It happens to all of us at some point…

When you’ve put the time and effort into creating something online, and you log in to analytics to see just how many hundreds of people you’ve managed to attract to it, it can be more than a little frustrating to see a big fat ‘0’ in the dashboard.

If you’re getting no traffic to your blog or website, it can make you disheartened, just plain sad, and pretty liable to quit.

But before you throw in the towel on your latest online venture, make sure you read and digest this article…

Seven big reasons why people struggle to get traffic – and exactly what you can do to put those things right…

1. You don’t have your own domain…

Most of us have had .blogspot.co.uk or WordPress.com websites, and yes, of course, you can get traffic to sites that are hosted by blogger or WordPress and where you don’t have your own domain.

But Google is far more likely to rate your site within searches related to your niche-of-choice if you own a relevant domain name.

Luckily, moving your content across from free services to your own domain is very simple indeed.

In fact, WordPress even have a tool for the blogs they host that allows you to transfer to your own domain without even needing to leave the back end of your blog. Find out more about that here.

If you have a blogspot site and want to have your own domain, I’d recommend buying the domain and installing WordPress.

WordPress then have plugins that you can use to import all of the content from your blogspot site.

2. You are too attached to text…

I was reading some fascinating stats on this topic earlier today (see here) – including this: users spend 100% MORE TIME on a page that includes video.

Recording simple videos is faster than writing pages and pages of text. Taking photographs is faster still.

Add some variety to your content types. Google are showing high favourability to alternate content types these days.

Boring old text will always have its place, but adding video, infographics, audio and images to the mix will a huge driving force seeing your traffic rise.

3. You won’t invest in testing…

I’m talking about both time and money here. If you want a successful website then you will need to invest a considerable amount of your time on testing new approaches to finding new traffic sources.

Sometimes a small financial investment will make a large difference too.

If you want more traffic you really should be testing Facebook Ads and other PPC options; trying out marketing on YouTube; doing some online PR; running competitions; testing new autorepsonders – and more, more, more.

Of course, few of us have the time to do all of these things, but testing is key to success.

Try one at a time and work at it until you find the right approach that can work for you. Then stick with that approach with that channel for a while, and move on to the next channel. Once you’ve worked through all of them go back and test each approach against another again.

You’re never ever done… Exhausting? Yes… Worth it? Definitely.

4. You just don’t have time to create new content…

These days, quality of content is far more important than quantity. But a site still needs to be regularly updated if it’s going to fare well in attracting new traffic.

If you don’t have the time to create daily content yourself, then consider some of the following:

• Get guest posts for your site (although you’ll almost always need to offer something in return).
• Hire an eLancer to do some content creation for you.
• ?Use Fiverr to pull together a load of backup content for £3 a time that you can use when you’re having a few days off or just can’t face creating something yourself (check out these options).
• ?Base your site, or parts of it, around user-generated content. Ask readers for photos on a theme, or to upload contributions to a collection. Some of the most popular sites on the Internet are based around this business model.

5. You haven’t joined your community…

These days it’s increasingly difficult to be a lone wolf. You need the endorsement of those already engaged in your niche online to build trust with your potential traffic and customers.

If you have been unwilling to engage on Twitter, Facebook and/or niche specific sites and forums, then you’re pretty much the designer of your own traffic catastrophe.

Not to be too cliché about this, but you need to join the conversation.

6. Your site hasn’t been indexed by Google…

OK, so it probably has. And, technically, you shouldn’t have to do anything to make sure your site is ‘crawled’ by Google’s spiders (every bit as creepy as it sounds).

But you can go some way to managing Google seeing your site and treating it accordingly…

You can even request that they freshly crawl it – particularly useful if you do some work to update your site and refresh your content. Check out this link and this link to find out more.

7. You aren’t controversial enough…

OK, so being deliberately provocative isn’t everyone’s thing. But if you want to stand out in your niche then you need something that sets you apart.

Often, controversy is exactly what works. Controversial blog posts and articles are highly likely to be your biggest traffic pulls: just think of all the Daily Mail controversies over the years and what they do to attract huge peaks in traffic surging toward their site.

A word of warning though: although controversy can be an easy way to pull in traffic, you may want to tread carefully. Take it too far and it can be a good way to tarnish your reputation too.

Stay true to your beliefs and opinions. Maybe just spin them in a more provocative way.

I do hope those ideas are helpful.

As always, do get in touch if you have any questions.