To end on a positive note: I broke the $100 total earnings barrier last month. (one visitor from FB bought a $900 product from Amazon — so it’s not really search related). But at least the copywriting part seem to be working!
Regards, Ari
Good question – and great job on the earnings. Also, fantastic job on selling a $900 product. That’s no easy feat and – like you say – shows that you’ve got some copywriting skills.
Let’s address the question: What to do if you’ve not got any SEO traffic?
Writing: You Never Lose The Game
So Ari is wondering whether or not the six month mark will mean his site gains traction. Unfortunately, it’s not a magic switch where you suddenly start getting hundreds of views.
Age is an SEO factor for sure. It’s only one of over a hundred alleged factors though.
Now, your site could gain traction after a few months, but if you’re not making changes, then it’s unlikely that that’ll make any significant difference.
So is it game over?
No. Or, at least only very rarely.
In this article, I’ll give you all a couple of steps to follow. The big mistake people make is thinking that websites and blog articles are fixed things. In reality, you should think of your sites as a working, editable document. That’s the gist of this article.
First Suggestion: Keep Writing
If you write a thirty-article website and then leave it, it’s possible that your articles will rank and you can leave that site to sit passive.
However, it’s almost always better to keep updating your site with fresh new content. Google loves that – because it assumes that new information is good information.
Here’s what you should do if your website is not performing to expectations: Keep writing new content that targets related keywords and interlink between those new articles and your money articles.
Here’s what you should do if your website is performing to expectations: Find little bits of news that are relevant to your niche and stick them in a “news” section. This can be anything really, but if you want to concentrate on conversion stuff then keep tabs on the products that you’re an affiliate for. You can create new articles based on their sales, updates and upgrades.
Second Suggestion: Work On SEO Stuff
Just because you’ve finished your article, doesn’t mean it’s a “sink or swim” affair.
If you consistently write articles, do your keyword research and do all the SEO stuff right, then you should notice that your articles start to rank in Google. Rank in the search engines leads to traffic which leads to readers and finally sales.
If you aren’t getting any traffic, you need to determine whether you’re ranking for the right keywords. If you aren’t ranking for the right keywords, then edit your article so that you will. Include more keywords, change your picture captions and those sorts of things. You can do this if your articles are ranking too to push them up the results.
If you are ranking well for search terms but nobody is clicking through, then change your meta-description to be more welcoming. (I.e. Give your meta-description a call to action.)
Aside from that, there are over a hundred ranking factors. Some of them are outside your control to an extent; site speed is tricky, but you can optimise it a little. Other things are more in your control.
You can always add more pictures, embed product videos and write more content targeting either the same keyword more times or related keywords. Make sure you have Google Analytics installed and then do some tracking to see if your keywords are going up: Both in the amount that you rank for and how each keyword performs.
Finally search out an article that goes into detail about the ranking factors. Concentrate on one at a time and see how you can improve your articles and site.
Third Suggestion: Put It Out There Directly
Search engines are a big thing, and in terms of niche sites they’re likely where you’ll get most of your traffic.
However they’re not the only game in town. Ari just landed a $100 commission on a $900 product… From Facebook. Facebook, which people say, “The problem with Facebook is that people are looking to spy on their friends and not buy stuff!”
Start sharing your articles to websites. It’s not so much SEO because you’re not doing it for backlinking, but it’ll help. Share to Reddit, Facebook, Twitter.
If people like your content, they’ll come back. They’ll spend time on your site and click your links. Your site will appear relevant to the search engines. Everyone will love you.
Your goal with the niche site is to have people read, click and buy. But you don’t have to do just that.
As with any copywriting and online problem solving – if you believe in what you’re writing, it’s your job to share it with people who need your help.
So share and share away, and if it helps your SEO, then great. If it doesn’t, you still come out ahead.
If You Can’t Do Anything Else…
Sometimes you hit a dud niche. No matter what you do, you’ll have trouble getting traffic, getting customers and the like. It happens with niche sites and it happens in big business. Sometimes campaigns don’t go the way you want them.
Look at New Coke or Google Fiber… difficulties upon unexpected difficulties.
The great thing with writing, like I said above, is that your articles and content can be repurposed. Let’s say you have a niche site with 30 articles and only two are good.
What makes those two draw traffic and should you switch the focus of your site?
If you write fifty articles and none draw traffic, then you’ve probably done something wrong- which I addressed in the SEO section. If you’ve done everything right and there’s still no traffic, then you might be tired of the uphill struggle.
Instead of simply giving up, repurpose the content into books that you throw on Amazon, (If you’ve written how-to stuff) and cannibalise the best bits of copy into new articles.
But you probably haven’t failed. You just haven’t cracked the code yet.