95% Of Websites Get Fewer Than 30 Visitors a Day. Are Your Web Efforts Doomed?
Summation:
- Most websites get a small number of daily views
- If you are not at the top of a Google search, you’re not going to get views
- Most followers don’t see new items on your Facebook page
Research:
From Search Engine Land: “Truth be told, around 95% of all websites are below 30 visitors a day. Unfortunately, this number tends to include friends and relatives and seemingly random visitors from countries around the world.”
From Marketing Charts Addressing Google Searches: “The top position enjoys 32.5% share of traffic, almost double the 17.6% afforded the next result. From there the declines continue, with the 10th position garnering just 2.4% of the search traffic. The results are remarkably similar to another study conducted by Chitika 3 years ago, which found the top position fetching about 34% of traffic.”
From TechCrunch: “After his Q&A session about ads during the Facebook Marketing Conference, I followed up….asking if the 12 percent average distribution rate hampered communication. He defended Facebook’s news feed, saying “No, there are pieces of content you create that are interesting, and there’s some that are not.” And the 12 percent doesn’t just apply to users. Business Pages meanwhile only get 16% of their fans seeing each post, which is why Facebook is launching its new “Reach Generator” to help marketers buy extra distribution of their Page posts…..”
Observations:
Peoples create blogs and websites for a wide variety of reasons; for fun, as a way of establishing credentials and to create a business or promote a nonprofit or association.
But there is an entire industry out there selling books, courses and instruction on the basis that we will create popular sites that will have an impact on our bottom line.
Like the gold miners of the middle 1800’s, most of the people making money are those supplying the miners (websites administrators) with supplies.
The writer from Search Engine Land (95% Of All Websites Get Fewer Than 30 Visitors a Day) offers his own observations and could be wrong but many I have talked to agree with him.
My Experience:
I’ve developed content for government websites receiving 1.4 million page views in 2012. I’ve helped developed sites for others getting up to a thousand (and more) page views a day.
Yet this site (Http://LeonardSipes.Com) and my future retirement site (Http://MyLifeAudio.Com) get disappointing amounts of traffic.
For MyLifeAudio.Com, I’m on the front page of Google searches for approximately 30 relevant terms, many at the top of the page. My traffic sucks.
So What’s The Message?
People need to be realistic when starting a website or blog as to the number of people they are going to attract.
My government site works because of instant credibility and the varied content I offer (audio, video, blog). The successful site I helped develop addresses an issue without overwhelming competition.
But MyLifeAudio competes with lots of sites offering free services on story telling (I’m offering a high quality paid service) and LeonardSipes.Com deals with issues covered by endless others (social media-public relations).
How well you do is not necessarily based on how creative or useful your content is or the quality of your site.
I’ve had articles from LeonardSipes.Com reprinted by major online publications that resulted in THOUSANDS of likes and shares.
It didn’t do diddly squat for my traffic.
So What Should You Do?
First, understand that this is a slog; it will take several years of hard work to get traffic for the vast majority of us.
Second, have fun. It’s the only way you are going to survive. Learn from your frustration. Failure/frustration is a wonderful teacher.
Third, develop your e-mail platform. It’s probably the key to your success.
Forth, re-post your material on social media platforms that work for you. Learn how to use them properly.
Fifth, interact with your peers. I’ve been posting material online for 15 years and I learn something new every day.
Sixth, create the best possible content. Don’t do it solely for links or traffic, do it for pride. You will get the links.
Seventh, use Google’s keyword index. Find out the likely terms people use to search for information. Put the key words in the title and sparingly in the article.
Eighth: Open a Google+ account and use a good description when advertising a new post. I’m finding that my Google+ descriptions are frequently working their way into search results. Tie all your web efforts to Google+.
I’m open to suggestions.
Best, Len.
Sources:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/29/facebook-post-reach-16-friends/
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Note that traffic sent through SEO carries baggage. For example, advertisers aren’t spending a lot of money on media websites because people spend little time there when they come from search engines.
“American and European bloggers are relatively in agreement when it comes to the most effective ways to drive traffic to their blogs, both citing frequent updates and promotion on social networks as their top 2, per an Overblog study released in June 2012.