How long does it take to get Organic Traffic? [My Case Study]

This is a question I get asked often via emails, “How long does it take to get organic traffic?”

Organic traffic has become more vital than ever now because social media algorithms have become super unstable.

Not to mention the fact that they push content creators to create an unhealthy quantity of posts to compete with others.

It isn’t possible to keep up on social media and still have a life outside of it.

This, I know for a fact.

So, organic traffic is definitely more stable than social media traffic.

The question is, how long does it take to get organic traffic in 2022?

Google updates its algorithms 2 times a year approximately, and a lot of people have lost their organic traffic – some bloggers reporting to have lost about 50-60% – which is honestly a huge amount.

However, if you’re:

• In a good and solid niche
• Writing lots of quality content (related to your niche)
• SEO optimizing your posts

Then your traffic may suffer from minor setbacks but will recover quickly.

Google sends you targeted traffic – this is why Ads perform better with organic traffic as compared to Pinterest traffic.

However, I digress.

Let’s get back to the original question – how long does it take to get organic traffic from the time of starting a blog?

Here’s what we will discuss in this post:

• My own case study of a new blog I started this year (+ screensh0ts)
• What I did to get organic traffic fast
• What I am going to do to continue to speed up the growth
• How I plan to monetize

But first, here’s a free blog planner from my side so you can keep up with my weekly newsletters (I provide lots of helpful nuggets of wisdom related to blogging).

This post includes affiliate links to products I truly (from the bottom of my heart) recommend, meaning at no extra cost to you, I may earn a small percentage which I will use to buy my poor dogs food.

How long does it take to get organic traffic to a brand new website?

The short answer is 6-8 months.

However, if you write a lot of SEO-optimized posts and release them quickly, you can speed up the process to 4-5 months.

The blog niche also matters.

But let’s get back to my case study.

I started a blog in late February 2022 but only started posting in March 2022.

I am not going to reveal the domain URL because I don’t want all my readers to head on over to the new blog. This will skew the data, and I won’t be able to report organic traffic accurately.

I want to grow this blog from scratch using nobody’s help and only Google Organic Search.

This blog is related to art and drawing.

And for each post, I need to complete a drawing project.

Naturally, this means that each post takes a little bit of time to complete. So, I can only write about 15-20 posts a month, and it’s a little difficult to scale at the moment.

The blog is currently 3 months old, and this is the fourth month I am blogging.

Let’s look at the traffic stats:

Month 1:

In March (Month 1), I wrote 10 blog posts for the new website, receiving a total of 84 page views, mostly towards the end of the month.

You can see the spike there at the end of the month on the 29th of March, I believe I got some impressions for a particular post, and that resulted in some clicks.

So, here are my stats for Month 1:

• Total pageviews for Month 1: 84
• Total posts written for Month 1: 10

The ups and downs happen a lot when you start a new website because Google is indexing your posts and doing a lot of trials and tests. They keep bumping your post to the front page and back just to see how it measures up.

You cannot expect any solid traffic in the first few months.

Month 2:

Even though I was traveling a lot in April, I buckled down and managed to write 13 posts in the month of April.

I managed to get 268 pageviews.

So, here are my stats for Month 2:

• Total pageviews for Month 2: 268
• Total Posts written for Month 2: 13
• Number of posts on the Blog: 23

So, I can honestly say that writing a lot of posts did contribute to some ups and downs towards the end.

13 posts a month isn’t great, but as of the end of Month 2, I now had 23 posts sitting on the website.

These posts need time to grow – according to most bloggers and niche website builders, it takes 8-9 months for a post to reach its 90% traffic potential.

So, it’s basically a waiting game.

Month 3:

I really outdid myself in month 3, May.

I went ahead and wrote 20 posts for the new blog.

It really took a lot out of me, and although I could have pushed myself more, I wanted to write and draw at a pace that I can maintain for a few more months.

So, I don’t think I can write more than 20 a month for the new blog – considering I have 2 other blogs I am trying to maintain.

Here’s my traffic for the website:

Here are the stats for month 3:

• Total pageviews for Month 3: 1410
• Total Posts written for Month 3: 20
• Number of posts on the Blog: 43

I currently rank for over 840 keywords on Google Search according to my Keyword tool. I use Ahrefs, but if you want an inexpensive tool, I highly suggest Keysearch (use KSDISC to get a 20% discount)

And I am seeing between 40-100 pageviews a day on the website.

It’s definitely exhilarating to see this kind of progress on a brand new website.

I know this is only the beginning.

I can only make a proper analysis after 1 year of blogging on this website.

So, I will release more updates soon every quarter, hopefully.

If I don’t write a blog post, I will release an email, so make sure you sign up for my newsletter by downloading the free planner.

How do you get organic traffic fast?

In this section, I will discuss what I did to get this kind of organic traffic in 3 months and how I will keep continuing this strategy.

1. Choose a good niche

Make sure your niche is not YMYL.

YMYL niches basically mean that the niche in some way relates to health or finance. You can read more about YMYL niches here. 

It takes way longer to grow without social media.

I do have a blog www.mindspacecafe.com in the YMYL niche, but it took a long time to start getting traffic and because it’s not my primary blog, I have that kind of patience.

But if you are interested in making money quickly within a year of blogging, then don’t start a blog in a YMYL niche.

If at all, you’ve started a YMYL niche site, then it is best to use Pinterest and Organic Search (both) to grow your website’s traffic – this will help speed it up.

I suggest you do manual pinning to help you with this.

2. Choose good keywords

Your keywords should:

• Be closely related to your niche (don’t even go for umbrella topics, this will slow you down)
• Low volume (preferably 10-100 monthly searches)
• Low ranking difficulty (0-5) on a Keyword tool

You cannot start a niche blog without a paid keyword tool – it will really stunt your growth.

I also use Google Autosuggest to help me find topics that are not written about (so I can rank faster).

And I also use Ahrefs to understand similar keywords and what is the competition.

Ahrefs costs over $99 a month, and if you cannot afford it, that’s okay. Please use the next best option, which is Keysearch (in my opinion).

3. Write very good quality posts

You don’t need to be perfect at writing.

Writing is a skill – it gets better with practice.

Do not sit with your content.

Your aim should be to publish as many as you can.

Quality matters, but at the moment, quantity is key.

Your posts should be over 1.5K words preferably, and should not be stuffed with keywords.

Use them discreetly and naturally.

Google is now wise enough to understand what the post is about without you having to stuff keywords.

You also have to structure, format, and SEO optimize each and every single blog post you write – this increases your chances of ranking on the front page.

I explain how I do that with my blog posts in my SEO blueprint. It will explain everything you need to know about On-Page SEO.

4. Submit every single post for crawling

Connect your website to Google Search Console.

And submit every post you’ve written for indexing the moment you’ve hit publish.

For the first 5-6 months, Google doesn’t crawl and index posts daily on new websites.

They do not take new websites seriously, so you must request indexing.

You can wait for Google to index your posts manually, but this may take months, and Google might end up skipping a few posts – it happens to a lot of bloggers.

So, sit and submit them manually.

It’s annoying, but we can’t really do much.

Once the post is crawled, it will be indexed if Google deems it fit to be indexed.

Sometimes, posts take time to get indexed – this is normal.

5. Continue to write consistently for months

You’re not going to get any traction in the first few months.

You will not see any progress (or close to zero progress) for the first couple of months.

Most bloggers start seeing traffic after 6-8 months.

Some see it in 4-5.

This is dependent on many factors:

• How old the domain URL is (If the domain was already established, posts rank faster and bring traffic faster)
• What niche you’re writing in (I believe some niches do rank faster due to low competition)
• How many posts you’ve released in the first couple of months

If you’ve written 60-100 posts in the first 2 months of blogging, you could start seeing traffic as early as month 5 or month 6.

Even moving posts from an established blog to a new blog will help speed up growth.

Please understand that this is dependent on Google Search.

But the more posts you write, the higher your chance of hitting the $1K/month mark in a year’s time.

It is possible to hit that number, but it is dependent on all the factors I’ve mentioned above.

6. Use social media

I prefer staying far away from social media, and I only use it to raise brand awareness, but I know a lot of people are comfortable using social media.

For bloggers, I recommend Pinterest.

But then again, do not waste too much time on Pinterest. Do the absolute bare minimum for 8-9 months.

If you start seeing significant traffic on Pinterest within 8-9 months, continue to use it – otherwise, just scrap it altogether or pin like 5 pins a week.

I do not suggest breaking your head over Pinterest because it is very susceptible to algorithm changes.

I talk about how I use manual pinning for my lifestyle blog here.

It honestly can change at any time.

And it’s not predictable.

Also, it is impractical to focus on so many things when your life is already filled with family, work, etc.

So, just do the bare minimum – write content and lots of it.

What kind of traffic should you expect when starting a new niche website?

Assuming you’ve:

• Started a blog in a good niche (not very high competition like tech, finance, or blogging)
• Are writing a lot of blog posts quickly (at least 15-20 a month)
• SEO optimizing your posts and picking good keywords
• Not used social media or Pinterest (the below expectations are based on a blog only writing content and doing zero promotion.

Here’s what you can expect:

How long does it take to hit your first 100 page views?

In your third month of consistent blogging, you should expect to see at least 100 page views per month.

In my case, I have a lot of experience with websites and blogging, and I know how to choose keywords. This comes with practice. So, I could speed up the process and get 1K pageviews by the 3rd month.

How long does it take to get 1000 page views per month?

In the next quarter (Month 4, 5, and 6), you should get around 1K page views per month by month 6.

Please note that these are estimates based on:

• Your niche
• Your ability to write a lot of highly SEO-optimized posts

But if you have around 80 blog posts on your blog (which is doable by month 6), and they are all SEO optimized and targeting low competition, 1K page views per month is doable!

How long does it take to get 5K page views a month?

By the third quarter (Month 7, 8, and 9), you should have about 120 posts on your blog and should be making about 5K page views per month.

It is achievable.

How long does it take to get to 10K pageviews?

By the 4th quarter (Month 10, 11, and 12), you should be making around 10K pageviews. But this time, you should have about 150 posts on your blog.

Your traffic will be very low at the beginning for the first 6-8 months.

But after that, you will experience hockey stick growth, and your traffic should take off because your posts will start ranking and bringing in the traffic.

That’s why it’s important to write a lot of content in the beginning because those posts add up, and you’re basically front-lining your blog with content that will bring you a truckload of traffic.

By the end of 18 months to 2 years, you can expect to hit 20-50K pageviews and you should have at least 150-200 blog posts up on your blog or more.

This will ensure that you hit your traffic goals, and you can apply to some really good ad networks.

How do I plan to monetize my new blog?

I like lazy blogging.

It means focusing on 1 thing only.

I am currently just writing content.

I am not trying to gain backlinks, and I’m barely using Pinterest – barely 1.5 hours a month, if that.

So, I don’t plan to do any courses or create high-value programs for this new blog.

I am just monetizing via affiliate marketing.

I applied to Ezoic 3 days ago and already got accepted – the ads are running on my website. I have 50 posts on the blog right now.

I also got accepted by Google Adsense, but I am not displaying Google Ads on my blog because it slows down the website. The only reason I applied is that I wanted to see if my blog was worthy enough to serve ads. I talk about how you can get quick Adsense approval here. 

They usually don’t accept blogs from India, Pakistan, or China within 6 months (due to large quantities of spam websites), but seeing the amount of content on my blog and the type of content, I bet they were willing to make an exception.

I am not with Ezoic for the money, even though they are the best Ad network for new bloggers. They pay much more than Google Adsense.

Money is the last thing on my mind at the moment.

Ezoic speeds up your website like crazy, and they also give you very valuable data like:

• Which posts bring in more money
• Which posts are getting good traffic
• What is the speed of your website, and how you can optimize your speed

And so on.

Their data is invaluable.

Apart from this, they are the only quality Ad company that takes in websites with less than 10K pageviews. You just have to make sure that you select their Access Now program.

CHECK OUT EZOIC HERE

They take time to optimize the ads on your website, and it can look a little wonky in the beginning. So, I prefer doing it now rather than waiting till my website is huge and experimenting then.

But they’re very responsive and fix things quickly if you start a thread on their Twist Channel.

I will continue to use Ezoic ads till I hit the 50K sessions threshold and then apply to Mediavine.

I hope this answers all your questions and you got a great idea of what to expect starting a new niche blog by seeing my own example that I have highlighted.

Let me know if you have any questions – I’ll be more than happy to help!