Have you recently started blogging but you want to find out how long does it take to get organic traffic to your website?
Having written thousands of articles on my websites over the past few years, I have to admit that getting organic traffic to a new website is pretty hard. Writing a new article is like planting a seed on the ground, waiting for it to become a plant.
Most entrepreneurs that start with blogging or YouTube quit just before their seed becomes a plant. It is tough to wait without seeing results but it is definitely what you will need to do during your journey. You need patience.
From my experience and my data, I have seen that on average a website starts getting a good amount of traffic after 35 weeks. An article reaches its peak at 6-9 months. Google does not rank articles immediately.
So, in order for a website to get a good amount of traffic in 35-40 weeks from its start, you need to create at least 30 high-quality articles for low competition keywords in the first 2 months.
In 6-9 months, your articles will reach 90% of the traffic that it will ever bring. Then the traffic for this article reaches a plateau until the article becomes outdated and then you start losing traffic.
That’s the process in simple terms.
This is an example of a website that started in May 2019 and had its first 90 articles until September 2019. From then on, there were only 4-5 articles added until now. As we can see, traffic started to grow after 9 months. This is a very solid example of what is happening every single time.
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Timeline For Ranking On The Top Page For a New, an Intermediate and an Established Website
It is not very difficult to understand that every website is different and it will rank differently on Google. However, an average of 35 weeks is the estimated time that it takes.
Now, how long does it take for SEO to work and for an article to reach its peak(not rank as the top result) for different websites?
- For a new website, as we have discussed, a blog post will reach its peak after 35 weeks.
- For an intermediate site(something like 50-80 posts and 1+year-old), a blog post will reach 90% of its traffic after 25 weeks.
- And for a very successful website(over 200-300 articles and over 5+ years old), a blog post will rank approximately after 18 weeks.
Google doesn’t trust new websites very easily. New websites with no backlinks and a few articles are difficult to grow because Google wants to see that they deserve to be displayed. Google is the #1 search engine and wants to keep this position.
Giving its users the best articles possible is Google’s mission, that’s why Google punishes people that try to manipulate the algorithm.
Can Link Building Help My Website Grow Faster?
I know you have this question. Actually, I used to have exactly the same question and I answer it in forums and Reddit.
Can we shorten the time by doing some active link building?
Firstly, I wanna be crystal clear to you. Active link building is prohibited by Google. Google wants your website to earn its backlinks naturally. If you try to buy backlinks, you are risking your website. It is not 100% sure that Google will notice but if Google notices that you are getting backlinks unnaturally, all your efforts will be lost.
Link building is one of the top-ranking factors for Google. Every backlink is like a vote for you. Every backlink does not count the same. Do follow backlinks from websites with high domain authority worth more than other backlinks.
Also, backlinks should be acquired from relevant websites, otherwise, it may be suspicious. For example, if I have on this website a backlink from a health website it will be a bit strange.
Seo expert Neil Patel says that even for him, an article takes 3 months to rank. Have in mind that you won’t do better link building and content than Neil Patel 99,9% of the time. Content ranking takes time.
I don’t say that link building is dead or anything like that. However, no matter what you do it will take time and if you buy backlinks you risk your website.
That’s the reality and trust me I have tested it all. I have been penalized multiple times. They have the best developers and programmers to come after you. Do you think you are more clever than Google? I wouldn’t bet for it!
How To Speed Up The Process?
If it is not for link building what can we do to speed up the process? Backlinks will speed up the process if you do them carefully but there are more important and safer things you can do to rank faster.
From my own experience, I tell you that in order to succeed faster you have to follow this proven recipe that I finally use after lots of failures.
- Content mix(responsive posts, staple posts, pillar posts)
- Really low competition long-tail keywords(keyword research)
- No affiliate links in the beginning
- Fast hosting( WPX hosting)
- Fast and simple theme
- Prioritize user experience
- Use Internal/External Linking
For some of you these things may seem too many and for some of you these may seem obvious. But that’s the truth. Content is King.
Google has over 200 ranking factors but think about it for one second. What does Google want?
To show the best search result for the user.
This means that it doesn’t want you to manipulate things through backlinks. This means that Google wants you to have a fast website, a mobile-friendly website. Google wants you to have images, videos, infographics, and beautiful helpful content. If you have it, they will rank you.
Why?
Because it is their job to rank the best content!
Makes sense?
Ways To Get More Traffic Through Socia Media
Google wants people to like and share your content. So, if a blogpost is bringing people through Facebook or other social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, etc Google likes it and will rank you faster.
How can you get traffic from social media platforms, though?
In my opinion, Instagram is not optimal as a traffic source because it does not allow links. If you have more than 10k followers and you can tell them to swipe up then it is ok.
On the other hand, Facebook is an amazing platform to get social media traffic. You should create a Facebook group and also optimize your personal profile adding a nice Cover photo promoting your group.
Also, you will need to be active and provide free value to other people in your industry on various Facebook groups so that they visit your profile and join your group or visit your website. (that you should write for in your bio)
Pinterest is also another good way to get traffic and show Google that people like you. Go and create pins on Canva for free and start pinning. It is not my favorite but in some niches, Pinterest does wonders.
You can also use the trending platform Tiktok. It is up to your preferences.
All in all, social signals are absolutely one of Google’s ranking factors and you should take it into consideration to fast forward the process of growing your website.
Traffic and Backlinks from Quora and Medium
Quora used to be an amazing platform to get traffic to your blog. Quora is a platform that some people ask questions and other people answer them.
You can find questions around your niche and answering them, linking back to an article of you. Quora does not allow affiliate links. However, I find it very difficult to publish there anymore because they delete my comments that have any kind of link to my website.
If you can’t place a link to your website welcome page or to an article there is no point in publishing on Quora. I have brought thousands of people to my websites through Quora but every year is becoming more and more difficult.
Publishing 10 comments each day can grow your website but I hope they don’t delete your comments. You can also just provide value without linking back to your content but people rarely visit your Quora profile so that they can find your website and visit it.
Medium is a platform where you can publish your articles. They have a big audience and you can promote them by using it. Don’t publish your whole article for 2 reasons.
First of all, your article will probably show up on Google through Medium and not through your website if it is exactly the same because Medium is a huge website.
A second reason that you don’t wanna copy and paste your whole article on Medium is that people will read it there and you won’t get the clicks to your website. Show them 3-4 paragraphs and tell them if they wanna ”read more” to click there.
All these methods show Google that your website is relevant and people are happy to visit it.
Also Read: How To Build An Affiliate Marketing Side Hustle
Final Words: How Long Does It Take To Get Organic Traffic To Your Website?
Ranking on Google for a brand new website will take 7-9 months and this is also the average website growth timeline for each of your articles. They will reach their peak at 35 weeks after their publication. It is not debatable, it is what Google normally does.
It takes time to rank on Google and if you don’t rank on the first page of Google you won’t get traffic.
Who searches on the 4th page of Google, you know?
Domain authority, website’s age, content, and more stuff play a huge role in ranking faster on Google. The more established your website is the faster it ranks. Plain and simple.
Backlinks also do work. Backlinks are like votes for your website. But if you buy them and you don’t do it properly Google will notice and will penalize your website. Be careful when buying backlinks. Don’t waste all your efforts.
What do we do to speed things up?
We write for easy topics with low competition, really easy topics. We type keywords on Google and we see the top 10 results. If they are just on point, they have exact match keywords on the title and they are written by authoritative websites, we keep on searching until we find a keyword that the articles do not have exact match keywords, they are written by small websites and they are relatively short.
We create a far better article than the content that already exists.
Also, grab a theme that is fast and mobile-friendly. The theme on this website is GeneratePress Premium. Use fast hosting like Wpx hosting and also CDN. Use a cache plugin like Wp fastest cache plugin or WP rocket.
Use many visuals. images, videos, infographics, screenshots to improve user experience.
Finally, use internal linking. Link your articles together. It plays a huge role. Especially, go back to your first articles and link back to the newest ones. Most people skip this.
I didn’t plan to write so much stuff in this article but I was writing naturally and I felt the need to let you know about everything as simple and fast as I could. However, I have written many articles for keyword research and SEO website traffic if you want more details.
