Why Your Developed Domain (Website) Isn’t Getting Any Traffic

It’s a problem that many Domainers encounter when they start to move into the development game, they build a site, start adding fresh content, but after a few months they still aren’t getting any traffic, what gives? The problem is a fundamental misunderstanding about website development, SEO, and content. I’ve written about this topic before but it came up so much with people that I spoke with at TRAFFIC that I thought it would be important to cover it again.

Here’s the deal. Content is king. Yes, it’s still true and it’s not going to change anytime soon. You need great content. However great content, even updated daily, doesn’t mean you’ll get a steady flow of traffic, it just means you have what it takes to play the game. Think of a website with great content as a piece of land with a house on it. The problem is the house doesn’t have any roads leading to it so while over time it may turn-into a 36 bedroom mega-mansion, nobody knows it exists.

The same is true with websites and the roads are backlinks. Great content won’t do you much good if your site is out on page 8 of Google for your targeted search terms. In order for people to find your site you need to be on page one, not page two or three, page one. To get to page one of Google you need a few solid backlinks from reliable sources.

I find the missing link (some pun intended) for most Domainers getting into development is how to find these backlinks. One of the best ways to find good backlinks is to look at the sites that are currently on the first page of Google and seeing what backlinks are helping them out the most. The great thing about link profiles is they are completely public and free to view. Using a tool like SEOMoz’s OpenSiteExplorer you can view the backlink profile of a site and look at the “Page Authority” and “Domain Authority” of the backlinks coming to that site as well as the anchor text being used in the link. Here’s an example with CarInsurance.com:

car_insurance_link_profile

So if you’ve just finished shelling over a few thousand dollars for a nice new site and you’re paying content writers to add fresh content every week, congratulations, you are doing the right thing. However, what you’re doing isn’t going to bring your traffic, you have built the house, it’s getting bigger, but now it’s time to build the roads to it so people can see what you’ve built.

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton