Okay my blog is around 20 days old maybe around 30 stories so far. I am receiving about 5 visitors a day and most of them are from organic searches. My question to you is that normal? I am hope so cause it kind of gets me down when I see how low it is. I am currently working on link building and cranking out stories/posts. Is there more I should be focusing on?
It takes time for your site to be "trusted" as something other than a spam site. Keep adding unique quality content and Google will learn to visit regularly. Also, depending on the keywords you are hoping to get visitors for, there may be a ton of competition out there for visitors. You may need to put some additional effort into choosing your keywords or key phrases and ensuring that your post title and content reinforce whatever you've chosen.
There are many ways to get traffic to your site. My main advice for you is this: read other blogs. Honestly, that's how I got started. Look at my blog now; it's getting popular each and every day with traffic and subscribers increasing as well. If you want more information on blogging, SEO, making money online, etc., you can go ahead and check out my blog, Slyvisions dot Com. I guarantee you'll find something (everything) there useful.
Another thing you should consider doing is social media marketing. Join, experiment with, and be active in social sites. I recommend stumbleupon, blogging zoom, and sphinn. If you haven't already joined MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog, you should consider doing this also. Doing the above steps will help get you interested traffic and allow you to possible network with other bloggers. The support of fellow bloggers is very important, in my opinion. BTW, what's your niche?
The blog is a Colorado Blog. Basically blogging about things to do in Colorado. Free things to do, Restaurant reviews, activities indoor and outdoor. Basically anything to do with Colorado. I am hoping in a year or two if I have good traffic I can target business owners especially those Bed and Breakfast owners. http://coloradoblogging.com
I'd say you fall in tourism and travel. I take that back about social media marketing for now. I believe working on SEO and SERPs would be the way to go for you. I don't know what measures you've already taken, so here are just some to start with. -Research SEO and keywords -Use the DP keyword suggestion tool if you need: help http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ -Study your web analytics with services such as Google Analytics and Hittail Hope that helps some.
It does help a bunch. I have been doing all kinds of stuff. From sitemaps to keywords, social bookmarking to directory listings. I am about to get into article submissions and link building too. I am constantly working Google Analytics and everything the Webmaster tools provide me. Well my main question still has not been answered. 5 visitors a day well I just received 7 yesterday is that normal for a new blog?
No, that's not normal even for a new blog. There are many ways to get traffic to a new blog no matter what type of blog it is.
This is a useful article, the blog probably started around the same time as yours: http://blog.maddozza.com/getting-traffic-to-your-new-blog/14/ Are you listed in google yet? Have you optimised for SEO? Have you added a robots.txt file to stop duplicate content?
I will need to read that article today. I am listed in Google. I am trying my best to be optimised but there is so much to learn. No robot txt yet but I will do that now.
There are a few articles on the above blog that i found useful for new bloggers like myself. I found wordpress (if thats what you are using) does not come very search engine friendly.
I received like 2,000 visitors last week but they were all from Stumble Upon. I was not getting any clicks on Adsense so I stopped with those Social Networking sites. I wanted to concentrate more on Organic Searches. I just need to keep up with the posts and with SEO and I should be fine. It just worries me that I am not getting that many organic visitors.
Completely normal. Took me about a year to get traction and now growth is exponential. Part of placement in Google is just history - imagine Google doesn't want to prominently promote a fly-by-night site that just started and may yet shut down. You don't want to just crank out stories. Many suggest that sheer content matters but it doesn't, not at all. I write 1 post a week, sometimes every other week and I have thousands of subscribers and daily hits. You need UNIQUE, controversial, original content to leap to the top of Google results for certain queries. Colorado Blogging is the blog? You will never get ahead of major content sites like About, Yahoo, CitySearch, or Zvents for the run of the mill stuff. What are the hottest destinations in Colorado for pets? Really think obscure like that as there are probably a dozen "hottest spots in Colorado" posts already. Suggest event ideas from here: http://www.zvents.com/search?swhat=...rad=250&st=event&svt=text&search=true&srss=10 I'd also really suggest you grab the calendar code from here: http://www.zvents.com/groups/show/1004288-colorado-events That automatically includes the most popular things to do in Colorado so you don't have to manage that "event calendar" you have. Good luck!
Also, stumbleupon traffic is largely useless. Digg however is worth pursuing as diggs are inlinks. Most talk about getting to the homepage of Digg and getting thousands of visits but that traffic too is largely worthless - you want the links.
Great info seobrien! I will diffently start targeting those obscure attractions. We have a long list of attractions to write about and now we have another with "the hottest destination in Colorado for Pets". This gives me lots of great ideas Thank you. I will diffently get that calendar!
Yeah, if you want to give me a description (or send me your login for Zvents) I'll add them to the group so you can modify. Description will help promote that page a little more (SEO) to get some more visibility to your blog.
So for a new blog would you consider about 35 hits from Google in the first 3 weeks poor, normal or good? Stumble upon is really annoying as you get loads of traffic, but hardly any useful traffic.
Everything is relative, however, I would say that 7 visitors per day after 3 weeks is kind of low. If I were you, I would write a pillar piece of content, whether it be an article, forum post, or even a comment on another blog about Colorado that get's a lot of traffic. Write just enough to leave them wanting for more so that they click through to your link. In my opinion, this is one of the best ways to get relevant traffic to a site.