My #1 Traffic Secret From 2020
Traffic is the lifeblood of a website. With traffic, you can make money through a wide variety of methods, whether that be affililate sales, display ad revenue, or lead generation (then sales via email marketing).
The order of events for making money online are as follows:
- Builld A Website
- Get Traffic
- Monetize Your Traffic
The website building part is surprisingly easy, thanks to Wealthy Affiliate's website builder. These days, building WordPress websites is super fast and easy. Even a simple website can make a ton of money.
The traffic part is where people struggle a lot, including myself.
In 2020 I really kind of figured something out though, and it's not only got one of my websites to a new all time traffic high, but it's also got my newest 2020 side project on the fastest trajectory of any website I've ever built, getting about 500 page views per day with less than a year of operation, publishing just 2 articles per week (all outsourced).
(As a side note, if you are my referral and get Premium Plus Yearly, you can follow this website as it grows)
This site will earn about $400 for the year, which is a great start for a passive, back burner side project!
The Real SECRET Is Narrow Keywords Which Do Not Require Specialized Knowledge
This is a more difficult concept to understand, and may be even more difficult to apply it to your website. My advice is to just keep it in the back of your mind as you do keyword research, and I think the concept will reveal itself to you as you stew on it.
Broad keywords don't work very welll. This type of "keyword" isn't really a keyword at all. It's just a general concept. There's no real intent behind the search. This could be something like "coffee beans".
What is someone search for here? No idea. It's just an idea. Google will find some results, probably Wikipedia or Amazon, but there's no point in showing individual blogs like we make here at Wealthy Affiliate.
Narrow keywords are great for ranking and affililate sales, but also have a narrow audience, therefore get less traffic.
For example, "Solis Barista Perfetta vs Rocket Espresso Appartamento". This would be a comparison of two popular espresso machines. Super narrow audience. Not that many people have narrowed down their search to comparing these two specific machines. Maybe 10 people per month, in the entire world?
This is a highly specialized audience. They have advanced knowledge of the topic, and this audience is very, very small. If you write a post like this, there's a good chance you can make a big affiliate sale, so they are still good to write, but they don't do much for traffic generation a lot of the time.
Also, there's a time tradeoff. Writing highly specialized articles takes a lot of time, and may require you actually be an expert (or hire an expert), to write accurate, helpful, insightful content. Sometimes writing this type of content is worth it, sometimes not. It depends on your brand and your goals for the site.
Where I'm finding a ton of opportunities for traffic is in the "narrow keywords" for "broad audience" category.
Examples of this woulld be something like
- best dark roast coffee beans from Africa
- light roast vs dark roast caffeine content
- best grind size for french press coffee makers
- why are my coffee beans oily
This type of content contains the best of both worlds.
1. The keyword is about a very specific topic
2. The person searching is not an expert who requires specialized knowledge
If someone is looking for the best dark roast coffee beans from Africa, they are not necessarily a hyper-specialized barista. They don't necessarily need to know how to repair an espresso machine. They might not know much beyond the fact that they like dark roast coffee. They are not an expert, and do not require that you are an expert.
However, it's still a very specific search. They are searching beyond "best coffee". They know enough to know that they prefer dark roast to light roast. They know enough to know that they like coffee beans from Africa as opposed to SE Asia or South America.
This "magic zone" is where I'm finding a TON of traffic opportunities in a wide variety of niches, and it's this framework I'll be using to do all my keyword reserach for 2021.
In hindsight, it seems obvious, but it took me 10 years to figure this out. I hope it will help you in growing your traffic next year!
Do you have any questions about this method or examples you want to run by me? Let me know in the comments!
Recent Comments
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I think I stumbled on this same concept myself! I see I still have a lot of featured snippets in the search results though I have been away from my first site for 8 months. With just a few updates to my posts I have even more snippets now.
I have at least 30 featured snippets that I have found recently that are pulling from 4 posts.
I am using long tail keywords with low competition and getting great results from that.
Thanks for highlighting this Nathaniell!
Jessica
How do you track the number of featured snippets?
What tool do you use for long tail/low competition keywords?
I don't have a tool to track them. I found them accidentally (then went searching for them) by looking for my posts on the search engines.
Thanks Nathaniell,
I think it’s so easy to do your Seo keyword research, like on Jaxay and look at the statistics,
You make another great point that specialized, expert content takes longer to make. The ROI on that isn't always positive. If you sink 5 hours into one piece of expert content which only 10 people read, that may not help you reach your traffic goals very fast.
On the other hand, spending 5 hours to make three pieces of non-expert content could yield a lot more in terms of traffic to your site!
Hi Nathaniell,
Great post!
Thanks for sharing this vital tip for attracting more quality traffic that is in the later stages of the customer cycle, Aiming for specific search inquiries: these keywords may not necessarily increase your traffic per keyword or article you write.
But it will laser in on those that know what they are looking for, they just don't know where to find it. That is guidance in solving or eliminating a problem, or finding that "needle in a haystack" product.
I think, as the search engines start allowing their AI programs to steer them in the direction of new trends in searches: this tactic will be more and more helpful and successful in getting targeted traffic to your website.
It is better to have only 10 visitors a month per keyword and buy products using your affiliate links than it is to attract 100 visitors that are just looking and not yet ready to buy = no sales!
I hope that your holidays will be joyful for you and yours,
Calvin
Great info as always😜👌
Ok here is my question if you have time it would be greatly appreciated Nathaniel.
My site is about vitamins and certain foods can help you live a longer and healthier life.
I talk about specific vitamins and foods or should i just concentrate on only one vitamin and perhaps start another site just about one vitamin ?🤔
Thank you !
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Spending the evening reading, and enjoying myself, as well as beginning to understand about the WA Bigger Picture. Yeah!
I was so darn slow on the uptake, but now I'm transforming and getting really blessed, and cut the distractions .
Some of us just need a longer germination period, before we venture out, but the blooms will be amazing.
This is because of the strong culture of giving back by great teachers, like you, Kyle, Dale, so numerous this chain of helping hands, and helping hearts. Some day I will be like that too! And I want to tell the world how great WA is!
Thank you Nathaniell, I just wanted to come by and saw hello, and that I am grateful to learn from you, be inspired by you.
Suzay