I’ve recently been active on Quora. One of the things I often get asked to answer is about growing their website traffic. Or more specifically, how long does it take to do so.
The answer, as always, is it depends.
- It depends on your industry and niche
- It depends if you’re writing with SEO in mind
- It depends on the quality of your content
- It depends on how much effort you put into distribution
- It also depends on your purpose
- It depends, largely, on what you define as a lot of traffic
It depends on a lot of things.
Beginning: Excitement
I started this site back in 2014.
At that time, I thought having a website was really cool. I have a lot of things I want to say (or write), so, I decided to get a domain, a web host, and install WordPress.
I was pretty active during the beginning so you’d see a bump at the beginning. I published several posts about what I’m interested in at that time: digital marketing and management.
That bump isn’t big. If I was monetizing my website with ads, then that wouldn’t sustain me at all. I’ll probably earn less than $1 a month during that time and with that level of traffic.
In fact, this just proves the fact that there were little competition even just 5 years ago. I didn’t bother with keyword research nor building links. By simply publishing blog posts and not even think about SEO, you’ll get traffic to your website.
Remember, I started this as a way of sharing what’s on my mind. I didn’t care about how ranking on search engines then. Plus, I was working in corporate. This was just a side project.
Middle: A Lot of Excuses
But work and life happened, so I focused on other things and neglected my website for a long time.
I published a new post every now and then. Take a look at the number of posts I published per year over the last 7 years.
It’s no wonder that I didn’t see much growth in the early days.
I was busy making excuses.
- I was working in a corporate, steady job until 2016
- Then, I focused on my clients’ businesses
- I got married
All these excuses prevented me from growing my own business.
Now: Growth
So, I made a decision to change.
I didn’t take much action about this for a few months, but during that time, I was actively thinking about what I want to accomplish.
During the 2019 Christmas break, I made changes to this website:
- Switched to the Genesis Framework
- Redesigned the entire site
- Properly organized my content
- Planned for my first writing sprint
After that sprint, I was happy. I’ve never done anything like that. I enjoyed some quick wins there as well.
But after a few months, that’s when the results start to kick in.
Of course, this isn’t attributed to a single thing I did; rather, it’s a combination of everything.
The point is that I put in the work and got rewarded for it. So, if you are planning on doing something, don’t spend all your time planning. Rather, focus more on implantation.
Results only happen on the outside.
