🤩 I Created a Website!
The 27th of April, 2016: I was happy with the work I’d done on my website and decided it was finally time to unveil it to the public. I shared a link with all my friends and family, posted on social media and was getting an overwhelming amount of positive feedback; I was on top of the world. The very next day I checked my Google Analytics account and was amazed to see that my website had received 109 page views on its very first day.
The next day brought in 25 new page views, followed by 14; on the 30thof April, however, my page views were down to 0. That’s right, not even a single person had viewed my website! Reality sank in, and I quickly realised that with so many websites already out there it was not going to be easy to get noticed.
How Do I Get My Website Noticed?
At this point, I began to research Google to see what other successful people had done before me. I found countless articles on how to “Grow Traffic Fast” and “Get 10,000 Backlinks,” all of which seemed like scams. The more I read, the more I learned that most people online are just writing about fluff and good experiences after they’ve already gained traffic to their website, but there are very few talking about the daily grind at the start.
The first step I decided to take was to add my website to as many web directories as possible. I’ve read conflicting views on whether or not these still help boost page rank, but at this time I had no backlinks and needed to try something. I searched all over for web directories that offered free submissions and focused only on ones with a domain authority score of 35 or higher. I’ve actually compiled a list of the Top 50 Free Web Directories since most lists I found online were either outdated, contained broken links, or listed directories that only accepted paid submissions.
I then needed to layer on additional back-links and try a new approach. I decided that I would reach out to a variety of established websites in my niche which had resource pages dedicated to providing links to other websites.
I started using a website called Rank Signals and plugged in some competitor websites to see the websites they had backlinks on. I searched through the results looking for any URL that contained words like “resources” or “links”; I then contacted the owner of the website and inquired about adding a link to my website as well. I also tried various Google searches to seek out websites that contained similar pages. The most promising results appeared when I searched using keywords like the ones below:
Keyword/yourCompetitorName + “resources”
Keyword/yourCompetitorName + “links”
An Email Campaign to Gain Backlinks
Following up on this approach, I wound up constructing and sending out emails to over 200 different website owners using the following template:
Hello,
I’ve really enjoyed your website and felt a lot of your information was incredibly well written and informative. While on your website I noticed you have a Resources and Links page where you provide links to great resources and I wanted to pass along a link to my website called Create Your Websites.
Link: https://createyourwebsites.com
It is a free step-by-step tutorial designed for non-technical users teaching them how to create their own website in 4 simple and easy to follow steps.
Feel free to check out my website and let me know if you feel others could benefit from this resource. I’d love it if you would be kind enough to include a link to my website on your “Links” page.
In total, I received a response from 27 owners, 14 of which added a link to my URL. That’s a success rate of 6.57%, which I personally think is great.
I’m still learning as I go and will continue to share my experiences (both positive and negative) as I try additional methods to gain traffic to my website.
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