How long does it take to get good traffic?

[rosyanne]

This is probably a silly question. Since I am new, I don't know what to expect. My site was online 2 months ago and I've submit it to many web directors and ask for link exchange(no one seems interested in swap a link with me). Anyway, I am getting average 50 views a day now. Does that mean that my site has some major problem or it is normal? (Most traffics are from my blog and other forums that I am related with.) Little traffic from SEOs.

Thanks,
Anne

[jbinbpt]

Hi Anne,
There are so many factors involved, but it's ok to start slow. You indicate some traffic from SE's so thats a good sign.
Now would be a good time to review your site for the easy things.

Does the code valdiate? Run all your pages through this [validator.w3.org...]
Run the site through a search engine simulation. This will tell you what the SE's see. [searchengineworld.com...]

Have you submitted to DMOZ? Does not hurt?

[rosyanne]

Have you submitted to DMOZ? Does not hurt?

Hum...submit alot...not sure which one is that?

And thanks for the input...looks like I have some work to do now. lol

[jbinbpt]

DMOZ Is the Open Directory Project.
[dmoz.org...]

The mother of all directories. Their data is the seed for alot of other directories.

[rosyanne]

DMOZ Is the Open Directory Project.
[dmoz.org...]

I think I did that one.

[Animated]

i think 2 months and 50 hits a day arent so bad just like the old saying 'if you build it they will come'
in my opinion it depends on the SE's. check if all your pages are indexed . For google its gonna take the longest to get traffic from , some good incoming links to your site would help.I would check the websites logs and check what keywords people use more often and focus my content on that and would be good if you havent done that already to check your SERP's positions on all the search engines, see where you stand and where your compitition stands DMOZ is good one, also if your site is a non commercial one have you tried the yahoo directory yet? you can use it for free but if its a business site there is a fee.

[anand84]

jbinbpt,

I dont know if Validator is a really handy tool. Well, as a newbie I heard about that tool for the first time only when you said it and checked it out. It pointed to a few errors, like i did not close a table tag etc, which I infact had done, at a later part of the program.

By the way, validating Google gives 50 errors.

[truezeta]

I have a lot of errors according to that validation tool. I will have to work out the kinks in due time, and figure out exactly what they mean {{sigh}}! I am a clinical social worker not a web developer so I have a lot to learn :-( At any rate, my page is in most search engines, so maybe I'm doing something right.

[Inquire]

I tried that site validator and got 8 errors and a message that says: This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional!
Don't know have a clue what that means and don't understand the explanations behind most of the errors. How useful is that, if we can't fix what is supposedly wrong?

[MichaelBluejay]

I think you all are sending Rosyanne down the wrong page.

The FIRST question to ask is: How much traffic should a site of (a) this quality, and (b) this age expect to get? 50 visits a day isn't bad for a brand-new site that does no advertising, has little content, and doesn't provide something of excellent value.

My suggestions are:

(1) Focus on quality. Make your site *truly useful*, and *better than your competitors'*.
(2) Add content. Write at least one new *quality* article per week.
(3) Link to the best related sites. It's unlikely that you're the only good source for the kind of info you have. Find the very best related sites and link to them, not just from a Links page, but from the content pages that relate to them.
(4) Ask for links from quality sites. Once your site is truly worth linking to, ask for links from the quality sites that you already linked to. Do NOT ask for a link exchange. You should link out based on merit only, not on whether someone links back to you. Do NOT threaten to remove a link because another site doesn't link back.

You will hear from naysayers here that say that link exchanges are great, but consider two things: (1) That hasn't worked for you, as you said. (2) I have *never* done link trades and I get plenty of traffic for all my various sites. I did it by focusing on building quality sites, not by begging links from other webmasters.

[Inquire]

I want to add one more thing about that site validator. Other than the fact that most of us (and I suspect many experts as well), don't understand the lingo of the errors, try running any hugely popular website through it, and tons of errors will show up. I say: so what? It doesn't seem to affect their traffic or their rankings, so I question how useful it is.

[LostOne]

"I have a lot of errors according to that validation tool."

So do the top visited English websites. Traffic rankings taken from Alexa. Dated 12/15/05

1- yahoo 257 errors
2- msn.com 0 errors
3- google.com 51 errors
4- ebay.com 223 errors
5- passport.net 63 errors
6- amazon.com failed- no reason or numbers
7- msn.com 0 errors
8- myspace.com 49 errors
9- www.google.co.uk 48 errors
10-aol.com 270 errors

[Inquire]

LostOne - precisely my point. Interesting that msn.com was the only one without errors.