How to Get Traffic to Your Blog When You Have Absolutely No Audience

Welcome to my first traffic report!

Every month I’m posting a traffic report summarizing my progress.

I’ll also show you what traffic strategies I use during the month that make the difference in the amount of traffic and the number of opt-ins this blog accumulates.

February 2016 Traffic Report

The blog was launched on February 11th with one landing page.

The numbers below include February 11th through the 29th:

In Google Analytics, “Users” means unique visitors

“Session” means visits.

So we had a total of 626 unique visitors in February.

Average session duration is 2.45 minutes.

And the bounce rate is 55.62%

As a rule of thumb for a full functional site, a bounce rate in the range of 20% to 40% is excellent; 40% to 60% is average.

We have 55.62% with just one page.

And and I’m happy with that because for the entire month of February, I only had 1 landing page on this blog.

On the landing page I have a 300+ word article announcing my plan to grow this blog to a 10K-visitors/month blog.

And I invite people to join me on my journey by opting in.

That’s it.

It shows people did spend time reading my landing page content (length of session average of more than 2 minutes).

That’s another reason why I had high opt-in rate to my lead capture form on the page. More on this later.

Now, let’s see where our traffic is coming from…

Warrior Forum Traffic

As you can see from the numbers above, the Warrior Forum drove most of the traffic to Growth Text.

It was from one epic article I posted on the Forum which gone viral.

It’s a detailed case study in which I show people how I built 10K fans to a new fan page that I created – a 1000+ words article with actionable step-by-step guide.

This one post alone contributes to the biggest part of my traffic in February.

As of today, the post has been viewed more than 10,000 times and still keeps sending me traffic and subscribers (through my link in my forum signature)

How to get traffic to your blog?

If you’re starting a new blog, you want to leverage a platform to get the first influx of traffic.

Great platforms can be popular online forums, Facebook groups, Medium.com

Share great content, and then get your readers to your new blog.

How I Acquired Direct Traffic

#1 I used an email signature

How to get traffic to your blog when you’re starting out?

Use email signature.

When I launched Growth Text, I created an email signature that contains a link back to my site.

As you can see below, the signature links to Growth Text with a call to action.

Like this:

If you are new to email signatures, it is a bit of text that’s automatically added at the end of email messages you send.

You can set this up in your email account. The feature is usually found in Settings.

Every time I write to someone they see a link to my blog right below my email message.

I have inquiries to my web design service almost every day,

And as I communicate with clients and co-workers on site projects, they are seeing that email signature too. Click!

#2 I reached out to people I have contact with

When I launched Growth Text, I sent out some personal emails.

I wrote to some of my customers and to people who talked to me about design projects in the past few months but haven’t placed their orders yet.

I invited them to sign up to my list.

This is an email template I sent out:

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Hey Phil,

Hope you are well.

I hate Google’s crazy ranking algo, It’s like taking us forever to rank a new blog!

Thus I’ve started a brand new blog and I’ll use this blog as a live case study to drive 10,000 monthly visitors with zero SEO.

I’d like to invite you to join my journey. You may get update on my traffic experiment by opting in here: http://growthtext.com

I’ll mostly share the ups and downs of my 10K-visitors journey (what works, what don’t), a lot will be case studies.

Hate pitch as much as you do, will only share free and high quality content, that’s for sure 😉

cheers!
Verena
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I’ve sent out 200+ emails by hand.

Some signed up.

So my email outreach and Gmail signature link largely contributed to the 167 “direct” visits we had.

How to get traffic to your blog?

When you’re starting out and need traffic and email subscribers, reach out to people, ask them to join your email list.

Just straight up ask them.

Ask your friends.

Ask your co-workers, your customers, your classmates.

Ask your Facebook fans, people you talked to on Whatsapp, random people on Twitter.

Yes, just ask.

You will see your list grow immediately… and boosts your confidence moving forward.

How I used Facebook and social media traffic

This traffic was largely contributed by people recommending Growth Text on social media.

How to get traffic to your blog: Use social media

When people sign up to my list, they receive a welcome email.

In my email, I encourage them to announce my “10K Visitors journey” on their social media network in exchange for a free gift.

Some people were interested, took my offer, and spread the word.

That drove some traffic from the social media.

That’s the traffic break down for Growth Text’s first 18 days on the Internet.

Now, let’s get to the list building part.
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List Building

When I launched this blog on Feb 11, I had this landing page set up on the main page.

I invite people to get updates of my journey to 10K monthly visitors by opting in to receive my update reports.

After 626 unique impressions (the number of times a page is viewed, not clicked), this is what we got…

According to Aweber, 235 opted in to my list:

235 opt-ins from 626 impressions.

That’s a whopping 37.54% opt-in conversion!

WordStream analyzed thousands of AdWords accounts with a combined $3 billion in annual spend and discovered that:

If you’re currently getting 5% conversion rates, you’re outperforming 75% of advertisers.

The top 10% converts at 11.45%.

They called these unicorns

Looks like I’m one 😉

Though not all of my traffic is cold traffic (like what you get from AdWords),

Most of my subscribers still didn’t know me until they saw my post on the Warrior Forum, or until friends told friends on social networks.

So I was still kind of “new” to most of my traffic.

37.54% lead conversion is way higher than what most people get in our industry.

I figure these are the things that lead to the high conversion rate:

1. I targeted the right audience – clients and prospective clients from my web design business and Warrior Forum members.

2. I built trust FIRST. My Warrior Forum audience trusted me BEFORE they landed on my blog – I post high quality content FIRST, then I show people what I have to offer through my forum signature link to my blog.

3. I have a compelling offer and it’s authentic – Authenticity is the best marketing.

4. I tell stories on my landing page…

I tell the story of the conversation between Kyle and me.

Kyle was trying to figure out the best way to drive traffic to his website.

He was in information overload and had no direction; he needed help.

That’s his pain.

But he’s not alone: most people who want to have an online presence have the same pain.

And I’m here to help by offering real traffic case studies.

People love reading stories.

Stories sell.

Stories touch people.

Add stories to your marketing – You’ll be amazed at the results.

I hope I’m providing the value you are looking for and look forward to your comments.