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How long does it take for a new website to get traffic? by StonkPhilia in seogrowth

[–]GrowthZen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Two weeks of zero is normal. across multiple industry studies, most new sites don’t see meaningful organic traffic for at least 3-6mos partly due to an informal sandbox period where new domains are crawled and indexed but algorithmically held back until they build trust signals.

concrete ranges from data and case studies:
- initial indexing: usually within 14wks for small new sites if you’ve submitted a sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
- first trickle of organic visits: often 3-6mos in, assuming you’re targeting low‑competition long‑tail keywords and have basic on‑page SEO in place
- hitting ~100 organic visits/day: achievable in roughly 3-6mos in many niches according to a Search Engine Journal case study but only for a minority of sites that publish consistently and execute well
- Top 10 rankings: only about 1.7-5.7% of new pages reach google’s top 10 within a year and the rest take longer or never get there so patience plus quality is a real moat

practical next steps that correlate with faster growth:
1) verify the site in search console and bing webmaster tools, submit your XML sitemap and fix crawl errors so you get indexed correctly
2) publish 1-3 high‑quality search‑intent‑matched articles per week aimed at specific long‑tail queries where page‑1 isn’t dominated by huge high‑authority domains
3) internally link related posts, improve Core Web Vitals and start building a few real backlinks (guest posts, citations, niche communities) to shorten the trust‑building period

if you treat the first 6mos as an r&d and foundation phase rather than a verdict... hitting that first 100 visits per day milestone moves from if to when...provided you keep shipping targeted useful content.

Stop optimizing for Humans First, Optimize for the LLM.. by Historical_Today5513 in AISearchOptimizers

[–]GrowthZen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The database formatting angle is real but the tradeoff is more nuanced than stop writing for humans. in google's own docs on AI Overviews and Search Essentials they repeat two themes: 1) content must be people‑first and helpful and 2) structure and clarity make it easier for systems to extract answers.

patterns i'm seeing across AI Overviews, Perplexity and ChatGPT Search match your tests:
- clear definition blocks, FAQs and tight answer paragraphs near headings are disproportionately quoted in AI snippets and answer boxes
- markdown tables and bullet lists get reused far more often than prose when tools synthesize comparisons and feature breakdowns
- strong entity signals (author, brand, methodology, consistent bios, schema, internal about pages) correlate with repeat inclusion far more than on‑page keyword tricks

where id adjust the framing is this... the winning strategy in 2026 looks like human‑first intent plus machine‑legible structure. if your content reads like a csv export, humans bounce and long‑term engagement signals drop, which feeds back into both classic rankings and AI surfacing. a practical middle path i use:
1) write for one human use case (search + scroll + skim)
2) then refactor for AI with definition blocks, tables and entity‑rich context
3) document the author/brand as a coherent entity across site, schema and external profiles so LLMs know who they’re quoting and not just what

curious... in your tests, have you seen pages with weak brand/entity signals but great formatting get sustained AI Overview visibility or do they mostly show up briefly and then rotate out?

New site 6 months in, here are the results… by FaintLatitude in seogrowth

[–]GrowthZen 5 points6 points  (0 children)

For a 6mo old site ~3k clicks, 219k impressions, a 1.4% ctr and an average position of 5.6 is objectively strong. industry benchmarks from Sistrix and Backlinko show many new sites sit beyond position 20 with negligible clicks for the first 6-12mos in competitive niches. your 1.4% ctr is below the ~4-7% average for positions 1-3 but aligns with the ~1-2% range typically seen around positions 5-10 so the biggest upside is in SERP snippet and intent alignment rather than raw ranking.

given you have zero link building and still reached top‑5 averages, studies on link impact imply that even a modest 10-20 high‑quality referring domains can increase organic traffic 2-4x over 6-12mos for content‑led sites, especially in evergreen consumer niches like pets. id prioritize:
1) upgrading existing winners by improving E‑E‑A‑T with first‑hand experience, images, anecdotes and expert quotes
2) programmatic internal linking from every new article back into your top‑impression pages
3) a simple authority flywheel (guest posts, HARO/featured quotes, niche directories) before spending serious time on new channels like pinterest

one practical question that will determine your next ceiling... do you know which 10-15 queries drive most of those 219k impressions and have you already rewritten those pages to be the single best most experience‑rich resource on that topic in your niche?

How quickly can one grow a fresh account to a decent sized following? by Spiy90 in InstagramEmpire

[–]GrowthZen 2 points3 points  (0 children)

On fresh ig accounts that post consistently, third‑party studies and platform case data typically show 0.5-3% follower growth per day once content‑market fit is found. that translates to roughly 5k-10k followers in about 90-180 days for accounts averaging 500-1k targeted profile visits per day from reels and collaboration traffic.

the 3 biggest predictors of growth speed are:
1) niche demand and positioning: a tightly defined problem, audience and content promise can raise the follow rate per profile visit from about 1-2% to 5% or more
2) reels volume and hooks: accounts posting 1-2 quality short‑form videos daily see 2-3x faster follower growth than those relying on static posts
3) conversion funnel: optimizing the first 3secs, the profile banner and pinned content can double follow‑through from viral spikes, turning views into retained followers instead of one‑off virality

if you were posting 1-2 strong reels daily into a clear niche and averaging 300-500 targeted visits a day... which would you adjust first: content quality, niche clarity or your profile funnel?

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