Hey Yusuf,

I'm much in the same boat as you, only 6 months old, and like you had started to gain some traction on my impressions and clicks which nose-dived at the beginning of Nov so this was a useful question for me too.

I guess from the responses from the experts, those who know, is to keep working on producing sound content and not stress too much about rankings, etc, as that will come in time and provided you are confident of the quality you're putting out and your site gains authority traffic will grow.

Patience is the key! Thanks for this post, as I found the responses very useful.

Hang on in there. I think you have done a fantastic job thus far with your site.

All the best

Cherie :o)

Yusuf,

Create the following foundational links:

* YouTube Channel
* LinkedIn Business Page
* Facebook Page
* Twitter
* Reddit Subreddit
* Pinterest
* CrunchBase Company Profile
* TikTok
* ProvenExpert
* Google Business Profile

From there, you fill out all the information and be sure to include your website where you can.

You don’t need to be active in all the above properties, just need to own them.

This will build you a set of foundational web properties and essentially show Google that you are a real business and not just a niche blog.

Other things to consider:

* Build a home page (will help build your brand)
* Build a Beginner’s Guide page instead of just a category
* At the bottom of your posts, have a list of 3 additional posts with links to them that your reader may want to check out.

Good luck.

Just to clarify - my wife is the Pinterest Guru (lol - Side note: I saw you made those changes to your Pinterest account. When you get a chance PM if they were helpful).

Okay, so Diane said some pretty good stuff, and I don't really want to repeat what anyone else is saying (or going to say)... So, well, I'm going to take a different approach to this:

KEEP PUSHING ON.

I get that you want to make sure that you are doing everything perfect, but if you believe that you are, then just keep pushing on. You're still only 3 months in.

Come up with a game plan for the next 9 months, and then, at year one, come back and see where you are and game plan what to do.

I'm not knocking on you wanting to make sure you are doing everything you can to succeed. However, as you are aware, everyone goes through the 3 month hump, where they get discourage, feel nothing is working out, and then usually fizzle out over the next few months, and end up leaving.

That's why I'm recommending to come up with a 1 year game plan. Don't focus on anything other than just doing what you're doing already - watch the training here, implement what you can, and continue grinding out content.

I could probably guarantee that if you ask three different people what's going on, each one is going to respond differently, because, honestly, your site is so young, and Google is acting wonky, and well, we just don't know. We can give a good guess, but can't really give you accurate answers.

The only answer is what is always preached. If you are doing what Google asks, then you will always succeed - you may get hit for a year or two, but as Google pushes info out, as long as you follow it, you'll gain those rankings again.

Something else that I sort of notice in your post is that part of the reason you are getting down on yourself, is because you aren't ranking in Google.

But what about Pinterest?

What about Bing?

What About Quora?

Why do you (and others) feel like they're failing if they don't rank well in Google? My wife and I are making a big push to almost focus entirely on ranking on Pinterest, and if any of our content ranks on Google, then great! But if not, we're cool with that too.

There is no reason to feel as though Google is the only search engine out there that you NEED to rely on for your traffic.

So I personally would recommend just seeing what you're doing well with Pinterest and Bing and capitalize on that. Chances are, if you focus on those two, over time, you'll get ranked for Google as well.

Last thing I would say is to see if you can track where your traffic is coming from and why it isn't going to any of your product review pages.

The reason you want to do this is because, at the end of the day, you can rank well for Google, Bing and Pinterest, but if you're not getting anyone to click through your affiliate links (i.e. you can't sell anything), then it doesn't really matter (yes, I know, you can make a TON of money with ad revenue, but let's just ignore that for right now).

I actualy just took a pause right now to look at your site, and came across what I was sort of talking about (screenshot 1):

First off, the button isn't engaging/click-baity (for lack of a better phrase). Something better (sort of writing off the fly after quickly reading that article): "Learn more about the 3 Phases Of A Chess Game From An International Master Here". (To be fair, it's really long, but do you get the point? Action (click), click-able title (have a number in it, and they're going to learn from someone who has cred i.e. GothamChess))

Additionally, remove "if you are interested", if you are trying to get someone to do something on your site - you are the chess authority, and they came to your site to learn something about chess. So act the part. Tell your audience that this is what they need to check out because it's going to help them win better at chess. "Knowing each phase, and how to attack or defend within it, is crucial to winning any chess game. Grab my guide below to learn the 5 key elements of each phase to win your next chess game".

Again, I'm sort of just spewing whatever comes immediately, but I think you see my point. Have a very active voice when it comes to recommending different things you have on your site.

(I would also split test those later on and see if you get more clicks with a button or just by internally linking it into your text).

Anyways, just a few of my thoughts. Hopefully they make sense.

I read your site. I am not a chess person. It's not my area of expertise because I always am the loser. Checkmate every time! I am someone who knows nothing about the topic. I left because I am not the right target audience for you.

Eric Cantu also has a chess site too. You should consult with him. He is a great teacher and mentor.

However, I encourage you to follow ParthaB's method—from his men's exercise site. I would have done shorter sentences in one line each. I see you do that. For me, longer sentences are an issue regarding readability.

You got plenty of suggestions and advice from other members. I am not there yet regarding my traffic. One thing I noticed from Pinterest: yes, they bring traffic to your site. But it does not guarantee you will get affiliate sales.

Doing your website articles organically takes a long time. Another alternative is pre-paid click ads (PPC) if you want a faster way. It's a gamble. Or monetize your site with ads.

I am not an expert. My Pinterest experience is limited because I just started it a month ago. I notice that they look at the pins themselves, not my links. I am going to give this some more time, but I am still skeptical that it generate any sales for me.

Jay did say in one of his classes that these people are not "hot" buyers. You are just leading them to your blog post; that is it. Just as Diane said, "It doesn't mean they read it either." I agree. They look at pins only; that's my experience. I know it is too soon to jump to conclusions, but that's how I feel about it.

So, the other alternative is to focus on other social media sites where people stay on the platform. The hottest ones are Facebook and many others. I know someone here using just Facebook PPC ads with a landing page. He has generated a lot of sales that way.

Hi Yuzuf,
I am still very new myself so don't have the technical knowledge to help you at all, but my site is about the same age as yours so i thought i would share what i have experienced in case it sheds any light.
I have only created 19 posts that have been indexed so i am way behind you but have approx 9,500 impressions in the same time with a CTR of 1.7 so it looks like my site is starting to gain traction. But, when i look into it almost 3,000 of these impressions and 66% of all clicks are for 1 post. This post regularly ranks in 5th place on google and seems to drive all my traffic. A lot of the other posts were in my opinion better posts with good content and keywords but don't rank at all...Apologies if this is a silly suggestion but from what i have seen I would try picking some keywords with really high chances of ranking even if low traffic to see if this has any impact. I hope you find an answer to help and i look forward to seeing your site start taking off
Pete