Struggling to gain traffic after fours years

Optimizing Traffic for Your Website: Strategies and Insights After Four Years of Growth

Introduction

Building and growing a website is a challenging journey that requires persistence, strategic planning, and continuous adaptation. If you’ve been managing a site for several years and are still struggling to see consistent traffic, you’re not alone. In this article, we’ll explore common hurdles faced by website owners, analyze potential causes, and offer practical solutions to improve your SEO and enhance your online visibility.

About Our Website

Our platform, Redshirt Sports, was launched in November 2021 and has since accumulated over 600 articles. Our content primarily revolves around college football and basketball, featuring proprietary rankings like the Top 25 Polls for FCS, FBS, and upcoming Mid-Major Basketball coverage. Although the article count may seem modest over three years, it’s important to note that all content creation has been managed internally without hired writers—emphasizing quality and consistency.

Traffic Overview

Over the course of four years, Redshirt Sports has garnered approximately 162,000 total page views from about 101,000 unique visitors. Traffic sources break down as follows:

• X/Twitter: ~29,805 visitors
• Google Search: ~29,629 visitors
• Direct/None: ~21,437 visitors
• Facebook: ~12,625 visitors
• Other platforms: Under 2,000 visitors each

Reddit used to contribute significantly to our traffic, but recent platform restrictions regarding Engagement have limited its impact.

Performance Metrics and Challenges

Despite consistent content production, less than 2% of articles have exceeded 1,000 pageviews, indicating an opportunity to boost individual article performance. Several factors may influence this:

• Content Engagement: Are your articles compelling and optimized for your target audience?
• Competitive Landscape: Larger, well-funded websites often overshadow smaller publications.
• SEO Limitations: Issues with search engine indexing and visibility may contribute to low organic traffic.
• Technical Constraints: Built with Next.js and Sanity CMS, your site may face indexing or crawling challenges if configured improperly.

Key Insights and Recommendations

1. Enhance SEO Foundations

2. Sitemap Management: Regularly submit your updated sitemap to Google Search Console and ensure it is correctly configured for your site structure.

3. Indexing Issues: Investigate and resolve any crawl errors or indexing issues reported by Search Console.

4. Structured Data: Implement schema markup to improve search result appearance and click-through rates.

5. Content Strategy

6. Focus on High-Interest Topics: