From 300,000 users to 2.7 million in 18 months

by .
49 replies
hey to all that are looking for inspiration ... here are the results after 1 year of mega hard work with a project I decided to partner with.

In the last 12 - 16 months, we increased traffic to the magic number of 2.5 Million users.
WARNING: We didn't start from ZERO and I can't reveal the site based on negative SEO or reverse engineering.

But happy to showcase stats.

Disclaimer:

Not all traffic are buyers
We have a lot of FREEseekers.

The Domain name

Backlinks


Last month Traffic



I want to give you ideas of what exactly we did
--> We published over 300 articles (we crushed it with content) Long type of content, very media rich, videos, tutorials, top 10, guides. We really pushed the social sharing of each content. So each article that was written went on FB, Medium, Quora... etc.. - we literally wrote each article with the goal of sharing it as much as possible

--> We launched a course for our users, so we could provide education and extra value for them.
This worked great because it created a reason to come back. The course was dripped so that helped a lot (we launched under TEACHABLE that makes it dead easy to manage)

--> launched a forum (this was a bit of a nightmare, it was great for traffic, but it became a pain in the *ss to control) The community worked but only when we had clear rules in place.

--> We hit Youtube HARD. Love Youtube and each video, became one piece of content and each piece of content ~~> later on became part of a series of articles... the more content we added the easier was to create more content.

--> We did contests (a lot!), every 2 months we did 1 contest with our audience.

--> We created a lot of video tutorials... our site is related to technology so we launched a series of tutorials to help slow users to use the site

--> We did content syndication of our stuff in Medium, Linkedin, etc

--> We dominated QUORA.
We became super active in Quora, our goal was to become the #1 for the category. This worked great but a bit difficult to keep up. The Quora Ranking keeps updating all the time. A bit challenging.

--> We dominated Facebook Groups
This required a bit of work. We wanted to give value but always trying to send people back to the site. So is a weird mix, of providing value, engage, and send people to the place you want them to land.

--> We moved away from boosting our FB fan page and instead launching our own FB group

--> Our email list went from 20.000 to 150.000 members. This may sound great but we also faced issues with delivery and cost of sending emails. We had to move away from MailChimp and chose something more affordable

--> we split tested our landing page weekly....

--> we created a lot of case studies and we work hard to increase our social branding (Social proof, testimonials)

We didn't pay for traffic once....
Overall budget spent in 14 months : 28K USD --> not bad if you ask me
#million #months #users
  • Profile picture of the author pauloadaoag
    Administrator
    Great post rankinghero . If you don't mind I have some questions.

    we split tested our landing page weekly
    Were you able to get significance within a week? If not, were you running multiple tests simultaneously?

    Also since you mentioned starting a forum, what would be the advantages over just maintaining a facebook group of your own? I would imagine the tooling provided by facebook would be better than having to run your own forum.

    We hit Youtube HARD
    How long were your average videos and if you don't mind me asking, how much effort (time and cost wise) did you sink into each one?
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    • Profile picture of the author .
      Videos are mainly tutorial style videos, nothing fancy so content wise they are super rich. Funny wise we didn't aim for views but to keep those users coming back. We have a tech related site... so videos helped people to learn more about "our services".

      We did around mmm 70 videos?
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      • Profile picture of the author gianbizz
        Hi rankinghero,
        How you made a tutorial video, are you just speak in front of a camera? What software did you use?
        Or you pay a freelancer to make it?
        I want to make a tutorial video on how to use my website, any idea?
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    • Profile picture of the author .
      A forum is always going to be better than a FB group... because a forum can be indexed by Google. We wanted the content generated by the users to help us getting more content indexed .
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    • Profile picture of the author .
      With Split testing our main goal was to reduce Bounce rate. Bounce and flow of users. The success is always tiny 1% each week, then you go 5% and suddenly it goes back 3%... is a yo-yo... but it pays off. you have to think long term
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      • Profile picture of the author pauloadaoag
        Administrator
        Can you share what was your most successful test?
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        • Profile picture of the author .
          Believe it or not. Bounce rate just on Colors of the site.

          We change a lot the color of the main call to action buttons. Funny wise people make a lot of weird decisions just based on basic stuff like green vs orange ... ha
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  • Profile picture of the author Lavar Ball
    rankinghero, can you share an example of a successful contest? Did you do it on the site or social media?
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    • Profile picture of the author .
      on the site pushing people to social media

      Example: we are giving away a T-shirt and an itunes card to the best Article about XXXXX . to win you need the most amount of FB likes and comments in your post.

      So you integrate 2 things: Content + Social media (or signals)
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  • Profile picture of the author WFTiffany
    Hi rankinghero, I loved your post. Just a quick question, considering users can also interact on Facebook fan pages, why choose Facebook groups instead of a Facebook fanpage when you also have your own forum? Is it for more user engagement?
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  • Profile picture of the author LNC4
    Hi,

    Congrats!! That is really great! I'm new to the forum here as well as new to a new type of online selling. I'm curious about your product now. Would you please be able to PM your site or FB page? Promise I'm not a troublemaker just someone looking to find help in the type of online selling I'm venturing into.

    Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author runswithleaves
    kai·zen - noun
    a Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement of working practices, personal efficiency, etc
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnVianny
    Good example of Seo! It seems you made a lot of hard work with excellent result.
    I wannna ask: which autoresponder did you use when u shifted from Mailchimp?

    Im asking it cause probably you have to choose an autoresponder with automations, and a lot of integrations, since you have contests, different pages and you have to set different mails depending on behaviour's user.

    Well, what did you choose which gives you either features either good delivery with a big list?
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  • Profile picture of the author davntt
    Congratulations. This is really inspiring.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark Singletary
    What kind of team made this happen? Outsourced? Employees? How many of each?

    Did this increase in traffic result in matching major revenue gains? At the end of the day, traffic is meaningless unless the results of it can be cashed by the bank.

    Mark
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  • Greaaat, thanks ! Bookmark it !!!
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  • Profile picture of the author GrowthMonger
    Wow, very inspiring indeed, thanks for the share! This will definitely keep me going.
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  • Profile picture of the author hsahadath
    Great tips indeed. This is really an inspirational article. We get great ideas from your post but all these ideas are costly.
    If we have no budget then it will be impossible to reach your goal. But we can do something better if we have patience and perfect plan.
    Thanks, Mytechgoal.
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  • Profile picture of the author LeadCheetah
    Wow; thats awesome. How big was your team? How long did it take to get results from your content marketing efforts?
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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    @rankinghero

    this is really an awesome story- you have put in hard work and make your story greatest ever!

    But let me a little bit dig deeper.

    Do you have each of your 300 articles and long viral content first indexed on your website before post it to guest blogs and facebook?

    Which is your biggest traffic source from all your content:
    facebook?
    guest blogs?
    viral content ?
    youtube? (your videos)

    Bounce rate was high first you wrote, was that on your website or the email opt in's /subscribers?

    marco005
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  • Profile picture of the author TechMate001
    28K USD? For 14 months? It's waste of time, Around 10K USD is enough to reach at least a million on a week, But you did a great effort!!! Bravo
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  • Profile picture of the author Reddevil007
    Converting freebie seekers into buyers is also a skill.

    Kudos to the OP!
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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    Hi,

    @TechMate001 : to rech 1 mio email subscribers/ or visitors on my website with budget of$ 10.000, can you explain me in detail how you have done that? That is not interesting only for me- it is important for all us here to know such things so that more people can have better business success in their life.

    marco005
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    • Profile picture of the author Reddevil007
      Originally Posted by Instructor View Post

      great post, who is better than mailchimp?
      Should be either Getresponse or Aweber if I am not wrong.
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      • Profile picture of the author Pedro Campos
        Aweber is the best for me, it's really intuitive and non-expensive.
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        Moderator's Note: Affiliate Links are not allowed

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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    This is nonsense for anybody here, when don't know how they have done that..........

    marco005
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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    I miss the deeper step by step detail plan how to reach such goals....

    Ha,

    they won't not tell you any detail step by step plan.


    marco005
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  • Profile picture of the author taharn
    Where did you start from?

    Did you just one day, find a niche, then started writing tons of articles on different social media pages?

    Also, what did you do with the traffic you got, did you turn it into CPA, or something? What did you gain from it???
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  • Profile picture of the author Enfusia
    Hi,
    I see your costs were $28K USD.

    If I may, did you make a profit?

    Knowing the spend is great. But for me I want to know if it's a sound reproducible method that sustains itself, so, ROI is what I'd like to know.

    Thank you
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    • Profile picture of the author .
      Originally Posted by Enfusia View Post

      Hi,
      I see your costs were $28K USD.

      If I may, did you make a profit?

      Knowing the spend is great. But for me I want to know if it's a sound reproducible method that sustains itself, so, ROI is what I'd like to know.

      Thank you
      Profits are around 350K per year atm
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      • Profile picture of the author Ajit Khodke
        Originally Posted by Gabriel View Post

        Profits are around 350K per year atm
        That's insane ROI if you ask me!

        How much are you investing is it the same 28k or more than that?
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        • Profile picture of the author .
          Originally Posted by Ajit Khodke View Post

          That's insane ROI if you ask me!

          How much are you investing is it the same 28k or more than that?
          This is not an affiliate site, or a small project
          It's a company
          so the company has devs, coders, staff....

          so there is a clear profit but tons of expenses...
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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    @Gabriel;

    "We have published 300 articles...."
    Question: Where you have been submit all these articles to get these huge traffic numbers- all to Facebook?

    "We dominated Facebook Groups"
    Question: What exactly you have done in FB Groups?
    Groups commenting, Groups posting???
    How many Groups you was active with commenting or posting your content?

    But not forget, FB allow it to only a few Groups to post content, not to 30,50, or more Groups- how you have handled that? Outsourcing?

    Groups FB Posting can today can done automatically....

    best wishes
    marco005
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeffrey Joson
    that's sounds like solid plan
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  • Profile picture of the author Eduard Stinga
    I have to say... this has been very inspiring and also got a few gold nuggets out of it that I need to start implementing myself (ie: Quora and Medium content)
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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    Not very inspiring, yes it isa great story, but without the deeper step details- you do not know how they had done that to reach such numbers.

    So without these steps it is not helpful in my eyes, after read that story I knowing so much than before reading= nothing.

    marco005
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    • What deeper step details? He told everything they did. 300 long articles, videos, tutorials, forum etc.. What do you expect there to be more than this? A secret loophole or something similar?

      Not everyone can have 2.7 million visitors. There aren't enough people with enough hours to spend to give everyone that amount of traffic. It's not for everyone. You have to be better than most of the others.It's not that you just have to know a simple secret and you are on top. You have to do all these things and do them better than the vast majority.

      Explaining how to write articles, make videos and so on would require writing a whole ebook, what is too far for a forum post.
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    • Profile picture of the author NINJA Webhosting
      I felt inspired...
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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    @affiliated survivor;

    Look at one aspect of them;

    "we have written 300 long articles" as example.

    Yes not everybody can write that amount of articles in that time. Are you agree with me, that writing 300 articles without how to know marketing them is worthless (no traffic) ?

    I ask myself; to get these amount of visitors (here as an example) how in which way I must marketing my articles to get these huge numbers of visitors?

    Does they had submit all of them to Facebook and boost post every of them?
    Does they had submit them to guest blogs? The name of the guest blogs? Are these the big A+ blogs? Or smaller blogs?
    Have they post it to multiple Facebook groups or had done massive (how many is massive?) FB commenting in multiple groups? I do not know......
    I read now that FB does not allow anymore to doing multiple group commenting.......

    We do not know any of how they had done the marketing, for all the content all for free or how much they had spend on any to market them out?

    These are my questions, the answers I have not found in this (great) article.It is same like when Neil Patel write many blablabla about he had done outreach to get 8950 visitors (as example) ... he is writing about that topic not teach us how he had done it.

    This is a small line of difference, to write about a topic or write a guide step by step how he had done that, is not the same.

    Yes I agree I be looking sometimes for things who not exists (speak so in that way...).......


    Have Happy Weekend
    marco005
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    • About the articles: You can write a whole ebook about content marketing and if you want to know how to do that just use the search function.

      By the way, he did tell us what he did with the articles:

      "So each article that was written went on FB, Medium, Quora... etc.. - we literally wrote each article with the goal of sharing it as much as possible"

      Not to forget: He didn't start from zero. If his social media accounts already had large numbers of likes, followers etc. his articles get lots of traffic without boosting them. If you start from zero nobody will see your articles and they are much less worth/have much less effect this way.

      Every niche is different and what works in one niche doesn't work in another. If your niche is weight loss, you cannot make tutorial vieos for example. You must learn how to use social media and the rest and find your own way in the niche you are in. This way you understand what people are talking about without them having to tell you each small detail.
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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    I understand it better now....

    First have large number of fans/likes on social media accounts- then you can submit more content to them to get lot more of sharing and traffic and so on....
    With zero likes/fans my articles will go worthless on them...

    But how get large number of fans/likes without content?
    Only with the pay ads method, send few some good articles and boost them out first to grow up likes/fans....and then build up ore content to them is the only way I have in mind now...

    Have Happy Weekend
    marco005
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    • You cannot build up your fan page without content.You need content right away. And not just any content. You need engaging content that gets comments, shares and likes. What should people like if there isn't anything to like? Why should they come back if there isn't something to come back to?

      You have to post content on a daily base or you will be forgotten soon and your likes will never come back.

      Somehow I get the idea you have no clue what people like about social media, what they are doing there and why they are so popular. In the beginning of the internet there were only sites that gave information. Then there came interactive sites like forums and blogs. Sites that allowed people to communicate with each other. And social media sites make communicating even easier and offer more possibilities to do so. People like to talk and make new friends and that's what they are doing there. Without publishing content you aren't communicating and will not be noticed. Like in daily life. If you never say anything, nobody will talk back to you.

      To be really succesful you have to be someone and stand out from the crowd. Not everyone is even good at becoming a popular person. Producing engaging content is easier said than done and for a fast progress and to reach the top you have to be better than almost everybody else. For getting millions of visitors you have to be real good.
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  • Profile picture of the author dragonzpit
    With all the necessary steps you have taken you had to hit that kind of traffic, Good Job !
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    -=- Desi -=-

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  • Profile picture of the author Dave d
    All the steps mentioned above are really true and nearly none of them have any alternate to success in SEO and organic traffic.

    I have done many sites SEO following majorly those part of techniques and some of my private techniques.

    Great share
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  • Profile picture of the author anwar001
    Very inspiring. The major takeaway from this is that everything needs lot of hard work and committed action over a sufficient period of time before results can start pouring in. The hard work needs to be well-planned and neatly executed.
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  • Profile picture of the author jsc420
    Would you mind sharing the niche with us?
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    • Profile picture of the author ishaq amin
      Originally Posted by jsc420 View Post

      Would you mind sharing the niche with us?
      Would it make a difference if it was baking or swimming?

      the niche doesnt matter. Its what they managed.

      Look at the hard work that went it. 300 Articles and youtube videos.
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  • Profile picture of the author Thomas9
    congratulations! well done.
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