Note: This article was updated in February, 2013 and I’ve added a screenshot of the traffic from Jan-Feb, 2013. Traffic stats are below. Also see the updated article here.
I couldn’t wait to write this post because the results I’m about to show you probably go against many of your opinions about search engine optimization today.
If you’ve been following me closely, you already know I’m not a fan of aggressive backlink building.
I’ve always found it to be a tedious task that leads to short term results for the most part.
Having said that, I’m not against SEO and focusing on the right kind of backlink building.
For example, growing your brand and building relationships by writing guest posts on high quality, relevant blogs or any kind of natural link building that abides by Google’s guidelines is fine.
I just personally don’t believe in spending loads of time chasing backlinks.
As a result, a lot of people have criticized my stance on this, stating that I never had to focus on it much because some of my sites are mature and have an advantage.
While having an early start played a tremendous role in my success, I am still finding that today, quality content in the right niche still works for SEO.
I can’t write a post like this without mentioning how risky it is to rely completely on search engine optimization — especially today. So as you read through this, please understand that SEO should only be one part of your traffic plan.
My Little Experiment
In July, 2011 I created a new WordPress authority niche website as an experiment to see how far a website could get today by just writing content and doing absolutely no backlink building whatsoever.
To be honest, I didn’t expect the site to do well and I will reveal the traffic results below.
Some of you are not going to like this part, but I made the decision not to reveal the site to anyone (at least not yet) and my name or any other identifying details (Adsense ID, company name, etc.) are not associated with the website or domain records.
Although, I am using my picture because I just don’t like faceless websites. 😉
Why So Anonymous?
First of all, I don’t want any mentions/links on my sites to skew the results. Second, I am getting tired of seeing my content scraped, copied and plastered all over the place.
Of course this is not going to completely prevent that from happening, but it will cut down a lot of it.
Being transparent has its advantages and I have no regrets because it builds credibility and a loyal following. However, there are obvious disadvantages, and for this experiment I have chosen to keep it hush-hush. 😉
Pat Flynn recently wrote about this same issue on his blog where he decided not to reveal one of his newer websites after so many people tried to duplicate one of his experimental websites. I completely understand where he’s coming from. So I decided to take a leaf out of his book and keep this one quiet — especially while I experiment to keep the results from being skewed.
Traffic Reports
Even though I won’t reveal the site, I will at least share some statistics you may find interesting. Here is what the traffic looked like for the past month…
Here’s an update from February, 2013. Traffic is still increasing gradually. I’ve added roughly 20 pages since this post was originally published (6 months ago).
This is not a huge increase by any means, but it’s not bad considering how little time I spend on this site.
For the record, this screenshot was taken from the WordPress.com Stats plugin. That’s what I use to easily access my traffic stats right from the WordPress admin panel.
More Things to Note
– Even though I am not actively/manually building backlinks, the site is earning them naturally through other blogs who link to various articles. So I’m not saying you don’t need backlinks. I’m just saying you don’t have to chase them. Slow, natural and steady is what Google loves.
– The site has about 120 pages and posts combined, and I have no real publishing schedule/pattern. I spend about 2-3 hours on the site per month. Seriously.
– Most of the traffic is from Google, but it also receives quite a few visits from Facebook. Of course, I cannot see the actual referring page on Facebook in my reports (I hate that!), but it’s probably from people sharing the content on their walls. I do not have a Facebook business page for the site.
– I didn’t do much number crunching with keyword research. Most of the search engine traffic is from a variety of longtail phrases instead of competitive keywords.
– The site is not overly optimized. In other words, I don’t go overboard with keyword repetition and I made sure to vary my anchor text (text inside hyperlinks) when linking internally.
– Bing and Yahoo are also drawing more traffic than usual, which I found quite interesting. Perhaps it has to do with the niche and the audience demographic preferring Bing over Google? I have no way of knowing for sure.
– Once again, I’ve taken the tutorial route with my approach to this website. As you know, this has worked so well in the past, and I love teaching. So I continue to use that style as opposed to just posting generic information and re-reporting facts.
– I’ve chosen another niche where I can use my own personal life experience with the subject to educate and inform.
– So far the site has escaped all Panda and Penguin updates.
– I did manually submit to Google and Bing/Yahoo and also created sitemaps for each engine.
– I’m not using AdSense (it’s not a good niche for CPC ads at all) but I am selling sponsor ads and monetizing with affiliate programs.
Backlinks?
As I’ve already mentioned, I have just focused on writing content instead of searching for backlinks — which is what I normally do. But what is most surprising to me is the Google traffic I’ve received compared to the minimal number of backlinks I’ve earned.
Right now, there are only a handful of sites linking in according to Google Webmaster Tools, and a couple of sites that are just scraping my RSS feed and displaying my posts.
Why Does Google Love The Site?
Could the mild success and traffic gains be a result of the penalties other sites have incurred from unnatural linking, etc?
I’m not sure.
I haven’t spent too much time observing what my competitors are doing. The traffic growth has been very gradual but steady, and I didn’t see any major jumps in traffic with any algorithm updates.
My main goal was to see how a website would perform in Google today without doing any manual link building.
Google seems to be less concerned about the quantity of your backlinks and more interested in the quality, diversification and how natural your backlink patterns are.
After all, the Penguin update really decreased the SEO influence of many types of backlinks.
To Sum it Up…
Don’t get me wrong. The moral of they story here is not to just focus on SEO to build a business. I was just trying to make a point that you can still receive good traffic from Google without obsessing over backlinks and just focusing on quality content.
There’s nothing wrong with targeting the engines for traffic. I mean… you have to start somewhere, right? As I mentioned, you just need a plan to diversify beyond SEO if you want longevity.
As I continue to emphasize, my overall business is not SEO dependent thanks to my forum, multiple YouTube channels, residual income, social media (especially Facebook), my email list, offline consulting (occasionally) etc. I’ve diversified my income and traffic sources to give myself a great deal of stability.
I hope you are planning to do the same.
Also, finding the right niche and angle is key too. Yes, the Net is incredibly saturated with websites, but a lot of the content out here is poor quality and created with minimal effort.
I don’t exactly buy the “net-is-too-saturated” claim as a reason for failure. This experiment definitely proves that.
So the door is still wide open for high quality, useful websites. The angle you take is what will set you apart and get you going in the right direction.
Never underestimate the power of establishing your unique position in a well-defined niche!
Check out the update on this site’s traffic here.
THIS IS VERY INTERESTING. I, TOO, HATE THE IDEA OF RUSTLING UP BACKLINKS.
WITH A NEW BLOG, HOW MANY TIMES SHOULD I BE POSTING EACH WEEK TO GET MORE PAGE VIEWS?
Hi Jane
You have to find your rhythm as a blogger, but the key is only post when you have something useful to share. Yes, I agree posting 3-4 times per week on a new blog can be a good way to build up your readership. But don’t sacrifice quality for quantity. I don’t believe there is a set number. Just get a feel by posting a few times a week and see how it goes. Your views will be impacted by how relevant and useful your posts are to the audience you’re writing for — and of course how you market them. Good luck!
I’d like to ask if you could help with driving some traffic to my website, we have been making several changes and are in the final stages until we start promoting again.
Hello Lisa, Thanks for sharing your success about getting 100,100 monthly pageviews. It seems a difficult task to get 100,000 pageviews monthly but you did it. Hope my blog will also reach this target soon but it need hard work. I will looking forward to follow your tips and get my blog on right way.
Will you marry me? Lol, I loved the case study, and i hope you do another one. Gives me some hope, its hard to deal with all this black hat back linking or the big companies that just pay for backlinks…
I agree with you Lisa. That’s what I believe in. I too don’t think that Google would be stupid enough to give such higher preference to backlinks when its not such an unknown fact that many number of websites simply outsource the task of creating backlinks to get them for SEO purpose. I am also looking forward to put up quality content on my website for getting traffic and I hope it works for me as it did for you.
Great article, excellent info. However, it doesn’t work for everyone. Being a web design agency, competing in the Google ranks in this industry is extremely difficult, its cut-throat. I too hate backlinking, but its a task I feel I have to do being in this industry. But still, for most, what you say is very true. Good relevant content and natural backlinks are best for SEO by far.
Great to hear that you do such a tremendes job just to see what is the reaction of the search engine.
Thanks for you share your answher with as. Kipe like that!!
Awesome man…
Keep it up…i am also planning to do the same
It is definitely true that you can still build a large, consistent stream of traffic just by writing and providing high quality content, rather than by focusing on backlinks. While backlinks are obviously very important, Google has been focusing on making very high quality content gain more authority, and this was one of the main reasons for both the Penguin and the Panda updates.
High quality content will provide a steady stream of highly targeted traffic and improve a website’s, a blog’s or even a specific webpage’s rankings in the search engines very quickly!
Interesting. I will try your methods and see if it works for me. In the web world, each and every online based business needs traffic for its promotion. Even if you have the best product, the best website and everything else you need to make it the best business out there BUT if the webpage lacks traffic, the business will not do so well. Thus, sending traffic to your website is necessary for a business to carry on effectively and profitably.
Huge traffic without build back links is possible and that’s only for SMO i.e Social media optimization.
I started blogging a month ago and am up to 15 posts. Using mainly social media and a little SEO i have just hit 4000 views. I guess ill just keep writing quality content to build up views rather than spending to long on SEO since the blog covers a wide range of topics not a niche as such.
My blog is currently reaching 30,000 Traffic monthly, and a bit slowing down recently. Really need some fresh ideas and new effective ways to build it to another level of achievement, to 60,000 monthly traffics, to 90,000 monthly and eventually 100,000 per month!
Great number you’ve achieve there Lisa. Keep it up. 🙂
my only two questions is what is the SEMrush value of the traffic and if there is no links what links have naturally been linked even if it wasn’t you..
Hey Lisa
My problem is that i get quite a lot pageviews but I have less comments and followers what to do?
Wow. Thanks for tips. Very very helpful tips.
Hi Lisa, Great article. I’ve just recently started my blog and I was googling how to improve ranking and came across your site. I’m so glad I have, otherwise I would be obsessing over backlinks.
i’m number 1 page 1 ranking google no sales yet with my clicbank account ? it’s been 5 days at number 1 now when will the sales come also it’s for sale how much is it worth ? $
ok, nice, seems that I have been heard 🙂
my questions were:
1. have you siloed your site by building categories?
2. if yes, how many did you build?
3. how many articles did you post per day?
thanks and best regards
Hi Lisa,
If it’s not too much trouble, could you take a look at my website http://www.goldenshanty.com ? Since I am not getting any visitors.
Thank you so much
interesting that my comment was not published, I aksed some crucial questions 🙁
Awsome. Thanks for your tips
Lisa, I know you posted the traffic report a month before this article was written, but when did you see a significant increase, I mean like 50-100 visitors a day to about 1000 visitors a day. Sorry I’m a newbie. I just wanted to know when I should expect this if I follow the “seo rules”. Congrats on your success, I love reading your post from time to time.
Hello, But still i am not actually using the power of web. I have started it from last 3 4 months and what i am getting is 20 or 30 page views. Someone told me that use backlinks (Specially i dont even know how to do it) But after reading your article it shows the power of content. if you have any tips please share it.
To the skeptics- I believe that this is great advice. Internet marketing is like a game of chess to me. I would rather be one step ahead of Google in order to protect my business. One wrong move and your income is thrown out the window. Sure article marketing may currently work to a certain extent, but it will not be long until Google slaps those directories with a turkey, horse, or whatever kind of animal Google deems appropriate for its next update. Aiming for quality over quantity is of priority to me. I have come to the conclusion that article directory marketing will only work if manually submitted. Only submit to directories with high PR and avoid article marketing robot at all costs.
Wow, Lisa – you should get yourself hired as a page contents writer with guaranteed SEO effects!
That’s really impressive and very true at the same moment – one won’t get through search engines guts without a decent and differentiated page contents.
ohh very Thanks!!
Awesome!!
Quite interesting write up. I really hope we dont die of information overload online. It just simply shows that there is no brick and mortar method to marketing websites online. Try and see what works for you and also diversify!
Awesome to hear stories like this when a site just takes off naturally, it’s so much easier 🙂
i love it!!
I think , there is a very high competition in todays world and building backlinks is equally necessary along with creating quality content.
WOW, a 100k page views! Only in my dreams. I have tried blogging but too time consuming. I admire you for providing us with such an array of tips and advice. I could NOT do what you do and on a consistent basis. Keep up the good word (and work)!
I will try doing the same thing, hope i get good results like you. Im also problem with backlink in google.com even my site already 1 million ranking
Hi Lisa,
I have been following this post and comments for some time. Just wondering if you got that much traffic without offpage SEO (link building) then your onpage SEO should have been spectacular. What onpage SEO strategy did you follow and which plug in? Hope you answer.
Thanks,
Adnan
This was all onpage. Now, I do have backlinks from other sites that were earned gradually and naturally, but the onpage was very, very white hat. Meaning I pick a phrase to target, use it in the meta title and maybe a variation of it in the page title. I don’t mention it a bunch of times in the copy. I just write naturally using variations of the phrase and related phrases. I interlink the pages quite a bit throughout the site using anchor text and variations of the phrase so it doesn’t look spammy.
Great and very useful information. I will try doing the same thing, hope i get good results like you.
I read a few blogs each day, and some of those are very high page rank and big traffic blogs. What I am amazed at it…. these people have no selling pitch, they blog on their personal interests, they share some of their techniques, they just write whatever is interesting them at the time. I am pretty sure that they are oblivious to keywords as they write the blogs, they just write them.
The readers love the blogs and sign up for whatever.
These writers.. they gain a lot of trust because they are so personable.
AND… these people are the ones that are making the major incomes.!
I have not arrived at that place yet, where I have the ability to communicate effectively with the readers, I can see that there is a big hill for me to climb to be able to blog effectively and engage my visitors.
Great information Lisa, can you provide some insight to an example of the types keywords you use please?
Is there any criteria that you look at when doing keyword research, like competition, Monthly exact visits, CPC etc…??
It seems that if you only have 100 pages/posts and get 100,000 views each keyword must get hundreds of searches a month or so.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Kyle
Kyle, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m not a keyword research person. I don’t do keyword research on every page I create to be honest. I get a general idea for what I want to target and begin writing and I am very conscious about using varieties of the keywords I use.
This is a topic I am very much passionate about. There weren’t too many sites that focused on it in great detail, so I went for it. The overall demand for the topic is probably not what most people would say is “ideal” but because of longtail phrases, that’s what makes the traffic add up. This site is not in a very competitive niche compared to this one and many others.
That’s why I don’t get too bogged down in numbers, stats, etc. If you’re passionate about something and you know there is an audience, go for it. Share your personal experiences with how they relate. When you do a good job, people will share your site. Notice I didn’t say I didn’t have any backlinks. I do and most of them are voluntary. But I don’t chase backlinks. So the success of the site is a combination of content and people linking to me naturally.
But as far as calculating keyword CPC, monthly searches, etc. I don’t even bother with that anymore. I just write, teach and share.
Lisa.. question for you, please.
I have a section on my site about which I have considerable knowledge and could blog as you do, ‘free expression’ style, and I could probably genuinely help people.
This is a SiteBuildIt site….
My question to you……. lol (are you sitting down?)
What is your opinion about writing content and not paying a lot of attention to the ‘Analyze’ parameters, well, to rephrase, what bad things could happen if I depend on longtail keywords in my articles.
I would actually prefer to build content in a free wheeling way, I have a ton of ideas that would not necessarily be in accordance with the SBI! article and page criteria.
Do you have any suggestions for me……..
If I felt I could write whatever comes into mind…… wow, freedom for sure, and I could really offer some great ideas for others. I feel bound and restricted by what I have learned to be the page building criteria.
Thanks
Hi Dave
Read my comment above this one. As you can see, I put very little stock into that now with SEO evolving. I choose a phrase I want to target and just mention the keywords naturally and try to use variations. Other than that, I don’t obsess over that anymore. And in my opinion, SBI! needs to revamp their wording/training on that. SEO is becoming less about keyword density and more about social shares, quality backlinks and more.
Hey..!
You so fast to reply. Thanks….
I will start to make pages that are more geared to sharing my knowledge and experience, this will be interesting for me and hopefully to others.
I will benefit and so will my readers if I can simply ‘spew out’ what I feel to be right.
I would so like to be able to write freely, I have a lot of knowledge and experience to share in some areas and sharing that knowledge is far more appealing to me than wondering what the pandas and penguins and seagulls will think.
Thanks for your input.!
daveM
Inspiring article. Wish I could do it.
For you it’s possible. But for a new blogger its Never be so easy to get monthly 100,00 views.
Yeah. I also think that it’s really difficult to get 100,000 views without backlinks.
I never said the site didn’t have backlinks. I said I haven’t been chasing them — big difference. Of course, the site has backlinks.
Hello Lisa,,Thanks for the information and techniques but i would like to know the top number of back-links pointing towards your site if you could provide me??? :). I am just beginner blogger and trying to know how much number of back links do we need to get pr5 as your website..
Hi Shashank,
Your comment here is somewhat irrelevant with the post but anyway, I am a new blooger too and willing to help other new bloggers like me.
To get google recognized backlinks of a site, go to google and type link:websitename and then enter
To get bing recognized backlinks of a site, go to bing and type site:websitename and then enter
Note that bing counts backlinks significantly higher than google. In other words, you can say that google counts only quality back links.
To get Pr5, you need several thousands of backlinks if they are of low quality and even less than a hundred if they are of high quality.
Hope this helped.
Lisa I have to thank you for the wealth of knowledge that has come from your site I’m now building a site for my wife and have learned some much that I now no what works and what is a waste of time
Thanks again
Dane Crosby
This is really amazing for me. I do not know if we do not have any backlink, how can the page rank of our site increase and how can we get the high rank on Google or any search engine.
You blog is very nice!
Lisa,
I admire the fact that you experimented with creating a niche blog and then educated everyone about your findings. You are a great mentor and teacher 🙂
Thank you,
Ken
Thanks for coming by, Ken!
You don’t go straight to the point. This whole article was useless. You did not talk about what’s mentioned in the TITLE of the article of the 100,000 views. Bu@#$%^&
Thank you for reading. 🙂
You mention Pat Flynn, I have spent a lot of time learning from his posts, he has tried to share a lot, I quite agree that some things are not to be shared. I really appreciate what you folks do share, it takes years off the learning curve.
Yes, he’s quite an inspiration.
Hi Lisa, thank you for this information, I am new to the whole website building, started my first ever two websites and now in the process of learning how to get traffic to them, but to be hoenst with you I find it really difficult, at least for me, I’m not doing that much of a backlinks, but it seem to me that nobody even know my website, I get 1 or maybe 2 visitors a day, if I’m lucky i’ll get 5.
I started doing social networking, posting in twitter and facebook, but it doesn’t seem to help, nobody wants to click lol, I’m not sure where to go from here, if you could give me an advice I would really appreciate it.
Hi Nawaf, It looks you are doing fairly well. Your website seems to be attractive and content-rich at the first glance. Your Alexa traffic rank and reputation are not bad. If I am not wrong, you created your domain name on November 9th and you complained that nobody knew about you on November 24th of the same year. This is kind of weird. Perhaps you have recently redirected your content from another domain name. Note that the internet community awareness might have been re-set to zero due to redirection. It takes time Nawaf. It takes time. Just keep adding new quality content to your site. This is the basic lesson we all learn from Lisa; our knowledgeable web business teacher.
HI
Lisa . I am truely fan of your blog. Can i know what kind of blog content gains more traffic. As per this post which blog / content u have used for getting traffic.
Really Good article, its good to know that you can get good traffic from Google without obsessing over backlinks.
Great Content is always key, Thanks for the info:)
Also, consider making your sharebar 5-10 pixels wider, it is cutting off some of the “tweet” button in my browser (chrome).
This is fantastic for a new blogger such as myself to see. As I understand it, the best way to develop search traffic, for any niche, is this…
1) Create Great Content that actually helps people
2) Create is often.
3) Wait.
As your site gets older and you gain natural links, you will see more search traffic.
I agree with this. When I put less effort on backlinks, I get better results! It sounds crazy but that’s how it is.
Hi Lisa, good information. You obviously have knowledge that everyone is hungry for.
I tried a blog several years ago but did not really take it seriously and after 4 years have only received 8k visits. I’m in the process of rebuilding it now.
Do you think having a Pro Theme like Genesis helps get traffic?
Hi John, I think the theme has very little to do with it unless it’s just coded poorly and the engines can’t read the content. I know a lot of theme developers say their theme will help with SEO and when it comes to page loading that may play a role. However Google doesn’t care what theme you use. For the most part, it’s about content, NATURAL backlinks that you build slowly over time.
Thanks for the reply Lisa. What theme are you using for your test site?
Also, good tutorial you did on setting up the Genesis theme. I found it very helpful.
Thanks John, every WordPress site I have now uses the Genesis Lifestyle Theme. I am truly a fan! 🙂
Love the feed back that you put into your site, so much good info it’s hard to grasp all of it.But with your knowledge I have started my wordpress site and continue to learn.
Thanks
Glad to see your approach. I’ll try to implement this.
Hmm, the methodology is not arguable in most respects especially post Panda, Penguin etc. However for new sites investing time in backlinking (quality backlinking) can well be wroth the pain. Again for new sites the use of Twitter is extremely effective at getting the bots crawling.