How I Got Over 2,000 Visitors In The First Week With $0

by David Pitlyuk in Business, Blogging, and Web Sites | 21 Comments

Now that my blog has been live for over a week, I think it’s time to look back at how the traffic was. 2,245 unique visitors and 2,934 pageviews (Monday 3/12 through Sunday 3/18).

Traffic for the site in the first week

You can see a spike in traffic mid-week, this was due to some of the blog posts getting some promotion multiple days in a row. Even though there is a huge drop in traffic afterwards, I retained some visitors, and this is the most important factor. As I continue to post more content, I expect to see the daily average numbers rise.

The top five posts for that week were these:

  1. Dodge Viper Coupe With Matching Helicopter
  2. An Ugly Lamborghini?
  3. Mansion Hunting In Northern Virginia
  4. Home Page
  5. Who is David Pitlyuk?

I figured the Who is David Pitlyuk? page made it into the top 5 only because people are new to this blog and want to know more about the author.

So where did the traffic come from, and how did I get so much for nothing? The majority of it came from just a select few forums that I am a member of, and just posting in off topic sections. Here’s a list of some of the top referrers:

  1. My350Z - A message board community for Nissan 350Z’s
  2. AutoBlog - A popular automotive blog, owned by Weblogs
  3. G35Driver - A message board community for Infiniti G35’s
  4. NissanClub - A message board community for Nissan vehicles
  5. Maxima.org - A message board community for Nissan Maxima’s
  6. ViperClub - A message board community for Dodge Viper’s
  7. Digg - A user generated news site

I am a member of many other message board communities as well, so I can still do a good amount of promoting on those, and I plan to. When doing something like this, you must make sure of a few things:

  1. Do not spam the forum. I tried to post on relevant message boards that would find the topics interesting. I did not post everything that I wrote about on this site, just specific topics that I thought people on the forums would like. For example, I posted about the Dodge Viper With A Matching Helicopter in “Off Topic > Other Vehicles” forums on a car-oriented site.
  2. I typically do not like to register for a forum just to make a post about something I wrote. People normally consider that spamming, and you don’t want them to have a negative opinion of your blog. I like to add to a community I am already a part of, and have been posting for a while. If you aren’t a part of any message boards, consider finding one of something that interests you, and join.
  3. One way to generate more clicks is to give a teaser picture. For example I wrote about my Lamborghini Art post, but rather than just having some text, I posted one of the pictures from the article (which linked to my page of course) as well as the link and a blurb. Seeing something visual will help your click rates, which in turn generates more traffic for your blog.

Other than posting on forums, I also submitted relevant posts to relevant sites. I sent over my Viper With A Matching Helicopter post to Autoblog, and they ended up writing about it. That brought over hundreds of unique visitors. RealEstate Undressed posted about my Mansion Hunting In Northern Virginia article. As long as you write good, original content, there will more than likely be other people interested in reading what you have to say. If they link back to you, it brings you traffic, new visitors, and a better ranking in the eyes of sites like Technorati and Google. My point is that had I not sent my links their way, it would have probably never been written about, and that’s a lot of benefits I would have lost out on. I also submitted select posts to user generated news sites such as Digg and Netscape. Even if the submission don’t make it onto the front page, it does generate some traffic.

Last, but not least, I sent links out to friends that I thought may be interested in the content. Word of mouth is easily the greatest form of advertising (and flattery) out there. Word of mouth is how sites like YouTube end up getting big enough to be bought up by Google for 1.65 BILLION dollars.

Just make sure you are writing good content, and you are doing it consistently. By following this simple rule, you will see traffic to your site get bigger and bigger. Have some other suggestions for generating free traffic? Feel free to post your comments below.

March 19th, 2007|21 Comments| Share/Bookmark This Post

Comments

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  1. IndoDX

    03/21/2007 5:33 pm

    Wow… Nice tips David… Thanks

  2. Bob

    03/21/2007 6:23 pm

    It cost me $25 but I got over 10,000 users in a day :)

    http://bobmeetsworld.com/images/stats.jpg

  3. David Pitlyuk

    03/21/2007 6:25 pm

    Bob - so spill the beans…how did you get so much traffic in the one day for $25?

  4. Bob

    03/21/2007 6:27 pm

    http://bobmeetsworld.com/?p=32

  5. David Pitlyuk

    03/21/2007 6:31 pm

    Excellent idea! My question is what did you do to promote that? And did you do anything to keep visitors coming back even after somebody submitted the screenshot? Did you wait a little while to display the comment with the winning answer before announcing there was a winner? This way people were still actively going to the site and sending in the answer?

  6. ketyung

    03/21/2007 8:27 pm

    I did try those like blazingtraffic.com b4 on some other websites of mine it cost me about $20 for 10,000 over a month. But I wonder if they’re genuine. I could be only those pop-up and pop-under..

  7. Wealth Building Lessons

    03/21/2007 8:33 pm

    great tips. I’ll try that to promote my new site.

  8. Deb

    03/21/2007 10:00 pm

    Wow…Big burst of traffic to start, nice!

  9. Cognoscente

    03/21/2007 11:58 pm

    Very useful tips; I will definitely put them to use since I’m already a member on sites with the demographics I’m hoping to pull in.

  10. KCLau

    03/22/2007 1:36 am

    Thanks for your sharing! Now I know where to start promoting my blog!

  11. jaatendi

    03/22/2007 4:15 am

    thankyou! I am definitely going to get more into forums now. cheers!

  12. Bob

    03/22/2007 7:32 am

    Only “promotion” was a link on reddit, I did wait a couple of hours with announcing the winner but I should have waited longer by the looks of it :)

  13. GpsNews

    03/23/2007 8:31 am

    I used “post to your niche forums” tips also and I’ve received a great number of visitors. It’s a great promotional tool but be ware to not abuse it !

  14. stubsy

    03/23/2007 9:28 am

    Great Information cheers

  15. Kelvin

    01/28/2008 12:02 pm

    Guess it lots of hard work. I have already started my site, and it’s too late to post in forum. I need time to get myself ‘known’ there. Is there a quick way to just boost the traffic for a while as I build us the more correct methods?

  16. David Pitlyuk

    01/28/2008 12:05 pm

    @Kelvin - You can try and write some content that is viral…if you can get it on social networking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, you generate a quick boost in traffic.

  17. Kelvin

    01/28/2008 12:23 pm

    Hi David, my website has a lot of original articles (ok, not a lot yet but it’s building up), so that counts as contents right? What do you mean by getting it on Digg or StumbleUpon? Do you mean I ‘digg’ it myself? Or hope somebody elses does? Sorry, am really new at this SEO/traffic thing. As you probably guess, my previous websites don’t take off at all, but I really like this current one, and has spend lots of efforts on it. Sort of like a unfulfilled dream for me. So really hope to do a lot more to get it flying. Any help is much appreciated.

  18. David Pitlyuk

    01/28/2008 1:05 pm

    Of course, but you should really research and see what gets popular on social sites like that. You can Digg yourself, but your chances of getting something to the front page are minimal…you’ll want to create an account, and be an active member (aka digg content you like, post comments, submit content that’s not just yours)…it takes time, but it’s good to have an active account.

    Same with StumbleUpon…except if your content is good and you stumble it yourself (which is ok as long as you are an active member), your chances are higher to generate traffic from SU (at least from my past experiences)…on top of that, I think SU traffic is better than Digg traffic, and over time it can actually amount to more.

    There is a lot of content on the web (including this blog) in terms of generating more traffic, from social sites, to SEO. It’s tough, but do your research, work hard, put out consistent good content, and it will come. Just don’t expect it overnight.

  19. Kelvin

    01/28/2008 1:08 pm

    Thanks David. I will follow your advice and do it the hard way. I guess that’s the better way in the long term. I know I should have started long ago, but it’s never too late. Will hunt around your site (and others) for more wonderful tips. Thanks again!

  20. David Pitlyuk

    01/28/2008 1:11 pm

    Sounds good, best of luck! If you have any specific questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

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