Topic: Hard to get traffic to site

[Big Sky Weather]

I've had my site up and running for almost 3 months now. I've done local flyer postings around town, tried facebook ads and word of mouth. It seems really hard to get visitors. I may get 1 or 2 per day. Sometimes I have more foreign visitors and crawler bots in a day than US visitors. Anyone have any tips on how to start getting consistent local visitors? I think the proliferation of weather apps on phones makes it to where nobody wants to go to a website anymore, they just want to press on an icon and have it display the info they need.

[galfert]

Try the local schools for flyers, or talk to science teachers. Get yourself listed with your regional weather network of websites.
http://www.northamericanweather.net/

Also be sure that your weather website clearly says the location. I've seen too many weather websites that give you no indication of where the weather is for. Some websites do have a location name that might mean something to a local like say "Lake Lilly Weather" but then that is it. Even if you are a local how do you know that Lake Lilly is the same Lake Lilly? More location details are required. Baffles me how many weather websites fail at this. But even still more visitors would come if more location details were given. So be sure to have a town or city name and a state. Couldnt hurt to also have Latitude and Longitude as I'm sure even a local would be interest in knowing how far exactly you are from them. Also I have no way of knowing if you have done any of this as you don't have your website in your signature.

But these are just additional efforts that may or not make much difference. 3 months is not a lot of time. Things take time for websites to sometimes be discovered and word of mouth spread. And you are right about how easy and simple it is to get just weather data from a smartphone without needing to visit a website.

Another way to draw traffic is to expand into more than just weather. Maybe you could pull and dislay valuable resources and links for the community. Perhaps you local city government already does this so don't do that if you'd be just duplicating what already exists. But if they don't then that is your opportunity.

Do you have cameras on the website? Because that makes it more interesting.

Another thing to try is to add a blog and make it interesting.

A few months ago I remember reading I think in this forum about an individual that had had their weather site up for years. They noticed how traffic had dwindled as the years passed by. They found little reason for keeping the site up to justify the cost. My argument was and still is that you shouldn't do it for others but for yourself. Nothing else matters. Do it because it is your hobby and because you can learn something. Do it so that you can teach others, especially a youth in your life.

[weather34]

think the proliferation of weather apps on phones makes it to where nobody wants to go to a website anymore, they just want to press on an icon and have it display the info they need.

you have basically answered your question , has harsh as  it or this sounds your wasting your time , 99.9% probably of your target audience is not interested in the finer details and own a smart device where the relevant information to them is at a click of an icon,button etc.. ask yourself what separates what you offer over the applications or information available to them instantly ? if you say i have radar images . are they interested do they understand exactly what is being displayed ? i have the forecast so does there pocket device , so does there computer, local media tv stations have it , local radio stations have it and so on .
importantly how does your website appeal to them is pretty , is it easy to understand, are the key points predominantly visible i.e how hot or cold will it be to tomorrow,is going to  rain , is it going to snow . simple as they may sound thats what the average person is interested in outside the home weather enthusiast community ..

a predictable reply it may sound but you have to think outside your own interests , understanding and simplify it to something appealing.

personally i would just focus on your own needs , ive never had any interest in getting involved in anything for anyone outside my own home or interests after channeling time and effort in to a school project .

4 years ago i got involved in our local k12 international school and we bought a weather station and hooked it up to the web used kens saratoga template added links via the school website promoted it in parents newsletters etc it was complete waste of time has highlighted in a parent meeting session “but my phone shows the weather was a popular view “ now its just used for educational purposes internally occasionally with no public website .

lastly goto any smart device app store and your confronted with 100s or more applications what separates the popular ones from the rest is useability , ease of use and appearance (the key point is appearance as the expectation of a smart device is to be smart not old and out of date looking, distorted looking images, bad egg shaped appearance when it should be circular understand the importance of ergonomics especially using a smart device).

channel your knowledge into serving your own interests unless you have a niche ..

[ValentineWeather]

I agree you may get a few loyal followers but phone apps have become the goto device for the forecast with web surfing seemingly on the decline just from my observation.
You can try cameras but most visitors will be from afar and not locals interested in what's going on.  I've actually considered shutting the site down due to rising expenses. The main reason I haven't was our NWS FCO have told me several times the cameras mean a lot plus I use the website for myself because it has everything needed to fuel my enthusiast fix all in one place. 

[Big Sky Weather]

Thanks for the advice. I know that Rome wasn't built in a day, so I'll be patient. As a note of interest (to me, anyhow), it looks like someone from NOAA has visited my site and even though they checked through many of the pages, one seems to interest them so much that they're "camped out" on it for the past 24 hours.... my webcam that's pointed at a mountain range approx. 8 miles away. They go back and forth from the webcam page to a history page that shows all of the data collected daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. I dunno, it's kinda cool to see them interested in my site.

[ValentineWeather]

Yes, the cameras are very useful to forecasters I've been told several times.

[Notsorusty]

Post your site so some of us can check it out also.

[SteveFitz1]

First, it would be helpful if you posted a link to your site so we could offer suggestions for possibly improving it. Second, what steps have you taken to improve your search standing in the various Search engines. Third, do you provide information not typically found on a phone weather app?

I've been fortunate in growing the number of visitors to my site over nine-fold over the last 10 years. In fact, my visitor count increased 15% from 2018 to 2019. I believe there is a place for good, informative, personal weather websites. When I run into folks who use my site (or receive emails from them), I ask why they use my site. The answers range from "your info is better than the local TV stations" to "you have information on your site I couldn't find anywhere else".

My recommendation is don't lose heart. All of us started with a single visitor. And the more we poured into our site to attract visitors, the more visitors found us. Just remember, while a phone weather app is just the press of icon away, the same is true for your website once the user simply adds your home page to their home screen.

Steve