Just can't get traffic! So frustrated!

35 replies
Good afternoon guys,

Exactly a montha go I put HybridCarFreak.com - Most Useful Hybrid Car Resource Website online. Since the first day, I am struggling to get some visitors. I published a couple of articles to Ezinearticles and I submitted a PR to over 50 websites. But I still can't get visitors.

On the day when I submitted the PR I got 40 uniques, the next day just 30 and yesterday only 13.

The problem is that I am pretty busy with college (plus I am on the tennis team, and we have practice every day), and I just can't submit articles daily to EA and other article site...

What is your advice to get some more traffic? Do you think my site has potential?

Thank you so much and God bless you!

P.S.
Im not a quitter, but since I am short of time, I thought about selling the website. How much could I get for the site? Thanks
#frustrated #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Nick Brighton
    If you don't have time to submit articles daily, you won't have time to generate free traffic. You've only got one other fast(ish) option which is to buy it. You can also go out and find non-competitive websites that might want to link to you.

    Either way, if you want lots of traffic (and revenue) you're going to have to free up some time or money to outsource the generation of traffic.

    It's bloodthirsty competition out there, so playing Tennis will get you nowhere. [)]
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  • Profile picture of the author thenoob
    Be patient, it's just 1 month old! Just relax, sit down and write down a plan.
    Firstly you need to be motivated, don't loose your patience and keep working with your blog. Especially with a blog, you always need to keep adding fresh information even if you have visitor or not, each day (if possible) or each week. If you're too busy with school (like me!), just buy content from a ghostwriter.
    If a visitor return to your site a couple of time, and he just don't see anything new, he will walk away, but this time FOREVER. So pay attention on the content.
    Secondly, you could find people who own websites related to yours and ask them for link exchange (or banner exchange). That's not really complicated, just post your request here or go to the "Marketplace of Sitepoint"-you can see a section named "Link exchange" there. Or you can search via Google blogs or websites related to yours and email to the webmaster to talk with them. (the trick is give them some compliments on the email subject about their sites and don't forget to mention that you already put a link (or a article with a link) to their site.
    Don't just submit article to Ezine. Submit your article on every other directories that you can. Maybe they're smaller but they will bring traffic to your site too. That's really a mistake about article submitting.
    You run a blog, so don't forget about the comments. Post your comments on other blogs and get attention of reader.
    You can try a paid service like prweb.com if you like.
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  • Profile picture of the author gary varga
    Guys, thank you so much for the replies! Nick, I can't quit playing tennis, since it gives me a full-ride at college, which is about $30,000.

    Thenoob, I already tried link exchange, but I only get a link exchange with those "shitty" websites...

    Im definitely not giving up!!!
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  • Profile picture of the author violationz
    Start simple, do basic keyword research...

    296,000 for hybrid car tax credit
    333,000 for hybrid electric car
    359,000 for hybrid car reviews
    695,000 for hybrid car battery
    773,000 for hybrid car batteries

    Two minutes of work - target those keywords with articles on your website, on EZA, Digg posts, etc... they all have about 800-3000 searches per month. But even then, you're competing with sites like About.com, Wikipedia and HowStuffWorks.com among others.

    How do you intend to make money from it? To be honest, if you're hoping for potential AdSense revenue I think it's wasted effort, I'd ditch it and take it as a learning experience. If you're looking to drive traffic to it and sell it, that may work but you'll have to do some research to figure out its potential value and whether or not it's worth your time/effort.

    Best of luck.
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    • Profile picture of the author Ricter
      Originally Posted by violationz View Post

      ...
      How do you intend to make money from it? To be honest, if you're hoping for potential AdSense revenue I think it's wasted effort...
      Why is that, Violationz?
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      • Profile picture of the author violationz
        Originally Posted by Ricter View Post

        Why is that, Violationz?
        Looking at the keywords and competition it'll take quite a bit of SEO to even get near the top, even the long tails - lots of time and effort. Looking at the AdWords competition you'll be competing with companies like Ford - have fun with that! ACDelco, Toyota, GM and Ford all on one page - you can lower CPC all you want, they'll keep the top positions because they have the budget for it.

        Comparing the amount of time and effort to the tiny amount of revenue per AdSense click it wouldn't be worth my time.

        You could take that same time and effort and make at least one sale of a ClickBank or PayDotCom product and make much more than the daily AdSense revenue... looking at one of the ads right now there's a "Water4Gas" ad displayed (which I thought were banned?). Reader clicks your ad and is taken to that page, you get $0.10, they convert to a buyer, guy promoting the CB product makes about $30.

        Just my thoughts anyway...
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    • Profile picture of the author JackieLee
      I agree with the keyword research.

      You can even dig down and find some long tail keywords that are less competitive but still get traffic.

      I would create a master list of keywords that are related to your site. Then start writing your posts based on those keywords. Once you have your post up go ahead and write and widely distribute articles with your keywords as anchor text in your links.

      You can also build small mini blogs at wordpress/blogger and use the sidebar to link to your posts with your keywords as anchor text.

      If you can learn how to do good/profitable keywords research in the beginning you will be ahead of the game!

      Once you can rank for some keywords you will find that traffic flow keeps coming without much additional work.

      Good Luck,
      Jackie
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  • Profile picture of the author thenoob
    Making money online is really hard, very hard. If its your fist experience on this business, forget about an "overnight-millionnaire-dream" or "get-rich-while-sleeping" stuff. You want to get money ? Fine.You must work hard to obtain it.
    I don't want to be offensive with you but i just want to be straight. Best wishes for you!
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    • Profile picture of the author OnlineMasterMind
      Originally Posted by thenoob View Post

      Making money online is really hard, very hard.
      that's an "interesting" belief
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      • Profile picture of the author OnlineMasterMind
        Hey Gary,

        First of all congrats on finishing the site...

        But let me ask you... what is your GOAL with the site?

        How many visitors do you need per day to accomplish this?

        It sounds like you want to sell it?

        For how much?

        How much monthly revenue do you think you need before you can fetch that number?

        When you know these numbers among others... you can make rational decisions and invest into your business accordingly.

        If this turns out to be nothing more than a learning experience than that's fine but moving forward I'd give this some thought before your next venture...

        I actually like the site and I think it has potential but you probably need to re evaluate the best way to monetizing it (or at least figure out the value of each visitor) before investing any more time or money into traffic.

        Good Luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author thenoob
    If you just can obtain traffic with free & manual method, switch to a pro or a paid service like prweb.com. Buy ads or article review on other blogs and even offline magazine. Theses methods are more costly but they work pretty well.
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  • Profile picture of the author gary varga
    I am really grateful for the advice so far. Violationz and Jackie, you really gave me a good advice on doing keyword research. To be honest, I ignored doing keyword research.

    About Adsense, a click pays about 50 cents. My goal is to earn $10 daily with Adsense. You are saying it's a waste of time. Do you think I should replace the adsense ads with CB product ads? The problem here is, that I am aiming for visitors who are interested in hybrid car technology and those "water and gas" products are not really related to hybrid cars...
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    • Profile picture of the author Teddi77
      Hi Gary:

      As you are probably guessing, there's a bit more to Internet marketing than is easily apparent!

      You want to always start with researching a product or service that there is demand for. One way to do this is to go to Amazon.com and see what's selling. Another is to check the popular articles on ezinearticles.com or you can go to clickbank.com and see what's selling there. But that's just the beginning, because for example, popular clickbank products are sold by many very experienced marketers who will probably outmarket a beginner.

      On the other hand, some less popular products on clickbank in your niche, can still make you a nice profit. Once you've decided on your product, then you need to look for long tail keywords. These are keywords that are at least three words long, but the real secret is they have decent traffic (at least 1000 searches a month) and low competition (under 10,000 competing pages).

      Another point about keyword research and one I rarely see mentioned, is to check the page rank of the top sites found on that particular keyword. If the first three sites have a PR of 2 or less you have a very good chance of ranking towards the top and getting search engine traffic.

      Then, once you've found your keywords, you can start writing articles with your keywords in the article title, once or twice in the text and especially in your author's box link to your blog/web site (the blue underlined link). You also need to make an effort in your author's box to get people to click on your link, generally by offering them something that is closely related to the topic of your article for FREE.

      If you don't have a report or something free, look on the old version of this forum in the free ebooks section, you might find something good. When first working on the web, it's really helpful to learn as much as you can. I did that by reading ebooks and learned a tremendous amount of useful info that ended up saving me a lot of time.

      But bottom line, making money online takes WORK! One way I've seen some beginners become very successful is by documenting in a blog everything they tried for making money and getting traffic. Many of these newbies went on to become very successful.
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        • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
          Your author bio may be costing you some links. I don't know about other people, but I am a bit hesitant to link to sites that look like they're just going to get flipped. Bloggers tend to prefer to link out to people that appear to be in it for the long haul. From reading the author bio on your site, it just gives the impression you're probably going to build up the site and flip it.

          That leads to uncertainty, and I have a tendency to think people are going to be hesistant about giving you a link. After all, a month from now, what if the site gets sold? What if it changes to something else? What if the new owner makes it a porn site? Then, I have to hunt down that link and delete it. Much easier just to not give a link to begin with.

          Granted, any site could be sold or whatnot, but it's a little easier to link to someone who appears to be in it for the long-haul, rather than someone who looks like they are here today, gone tomorrow...
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          Dan also writes content for hire, but you can't afford him anyway.
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          • Profile picture of the author Teddi77
            Hi Gary:

            I forgot to mention in my previous post about using Adsense on your web sites. I've always had the feeling that Google penalizes such sites, especially when they are new.

            I have an Adsense site that has been earning me money for over 3 years, but it took me 6 months and lots of work to earn more than a few dollars a month from it. You can make money much quicker using affiliate programs with articles, like all the bum marketers.

            Getting Adsense to work (make decent money) plus the amount of content, links, SEO, etc. takes more work at first than it's worth. I'm not sure it's a good model for a beginner unless you have lots of time to promote your site and you have unique and excellent content...Regards, Teddi
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    • Profile picture of the author violationz
      Originally Posted by gary varga View Post

      About Adsense, a click pays about 50 cents. My goal is to earn $10 daily with Adsense. You are saying it's a waste of time. Do you think I should replace the adsense ads with CB product ads? The problem here is, that I am aiming for visitors who are interested in hybrid car technology and those "water and gas" products are not really related to hybrid cars...
      Hey I can show you a little "case study" thanks to your goal - I was actually planning on releasing a free report based on how little traffic you actually need to make sales/how you can do it. I created a new website and new ClickBank account to illustrate this...

      $10 per day @ $0.50 per click = 20 unique visitors per day that ALL click on the ads (highly unlikely). So in 5 days you would have $50 - here's the last 5 days with the "case study" account:

      http://jgwebdesign.net/host/quicksales.jpg

      < shameless graphic plug LOL >

      About 4 hours to create and promote and let's just say it has brought in a decent amount o' green...

      What would you prefer, $50 in AdSense or $282.03 in sales?

      The same amount of visitors, and it's not like these 5 days were "unique cases", I could show you the entire month and the most visitors I've had is 38 in one day... and trust me, it'll take much more than the hypothetical 20 visitors per day to get that $10 per day as not everyone will click the ads.

      The point I'm trying to make is that you could shift the time and effort taken to get Adsense clicks on making sales and make much more money - not necessarily using that website though, try a different market where there's less competition (SEO-wise). SEO is fun, Google up some tactics and/or order that free StomperNet deal (still waiting for mine!).

      Best of luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author theredcell
      Gary,

      you got good advice here and someone actually gave you keywords to write articles about. Now that is looking out for a fellow warrior. Before you take another step, DO KEYWORD RESEARCH. Use Googles External keyword tool and then go to Alexa.com and use them as a resource
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  • Profile picture of the author Andres
    Stay positive Gary!

    My site is only 3 months old and I've submitted so far just 35 articles using EZA and Isnare and so far it's beginning to bear fruit. Keep in mind I only submitted 35 articles which isn't much BUT I provided solid info you can actually use. This morning 2 of my articles were accepted into a leading Forex site.

    That was nice!

    Keep it up and just keep writing!

    Remember there is a learning process and you've got some ways to go.
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  • Profile picture of the author sparrow
    Gary if you want to do this you need to do something everyday to your website. Everyone has time, and I know you are no different.

    So set a goal to write something somewhere either on the blog or submit to the Article Directories but you must take at least one action each day.

    This is how all the people suceed. You didn't get good at tennis sitting on your ass, you had to practice. This is not any different.

    Some of us its easier than others, since you are going to school you are already primed for writing, most of us who are old farts haven't written much since we got of school and for me its been decades.

    So not to be mean, I think you have more going for you than many of us. If you say your not a quitter then find the time or a different business model.

    Pick a method and stick with it, don't go chasing the next big thing.

    Article marketing has a proven track record and I can't see why you can't write 200-500 words daily towards your business.

    Business takes work and one Article a day is nothing regardless how busy you are. You have the time.

    My 2 cents

    Ed
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  • Profile picture of the author gary varga
    Thnka you guys again for these amazing replies! I see, some of you are talking about affiliate marketing. Does anybody think my site has potential to earn money with affiliate products?

    Thanks
    Gary
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  • Profile picture of the author warner444
    Comment on blogs similar to yours. Especially good if they have dofollow comments. There are various tools to find that. I also comment blog posts that are interesting and high traffic blogs will have enough readers that they will generate traffic even if they are nofollow.

    I also make my name like this because then the anchor text is more than just my name :
    Warner Carter @ Adventures in Internet Marketing Blog. So far nobody has considered that spammy. Works find for niche blogs too.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stanley Tang
    You just have to be able to balance school and business. (I'm a junior and its crazy right now - SATs etc). But I still was able to persevere and over come those obstacles. Just stay determined, submit one article per day to EZ. If you have some money, you can probably outsource those articles.
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  • Profile picture of the author Monetize
    Your site is VERY nice. Code looks clean except I think that
    your outgoing links should open a new page and you might
    add some additional keywords to your meta tag.

    As to your lack of time to devote to your business, get up
    earlier or stay up later and spend one hour per day on your
    site to add more content. Work on your articles on a daily
    basis, get a tape recorder and find someone to transcribe
    for you, get dragon or do whatever it takes to get it done.

    Build on this niche by developing additional websites, do
    not rely on one little website for income when the internet
    has billions of web pages now.
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    • Profile picture of the author Eric Lorence
      You're young, in college, and have your whole life ahead of you.

      Dedicate 1 hour per day on it, try to achieve small improvements every day.

      You'll get there, just give it some time.

      Good luck!
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      • Profile picture of the author TheMagicShow
        If your budget allows you, then why not mingle with some ppc campains, they send you ultra targeted visitors, you can always set a budget and minitor your money spent and your success factor.

        I just saw your page and it looks nice, if you do use ppc make sure not to use adwords because I don't think they like ppc driven traffic to adsense pages, now if you do put affiliate promotions in there and skip the adsense stuff then ppc can be a blessing.

        I don't deal much with adsense income so I m not 100% sure on google's take on ppc driven traffic to adsense pages.
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  • Profile picture of the author DennisM
    You know Gary....

    There's always the "Water4Gas" product on Clickbank that you can sell as an affiliate. The payout is good and those hybrid buyers would be perfect candidates as they're looking to save on gas. The next best option outside of buying a hybrid outright is to again, save on gas.

    Here's a tip...think laterally in niches. Let's take a look at hybrid enthusiasts. WHAT ELSE are they interested in? Here are my thoughts but do your own research to validate.

    Hybrid folks might be interested in:
    • Anything "green" and environment related. Check out TreeHugger.com. The forum on there alone has thousands of posts with categories such as "Everything Green" and "Earth Events". Start commenting in there with a link in your sig file.
    • Also, take a look at GM-Volt.com. This is a blog run by a doctor if you can believe that! The guy as 32,000 subscribers on his list. He was even invited to the GM unveiling last week at their 100th birthday. Another huge forum you can post in.
    • Let's see...I bet hybrid freaks like using rechargeable batteries for electronics. Hey, what about Moms who drive hybrids which, of course, there's toys. Toys require batteries! Now go out and look for an affiliate program for batteries!

    In any event, you get the idea. I know this takes time but when you build a site, it requires some TLC. It's like your chia pet you get for Christmas. You need to nuture, love and add water for it to grow. LOL

    If anything, start building a list in that niche so you can monetize later. Even with a couple hundred subscribers you can start sending CPA offers to them and build that relationship.
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  • Profile picture of the author jhongren
    Originally Posted by gary varga View Post

    Good afternoon guys,

    Exactly a montha go I put HybridCarFreak.com - Most Useful Hybrid Car Resource Website online. Since the first day, I am struggling to get some visitors. I published a couple of articles to Ezinearticles and I submitted a PR to over 50 websites. But I still can't get visitors.

    On the day when I submitted the PR I got 40 uniques, the next day just 30 and yesterday only 13.

    The problem is that I am pretty busy with college (plus I am on the tennis team, and we have practice every day), and I just can't submit articles daily to EA and other article site...

    What is your advice to get some more traffic? Do you think my site has potential?

    Thank you so much and God bless you!

    P.S.
    Im not a quitter, but since I am short of time, I thought about selling the website. How much could I get for the site? Thanks
    My advice is hang out at car forums more and use your signature.

    Be your own subject expert by contributing actively in the car forum.

    You can check out one of my friend's site BMW.SG | The Singapore BMW Enthusiast Community for reference.

    Cheers,
    John
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  • Profile picture of the author Easy Cash
    Gary

    Create a Wordpress site at wordpress.com - not .org

    Write about 10 posts.

    This gets some reasonable organic traffic.

    Make it in the same niche and link to your website.

    Don't put affiliate links on it - otherwise you will get booted.
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  • Profile picture of the author gary varga
    Thank you guys again for the responses! I definitely got some ideas from the posts.
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  • Profile picture of the author JasonParker
    Question is... Of these 83 hits, how many did you collect information from and get into your sales funnel?

    Believe it or not, you CAN make money off this level of daily traffic. I can't say it'll be much, but you actually should make money if you can start building your list from the traffic and turning that list into more consistent traffic directed to offers related to Hybrid Cars.





    Originally Posted by gary varga View Post

    Good afternoon guys,

    Exactly a montha go I put HybridCarFreak.com - Most Useful Hybrid Car Resource Website online. Since the first day, I am struggling to get some visitors. I published a couple of articles to Ezinearticles and I submitted a PR to over 50 websites. But I still can't get visitors.

    On the day when I submitted the PR I got 40 uniques, the next day just 30 and yesterday only 13.

    The problem is that I am pretty busy with college (plus I am on the tennis team, and we have practice every day), and I just can't submit articles daily to EA and other article site...

    What is your advice to get some more traffic? Do you think my site has potential?

    Thank you so much and God bless you!

    P.S.
    Im not a quitter, but since I am short of time, I thought about selling the website. How much could I get for the site? Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author mysteryleaves
    try adding your links a directory or a few it should help
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  • Profile picture of the author BilB
    Hi Gary,

    You have a good product here. Your site looks clean. I think you may just need to invest a little more time and money to the project. I think SEO would be the cheapest way to build traffic. You may consider a link building contest (or giveaway).

    You could announce your contest on several blogs or PRs. Then after some time frame that you specify, randomly draw a website that has linked to you.

    This may involve a little more time than you want to spend, but if the prize(s) is compelling enough, you will get a lot of sites linking to you.

    Obviously this isn't your only option when it comes to SEO, but I think it might be something to look into. I hope I have been able to help in someway. Keep up the good fight.

    Bil
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  • Profile picture of the author richpeck
    Think outside the box.
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris Monty
      Be patient. Write articles. Write press releases. Do some social bookmarking. Start "Sphining" it. Get backlinks.

      Eventually you will have a "tsunami" of traffic (sorry, I just love saying that).
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