How to go from 0 to 1000 visitors per month on your site?

Hi, this is Alex. Today I’m going to show you how I managed to go from 0 to 1000 visitors per month on my website twaino.com.

First of all, I’m going to go to Google Analytics.

And so, I’m going to show you concretely what my figures are.

You see, since Saturday, September 21st, I have 1002 people who come every month.

So you see, this is over 30 days, and at the moment, I’m even at a little more, I’m at 1200. That’s why I’m making a video now, because I wanted to wait, because sometimes there can be some fluctuations. I wanted to wait until I was sure that I was at 1000 to make this video. So you see, I’m even at a little bit more now, at 1226.

So this video, really, the goal for me is to show you how I managed to start from scratch, to start getting some traffic.

You see here, I put it over 90 days. We still have a nice growth.

It’s always spectacular, especially at the beginning, because when you start from zero or practically from nothing, well, finally, it’s ah… it goes up in a rather dizzying way. Knowing that, in fact, it’s not really over 90 days, because I made a change in Google Analytics. It’s actually over five months. So I managed to go from 0 to 1000, not in 90 days, but in five months.

And so overall, my site, you see here, you see it live, right now, there are two people who are walking around on my site right now.

Now, the latest trends are not very representative but in fact, most of the time, my traffic comes from organic traffic or “organical search”.

It’s true that, in the last two days, I did a communication on linkedin, and this time, there’s a little more direct traffic added to what I usually receive. But overall, it’s really mostly traffic that comes from Google with overall, a lot of people coming from their computers. So it’s not really surprising for my website, since it’s a BtoB business.

Finally, there are a lot of professionals who will look at this site from their computer, and much less from their phone. So, it’s something that is quite logical.

So that’s Google Analytics.

Finally, we find trends that go in the same direction as with Google Search Console. So you see here, three months ago, there were not many people. And now, little by little, we start to have a little more visibility, with for example here, on Monday September 23rd, 56 clicks that come directly from Google and therefore to come on my site, and 5550 impressions.

So…there you go! It’s still the beginning.

And you see here, this curve which starts to climb little by little, knowing that on the keywords in fact, which are typed to find my site, most clicks come from people who type Twaino. So, it’s people who will go on Google, who will type the name of the agency, so Twaino, and who will come directly to my site.

So don’t worry. In fact, this is uh… if you’re not used to it, this is the information that is given, when we are… when we use Google Search Console.

And so there you have it!

So there, the real result is this one in fact. Okay? So this is my site, with the different sections and the videos underneath. And overall, all the pages that are going to be below are going to be related to my agency. So obviously, I put here my agency geolocated, so in Paris, in the 17th, and I already have small reviews. So I have 8 Google reviews. It’s still the beginning of course but it’s starting to grow little by little.

So why am I showing you this? I’m not showing you this at all for a question of ego or anything. It’s really to show you that, well, I really went from 0 to 1000 users, it’s true, it’s tangible, it comes from Google Analytics, from Google Search Console, so there you go, you can consider that these are reliable sources.

Now that I’ve shown you the results, I’m going to tell you how I managed to go from 0 to 1000.

First of all, what I want to say is that it took me five months.

For some people, five months will seem like a long time, for others, it won’t be long at all.

Anyway.

Most of the time, it’s between six months and a year to get traction when you’re starting a site right now, and you don’t really have any knowledge of SEO, or the internet in general.

Again, this is an average. It all depends on what industry you’re in. It depends on the competition. There are a lot of elements, a lot of parameters, that will come into play. But temporality is something that is important to take into account, because sometimes we have the impression that on the Internet, everything is done overnight, and in fact this is something that is radically false.

In fact, when you get trained, you can accelerate a little more, but overall, it’s something that will take time because, for example in my situation, I’m in a sector, so SEO natural referencing, where finally, there are already a lot of players, the competition is quite intense, the people who do SEO, overall their site is extremely well optimized, so it means that it will be complicated for me to start to emerge.

So, it takes a bit longer than if it was a sector where there is no one in fact. If there are not many people in a sector and you have knowledge, you will be able to see results much more quickly.

That’s the first point.

The second point is about the “domain name”.

When you buy a domain name to create your website, for example, some domain names already have a history.

For example, there is a business. So, maybe you know it or not, but there is a business to buy expired domain names. And in fact, the advantage of this is that when you buy a domain name that has already existed before, and if the site had a lot of authority, well finally, it will allow you to accelerate much faster and therefore, to have results in an accelerated way.

And globally speaking, these are activities that are often carried out by people who do black hat, but not only.

Why am I telling you this? I’m telling you this because twaino.com, it’s a site that had zero authority when I started. So really, it was a startup where it started from 0.

Right?

It’s an important element because finally, when you have authority at the base, and then you create your site and you create content, etc., finally, this basic authority allows you to accelerate much faster.

I didn’t, so I started from “big 0” with respect to my domain name.

So that was just the context.

Now, what do you do concretely when you start a site, to get traction, your first visitors and even your first 1000 visitors?

For me, the strategy is quite simple. Besides, I’m going to make a next video, purely on SEO strategy. There, I will limit myself, in quotes, to the most important elements.

But here, we’ll have to dig into this theme in a more precise way.

How did I personally do to get started and to get those first 1000 visitors?

First of all, “creation of a site”.

The creation of a site, it is there finally, there are not badly of differences also which will play. And what will allow you to save time or not, is if you have a minimum of technical knowledge both on your site, but also from an SEO point of view.

This is an element that is absolutely crucial. Simply because if you create a site, and you don’t use the right CMS for example, I chose WordPress, but if you tried another CMS that is much less efficient, well, from the start, technically you put… you put few chances on your side in fact. So, it will be much more difficult for you later on to have good results.

Knowing that, you see, my site, so Twaino, obviously, it’s me who made it from A to Z.

Clearly, it is not perfect. There are a lot of things I would like to improve, but it’s a site that runs, that tends to be quite clear.

I’ve done the whole graphic design, but that’s another subject. But anyway.

Technically this site works, it’s pretty efficient.

Overall, does it suit me perfectly? The answer is no. I would like it to be even faster.

Anyway. But there are some things that make it so, overall the architecture is clean, it works very well on phone and the loading speed is not bad. Even if it could clearly be better. On my phone, I went directly to AMP, so Accelerated Mobile Page, to really speed things up. After all, for me, it’s pretty good…

So, maybe it’s not an accessory, but in any case, you can see that overall, I don’t have many people coming to my site from their phone.

So overall, the real thing to optimize for me is the computer. And my site on the computer, it’s actually running pretty well.

Okay?

So overall, I’m telling you this to tell you that finally, the first step to get your first 1000 visitors is to have a site that is not perfect, but that is relatively flawless technically and from an SEO point of view.

So once we have that, once we have a site that is built correctly, finally, it’s really our own base and therefore, we can start to build our content little by little. For me, the strategy to get my first 1000 visitors was to focus on content and especially quality content.

So I will show you concretely what I mean by quality content. This is something that will be difficult to do. I prefer to tell you right away, it takes time, it takes energy, you have to try to be potentially better than the competition. But overall, with time, consistency and effort, if you ever do it, it’s bound to pay off for you.

Okay?

So, I’m going to show you concretely what I did.

So, you see here, we’re on my website.

If we go to blog, you’ll see all the articles I’ve created.

So, once again, it’s been five months since I started to accumulate a lot of content. But overall, I have about… about 70 to 80 articles that I’ve created.

So, as soon as I categorized, you see here, these are the categories. So, business creation, website creation, marketing, SEO…

Obviously, the goal for me is to try to focus on SEO. But for example, there are some issues in that finally, when I created my site, I really tried to record all my activities step by step.

Well, in the end, this led me to talk about business creation, for example, and sometimes even other elements that are a bit related to SEO. But for me, it also seemed important to share my feedback on a lot of subjects.

Okay?

But overall today, I’m focusing mainly on SEO. Because this is obviously my core business, my core competency, and this is where I want to have the most visibility.

Okay?

So overall, you see, there are between 70 and 80 articles. Knowing that my articles, they are between uh…

Well, it depends, but they’re between 3000 and 30 thousand words.

So there you go!

So that means that globally, they are relatively precise, relatively detailed articles.

For example, articles where I write between 25,000 and 30,000 words, these are what I call massive articles.

Simply because in fact, the idea for me, on a subject, is to try to give the maximum of details, the maximum of added value for the users.

And you see, I said something that may seem trivial, but giving the maximum value is really what will allow you to win on the Internet in general.

So that was my strategy, and it still is. And specifically, I’m going to show you what I mean by the type of content that I’ve created.

So you see…

So, I created a content in particular. Indeed, this is the content that is here.

“How to create backlinks?”

In SEO actually, inbound links or backlinks, it’s kind of a flagship topic and so, it’s important to address it.

And so for that, I made an article that does… So, I don’t know the number of words for this one, but it must be between 25000 and 30000 words, uh… in which I finally had the opportunity to dig into all the issues related to backlinks.

So you see here, it typically starts with a little introduction, images… These images, of course, I created them too.

So here you see, this is my work file on illustrator.

So I make the creations directly from here.

Then a menu. So here you see, there are 14 chapters.

So, it really goes into detail. Because finally, why is it important to make a detailed content?

The objective is to avoid as much as possible to make small contents, poor in quotation marks, in contents, which will finally be overtaken very quickly by a content which will be better.

For me, the philosophy behind my strategy is to outdo each other in the quality of what we can offer.

We have to face the facts. SEO is an extremely competitive sector. And, if I make a 500 words content, for example on backlinks, there is absolutely no chance that my website will appear at some point on this theme in Google.

So the only way to do it is to propose a content that is really qualitative, really precise, with… For example, you see here, there are infographics, this is an infographic that I created, and a text in which I will go into detail.

There are also videos.

So this is not a video of me. It’s a video of Mat-Cut…

In short, I try as much as possible to offer something that will be qualitative, with for example graphics, with print screens or screen prints, on certain subjects… In short.

I try to show as much as possible and to make sure that finally, when the visitor goes on my page, and if he has to learn something, he will think that this is really the article that I have to know to get links and also videos from me.

So anyway, I’m not going to show you in detail but you see, there are many elements that are specified in this article. And I’m trying to go into as much detail as possible, offering something that is, at least I hope, better than the competition.

So the strategy, finally, is both simple and complicated. Simple in words, let’s say, and complicated to put in place.

Because obviously, to create such a dense content, such a quality content, it means that there is a big investment in time, in energy and therefore, you have to uh… That’s something that will take time.

So after, I gave you an extreme example, with this complete guide on backlinks. Knowing that I’ve done several complete guides, I’ve also done a complete guide “the 200 factors of Google ranking”. So same principle, it’s between 20 and 25 thousand words. “SEO Definition”, same principle.

Then next to that, I also did other articles that are a little bit smaller. And in fact, to differentiate myself,

there are several things.

Hop, I’ll go back up here.

Here we go. The one I want to show you is this one. I did an article for example, on Ubersuggest.

If you don’t know it, it’s a tool that allows you to track keywords, to track competition.

And for example for that, I made a full video of one hour… 45min 1h, I do not know, in which I show in fact concretely, how to use Ubersuggest. And underneath, I made a detailed article as well, in which well, I’m going to clarify what I read in the video and try to give the maximum value for users.

As long as you have the value to give to the users as a priority, well finally, that’s going to be the best way to do it actually.

Right?

And, it’s really going to allow you to make a difference, to gain visibility, to gain authority, to gain credibility and therefore, to make your content potentially different as well.

That’s it!

So for me, the content strategy is something that is absolutely essential.

Since the beginning, in fact, Google has always said that “Content is king”, in other words, “content is king”. And in fact, that’s really been my strategy in relation to Twaino.

The objective for me is to create a content that is hyper qualitative, with precise and detailed articles. Then, have images that are unique.

Avoid as much as possible content that comes from image banks. Image banks when you are on the Internet, like…well regularly like me, almost all the time even, and that you browse the sites, finally but the images that come from image banks, but I know them by heart in fact.

And the problem is that, in the end, it loses credibility to see that, in the end, we all have the same images, everywhere on the web.

So actually, is it complicated? Does it take time to create your own images?

The answer is yes.

The thing is that in the end, what will make the difference is if your content is quality, if it’s unique. If you do that, you’re going to win on Google. Okay?

Another thing is video.

I, for example, out of my 80 articles, I’ve done about 60 videos.

60 70 videos for each article, because actually, in terms of content consumption methods, there are people who prefer to read, and there are others who prefer to watch a video with someone explaining.

So really try to play both ways.

For example, video is not something that is obvious. Personally, it’s something that…it took me a long time to get into video. Because I was clearly not comfortable with it at all.

But here’s the thing, I knew that for Twaino, if I wanted to try to get a little bit more exposure, I had to do things a little bit differently.

And overall, the more competitive your industry is going to be, the more you’re going to have to do things that are going to be difficult.

And also tell yourself that the more difficult it is, and for example when you make articles, the more complete, exhaustive and precise your article is going to be, the less likely it is that people will say to themselves, well, here I am, I’m going to try to do even better.

This is a strategy that was inspired by an American SEO expert called Brian Dean who talks about the Skyscraper technique.

So I’ll have the opportunity to make another video on it.

But in a nutshell, it’s simply a matter of bidding on Google.

The more you bid, the more quality content you’re going to make, the more likely you are to have your content move up in Google.

Is that the only thing?

The answer is no.

There’s another strategy as well.

More like something additional that you can add to that, which is link building.

Link building, to be completely transparent with you, so far, it’s not necessarily something that I’ve really leaned towards, extended.

Why?

Well, I’ve done a little bit, but what I’ve done in terms of link building, I’ve been content with

almost exclusively, guest articles.

Guest articles, that means that…

For example, there are blogs of people who are in SEO like me, or in natural referencing.

I contacted them and I told them, I have an article to propose to you, do you want to present it to your audience? And according to that, well people answer yes, others answer no.

Those who answer yes finally, they put my article and a link that will point to my site.

That for me is a good way to get backlinks.

There are plenty of others too, but that’s really the strategy I’ve been trying to capitalize on so far. So that also means that overall, and this is much more for professionals strictly speaking, I haven’t done any link buying at all.

That’s it!

I didn’t go through any netlinking platforms,

And there are several reasons for this.

The first reason is that I really want to create an agency that advocates the white hat or really, strategies that allow to have traffic by respecting the rules of Google.

And globally, buying links is not something that is accepted by Google

After that, of course, everyone does as they want. But I know that, for example, the fact of having this postulate from the start, and the fact of saying, here I am, I am trying to have growth simply by white hat, well that forces me to do one thing, and that is to propose content that is really good in fact.

When you have uh, a strategy let’s say of backlinks, a little more create or in any case black hat, so for example if you buy a lot of backlinks, you can actually have results much faster.

But that’s not what I did and that’s not what I want to do.

The other element, and to be completely transparent with you, I think that globally, for example a strategy of acquiring backlinks with netlinking platforms, globally, it can be extremely expensive.

And so, financially, I would rather spend more time and energy creating my content than creating links.

That’s my opinion on the subject.

Of course, you don’t have to agree with me.

So that’s what it’s been all about for me. It was technically to have something clean and then to focus on creating content, articles, visuals and videos. So videos, that’s my last point.

So you see, I have a YouTube channel which is still relatively small, let’s face it.

You see, I have 28 subscribers, so we’re still at the very beginning. I started five months ago.

And overall, it’s something I’ve really tried to invest time and energy in.

For me, it’s important to go through the video as well.

After you see, there are for example videos where there is a little bit of view, 56. There are videos finally where there is absolutely nobody who went on it.

So there you go, for example I have 6 views.

In short, it’s quite scattered, the results I can get.

However, it’s something that seems important to me because finally, by focusing on video, it also allows me to differentiate myself a bit in terms of the type of content I can offer.

And so overall, for me, it’s an interesting strategy.

But to finish, for me the strategy to get these first 1000 visitors, so to go from 0 to 1000, there are three elements that were really important, that are still important / absolutely essential in what I do.

First of all, it’s the SEO, so the natural referencing.

It may sound a bit clichéd to say it, but for me, the fact of setting up my company in natural referencing and therefore having good organic results is something that is absolutely essential. And finally sometimes, it is not always the case, as surprising as it may seem.

So for me, that’s a very important element.

Secondly, it’s really YouTube.

The fact that you can actually create visual content and share it is something that is important.

I’m a big believer in videos.

I’m not necessarily the best in this format, but I’m obviously trying to improve little by little.

For me, it’s also SEO, because it’s video search.

In any case, people are looking for video content, and so finally, it’s a search engine that is behind it.

So overall, it’s interesting.

And the last point, the last axis of my strategy, is linkedin.

Insofar as well, finally, it is the platform for professionals, linkedin.

It is extremely underestimated I think, still at the moment, and globally, there is a real catching up going on with it. We must not miss it.

Overall, is this my number one priority?

The answer is no.

But it’s still important.

So really, in order, it’s SEO, then YouTube and then Linkedin.

So here’s the thing, if you’re ever going to get started, I really recommend first of all, to have a technically clean site. Secondly, to start creating content.

By the way, I’m going to finish with this.

You see, finally when I create my content, I also try as much as possible to have… to have a code, a color code, to have a graphic charter. In short, I try as much as possible to do branding.

This is, from my point of view, important, simply because in the end, it’s really what will make the difference between a company that works and a company that really manages to get into the heads of visitors, into the heads of people in fact.

And so, that’s why when I communicate on all my social media and on my website of course, I try to hammer home my designs, my way of communicating and because in the end, I think that branding is probably one of the best ways to grow your business. And above all, it’s going to make a mark on people’s minds, and therefore make them come back afterwards.

So that’s it, I’m finally done. I hope you enjoyed it.

And you see, I tried to be as transparent as possible about it.

I’m not a superman, I’m not a superman.

I’m not a superman, I’m not a superhero, but I can still get traction.

Even if your sector is competitive, is competitive, you’ll succeed when you finally manage to create a quality site, technically anyway I mean. And then create hyper quality content potentially, and if possible, if you manage to do it, try to do something that will be different from the competition and if possible, better too.

See you soon for the rest!