How to build website traffic without using social media
I recently sent an email to my subscribers talking about how search algorithms work, and included three simple search engine optimisation tips to help content rank higher in search results: link to view the email. Since then, I’ve had a few discussions about how you can build more traffic to your website without using social media.
Like me, I've been hearing that many of you simply don't enjoy social media enough to cultivate more followers and promote new blog posts. You've been paring back both the amount of time you spend there, and cutting the number of accounts in your name. As a side note, if that sounds like familiar, you may like my post: Can your business survive without social media? which includes ten ways to market your business without social media.
In this blog post, I’ll be using my outdoor blog as an example, sharing graphs of web traffic and the strategy I've used to build monthly web views. I started the site in 2014, so have 10 years of data to get a really good picture of what's been happening. And, for a bonus, I’ll share ten ways you can build your web traffic without using social media.
Hint → it's not all about social media 🙌
How much web traffic comes from social media?
This low level of social media activity is leading to a belief that there’s little point in working on SEO to build organic web traffic to your own site. The reason? Because without using social media, where do you share the post links and how do people find out about your website?
Here’s the truth about social media for web traffic
If social media is the main place people learn about your blog posts, then sure, it makes sense that not sharing there will affect the number of visits. But, I urge you to look deeper at your web analytics first before deciding not to give your own website a little TLC. I bet you’ll be surprised.
How to find your web analytics
Ok, I’m sorry, I know most people hate anything to do with web analytics. But even just a quick look can tell you so much.
Squarespace has made it really simple to find your web analytics. Log in, click on your website, and you’ll find ‘Analytics’ in the left hand menu column. It defaults to the last 30 days, but it’s easy to change the time period to whatever you want. I like to look at last month, year to date, and last year. Once the graph comes up, click on the ‘Traffic Sources’ tab to see where those web hits have been coming from.
I’m not sure whether WordPress, Wix, Shopify, etc have the same analytics built in. But, Google Analytics (a free account from Google) will show the same information. There’s also a Google Academy with training to help you learn how to use it.
Social media is usually the lowest traffic source
I’ve been lucky to see analytics from several different sites over the years - both my own, and my clients. From those sites, I can honestly say that social media is usually the lowest traffic source.
To give you a real example, the image below is a screenshot of the 2023 analytics for my Outdoor blog.
The black line is the total number of web visits each month, the orange line is the number of those which came through social media. The only blip is in June and July when I published my blog posts about walking the West Highland Way which were shared on the Macs Adventure Facebook page.
So yes, if a useful link is shared by a hugely popular social media account, it can drive more traffic to your website. But Macs Adventure have over 19.2K followers on their Facebook page, far more than most small business owners are likely to have. As you can see, very little traffic before and after those months came via social media.
An insight into my blogging strategy
If very few web visits are coming from social media, how did 17K people find and visit the website that year? Honestly, it’s not ground breaking stuff so I hope you’re not disappointed when you scroll down!
Write and publish interesting/helpful posts at least once a month, sometimes every other week.
If I really wanted to grow traffic to the site, I’d ideally be publishing something a couple of times a week. But there’s a caveat here - only if it’s helpful and useful content. There’s absolutely no point in posting something for the sake of it because that usually means low value, cringeworthy content because you’re scrapping around for something to talk about. That’s bad news for your readers and your search results.
Make some simple SEO tweaks.
This means including things like headings, sub-headings, bullet points, meta descriptions, and using simple keywords. Before you get overwhelmed by what the heck a keyword is, it’s just the words people are typing into a search box to find the thing you’re writing about. Read: How to write SEO-friendly blog posts
Share any published posts with my email subscribers.
I do this before the links are posted anywhere else. It’s my way of saying thank you to people for joining my community of subscribers. Join my email list here
Share on social media.
I share most of my blog post links on Instagram as a post and story, although I will have missed some when I’ve taken a social media break. Occasionally, I’ll also share on LinkedIn but often forget. My strategy is very hit and miss (not something I recommend - do as I say, not as I do!) which the algorithms hate - in other words, my posts are seen less than others who share content regularly.
That’s pretty much it.
Sometimes things do well because of luck. Although I’m a firm believer that luck often comes as a side result of the hard work I’ve put in over the years.
For example, the analytics for my Outdoor blog hit 3K this January. One post did particularly well and, whilst I knew it had great information, I wasn’t sure initially why there had been a surge in visits.
I later found out that a link to the post UK Mountain Adventure Film Festivals in 2024 had been included in a newsletter from Marvellous Maps. They have a huge email list and, when they came across the post, thought their subscribers would find it useful. I didn’t ask them to do it, although that would have been a great strategy, but I’m very thankful. My web analytics correspondingly show a rise in email as a traffic source in January.
In reality, building traffic for your website isn’t some amazing grand science.
It’s about being consistent.
It’s about writing useful, interesting, entertaining, and helpful content.
It’s about making it easy for search engines to crawl your website.
It’s also about playing the long game.
Organic SEO can take years, but then delivers results for years
I get it. It’s so easy to become despondent when you have a website and the views are less than 100 a month. But that’s where we all start.
I can remember the early days when very few people read my outdoor blog. It was probably just immediate family and good friends. All that effort, for no results. But I carried on because I still loved writing the blog posts even if nobody ever saw them.
Like most people, I started my outdoor blog with a free WordPress.com website. The image below shows the analytics from starting it in 2014 (I can’t remember the month) until I transferred it to Squarespace in the middle of 2020.
I had a grand total of 35 views and 18 visitors in 2014. It went up to 2,665 views the following year, which I thought was amazing. The maximum annual views over those six-ish years was 6,563 in 2019.
I'll let you into a secret too. I had so much family stuff going on in 2019 that I only posted nine times that year. In 2020, I posted twice, and one of those was to say the site was being revamped and moved to Squarespace.
SEO kept bringing views to my website
In a bizarre twist, I decided to close my outdoor blog down in 2020 because it had been so long since I’d published anything on the site. But, when I logged in to do the deed, I was surprised to see how many people were still finding and reading the old posts.
I'd not shared anything for months, maybe even a year, so it was good old SEO that was keeping those views coming in. The post which was doing especially well had been written in 2014 - yup, a six year old post was bringing people to read my website without me sharing anything about it during that time. Strangely enough, ten years on and it still brings new visitors to my website. Here it is, although remember I’ve learned much more about how to write a good blog post in those ten years : 5 favourite climbing destinations in Europe
When I realised how many people still wanted to read my content, I changed my mind about closing the site. In 2020, I rebuilt it on Squarespace, bringing the archive blog posts over from WordPress.
But, again, life got in the way and I’ve really only been publishing consistently on the site since April 2023. I sometimes wonder what the growth would have looked like if I’d been doing that since 2014.
Ten ways to build your website traffic without using social media
If you’ve stuck with me this long, well done! Here’s your reward - ten tips to bring traffic to your website, and all without using social media 🎉
Be consistent, and keep writing regular blog posts even when you think nobody is reading them.
Answer popular search requests.
Write high-quality content, which is informative, valuable, and well-researched.
Understand your readers, what do they want to see from you.
Create long-form blog posts of over 1,000 words, which give more value and comprehensive information (but no waffling to pad things out).
Use keywords - search terms people are using - especially ones over 4 words as they’re less competitive.
Optimise your blog posts for search engines.
How to write SEO-friendly blog posts
How to improve your website’s search rankingSend regular email newsletters - people who sign up to your newsletter are people who want to hear from you.
Write guest blog posts and use this to cross promote your own blog, giving you valuable backlinks.
Think about your web design and functionality. People want to see a modern looking, easy to navigate website, which is fast to load, and responds automatically when on different devices.
Above all, be patient!
As you can see by my early website analytics, organic SEO is not a quick fix. But consistency does pay off.
Further support
Check the SEO and Writing & blogging categories of this website to pick up more helpful blog posts.
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