Why traffic keeps your online business alive
If there is one thing I have learned after many years of building businesses online, it is that traffic is extremely important. I often say that traffic is the blood of our industry because without it, nothing really happens. You can have the best website, the best product and the best offer in the world, but if nobody sees it, you are not going to make sales. I was asked recently why traffic is so important, and I thought it was a good question because when you first start online, it can be quite confusing. There are so many different ways to get traffic, and it takes time to work out what actually suits you.
Having A Blog Is Like An ATM As Long As You Are Consistent
There are so many ways to get traffic
There are plenty of traffic sources available to us today. You have social media such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X, as well as YouTube, which is probably one of my best traffic sources. I also use Facebook quite a bit, and then you have Google, paid advertising, email marketing, Reddit and other online communities. The good thing is that you don’t have to rely on just one method. You can experiment with different sources and see what works for your business and your audience.
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The problem is that I see so many people try something for a few weeks, don’t see much happening and then give up. Unfortunately, most things online don’t work that quickly. You have to learn what you are doing, test different methods and keep working at it. Traffic is something you build over time, and once you understand that, you have a much better chance of sticking with it.
I believe having your own blog is important
One thing I strongly recommend is having your own blog or website. The reason is simple. You need somewhere that you control. Social media is great and I use it myself, but you are still building your business on somebody else’s platform. Accounts can be restricted or disabled, algorithms can change and platforms can suddenly change the way they work. I’ve seen how quickly things can change online, which is one of the reasons I like having my own website.
For me, my blog is my base. I can put my own content on there, talk about things I have experience with and promote different products and services. I can also create different income streams from the same website. That’s what I really like about having a blog. You are not tied to one product or one business opportunity. You are building an asset that can support different parts of your online business.
Your blog can do more than you think
For example, I might write an article about how to build a blog and someone finds it because they are interested in blogging. They might then look around my website and find another article about getting traffic, email marketing or affiliate marketing. Perhaps they are interested in a product or service that I personally use. You never really know where someone is going to come from or what they are going to be interested in, which is why I like having different subjects and different income streams on my website.
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You can almost get two bites of the cherry. Someone might come to your website looking for one thing and then discover something else that interests them. But there is one important point here. Your content has to be useful. You can’t just throw a load of articles onto a website and expect people to keep coming back. You need to give people a reason to read your content and a reason to trust what you are saying.
A blog doesn’t magically bring you traffic
This is something I think a lot of people misunderstand when they first start blogging. They build a website, write five or ten articles and then wonder why they aren’t getting thousands of visitors. It doesn’t work like that. A blog is like anything else you build in business. You have to work at it. You need to create useful content, understand what people are searching for, learn how to promote your content and give the website time to grow.
I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’m still learning. Things change all the time online, and what worked a few years ago might not work in exactly the same way today. That is part of the game. You learn something, try it, see what happens and then make improvements. There have been plenty of times when I’ve published something and later realised it needed changing. That’s just part of building a website.
You have to learn SEO and keyword research
If you want organic traffic from Google, then you need to learn about SEO, which simply means search engine optimisation. It can sound complicated when you first hear about it, but you learn as you go. One of the most important areas is keyword research because you need to understand what people are actually searching for. What questions are they asking? What problems are they trying to solve? What information are they looking for?
Those are the things I think about when creating content. I also use Google Search Console to keep an eye on what is happening with my website. It gives you useful information about your pages and how they are performing, and it can also highlight areas where you need to make improvements. I’ve made plenty of mistakes myself, including writing articles that were too similar to other content or publishing something that needed more work. You live and learn.
Your content needs to be your own
This is even more important now that we have AI tools. I use ChatGPT and I think it is a brilliant tool because it can save you a lot of time and help you get your ideas down. But I don’t believe you should simply take something produced by AI and put it straight onto your blog. You need to make it your own and add your own experience, opinions and personality.
I can talk about online business because I’ve actually been doing it for years. I’ve tried different things, I’ve made mistakes, I’ve had things work and I’ve had things fail. So when I write an article, I can bring some of that experience into it. That’s what I want people to see when they visit my blog. I don’t want everything to sound like it was written by a robot. I want people to feel that there is a real person behind the website.
I think this is one of the biggest advantages you have as a blogger. You don’t have to pretend that you know everything. In fact, telling people about the things you’ve struggled with can sometimes be more useful than pretending everything has been easy. We all have our own experiences, and that is what can make your content different from hundreds of other websites talking about the same subject.
Don’t forget your internal links
Another thing I recommend when you have a blog is linking your articles together. If I write an article about getting traffic, for example, I might link to another article I’ve written about blogging. If I write about email marketing, I might link to something else I’ve written about building an email list. This gives visitors a reason to explore more of your website instead of reading one article and disappearing.
Internal links can also help search engines understand how the different pages on your website are connected. If you regularly write about a particular subject and your articles link to one another naturally, you are creating a much better structure for your website. So don’t just publish an article and forget about it. Look back through your older content and see where you can naturally connect it to something new.
An email list is another important traffic source
There is another thing I think people should be doing, and that is building an email list. I see people promoting businesses all the time by simply putting a link straight to a sales page. Someone clicks the link, looks at the offer, decides they aren’t interested and that’s it. You’ve lost them.
That’s why I like using an opt-in page. Instead of sending someone directly to the offer, you can give them a reason to join your email list first. They can then look at the product or opportunity, but even if they decide it isn’t for them, you have another way of keeping in touch with them, assuming they have given you permission to email them.
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Maybe they aren’t interested in your first offer. That’s fine. Six months later, you might have something else that is much more suitable for them. You can let them know about it. This is why I believe an email list is so valuable. You don’t want to keep starting from zero every time you have something new to promote.
Your email list can become your own traffic source
I sometimes describe my email list as being like an ATM. Obviously, I’m not saying money magically appears from it. What I mean is that you have built an audience that you can communicate with. If I have something useful to share, I can send an email and bring people back to my website, an article, a YouTube video or an offer.
Of course, you have to provide value. Nobody wants their inbox filled with endless sales messages. If every email you send is simply trying to sell something, people will eventually stop paying attention. I prefer to share useful information, my own experiences and things that I think could genuinely help people. Then, when I do have something worth recommending, they are more likely to take notice.
This is probably one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I use my blog, YouTube, social media, email and organic search traffic, and I’ve also used paid traffic over the years. Every traffic source has advantages and disadvantages, so I don’t think you should depend entirely on one.
Paid traffic can bring visitors quickly, but it can also cost you money. Social media can give you plenty of exposure, but you don’t control the platform. Google can bring you organic visitors, but you need to learn SEO and give it time. YouTube can be fantastic, but you need to keep creating videos. There isn’t one magic traffic source that is going to solve everything for you.
That’s why I like having different strings to my bow. If one source slows down, you still have other ways of reaching people. Over time, those different sources can start working together and create a much stronger business.
You have to be consistent
I probably publish on my blog around twice a week. Sometimes it’s three times and sometimes it’s once, depending on how busy I am. The important thing for me is that I keep adding useful content. You don’t have to publish ten articles every day. You just need to keep moving forward.
I’ve seen people get really excited about blogging, publish a few articles and then give up because they aren’t getting enough traffic. You have to give it a chance. Some articles can take time before they start bringing visitors. You might need to improve them, find better keywords, add internal links or promote them somewhere else. Then, slowly, things can start to build.
This is where patience comes into it. You can’t look at your website after two weeks and decide it doesn’t work. Building traffic is a process. The more you learn, the better you become at creating content that people actually want to read.
Give people a reason to come back
Traffic isn’t just about getting somebody to your website once. You want people to remember you and hopefully come back again. That’s why I believe your content should provide value. Tell people what you know, share your experiences and don’t pretend everything has been perfect.
It hasn’t been perfect for me, and I don’t think it is for anybody building an online business. We all have problems, we all make mistakes and we all have things that don’t work. But that’s what makes the journey real. If someone comes to my blog and gets useful information from it, hopefully they will remember the site and come back again.
That’s what you’re trying to build. An audience, not just a click.
Build your own traffic machine
When I look at my online business today, I don’t see traffic as simply getting somebody to click a link. I see it as building an audience over time. My blog gives me a home base. My YouTube videos can bring people in. Social media can help me reach more people. Google can send organic visitors to my articles, and my email list gives me another way of communicating with people.
All of these things can work together, and that’s why I keep saying that traffic is the blood of your online business. Without traffic, nothing really happens. You can have a great product, a fantastic offer and a brilliant website, but somebody still has to see it.
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So if you’re building an online business, start thinking about traffic from day one. Build your own website, create useful content, learn about keywords and SEO, make videos, use social media and build an email list. Most importantly, keep going and don’t expect everything to happen overnight.
I’ve been doing this for years and I’m still learning new things. That’s just the way online business works. You learn, you test, you make mistakes, you improve and you keep moving forward.
For me, having a blog is one of the best foundations you can have because you are building something of your own. You can create content around different subjects, attract people through different traffic sources and potentially create multiple income streams from the same platform.
It takes work, but so does anything worth building.
Traffic really is the blood of your online business.
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Disclaimer: This article is based on my own experiences and opinions from building online businesses. Results from blogging, affiliate marketing, traffic generation or any other online business method will vary, and there are no guarantees of income.