14
May
2025

Web traffic 2025


a nightmare

I run a small IT company, and like any proud business owner, I poured my heart, soul, and far too many late nights into building a great website. It’s sleek, informative, and—if I may say so—pretty impressive. The problem? No one sees it. Without the budget for serious SEO efforts, it’s basically the digital equivalent of opening a beautiful shop down a dead-end alley in the middle of the night. The lights are on, the shelves are stocked, but the customers? Nowhere to be found.

Search engines like Google and Bing seem to have developed a bit of an identity crisis. Once upon a time, their noble mission was to help people find the most relevant, useful information on the internet. Fast forward to today, and it feels more like a digital shopping mall where sponsored content gets the prime real estate—and the rest of us are left waving from page five. If you’re not paying to play, your site might as well be scribbled on a sticky note under a couch cushion. Relying on these platforms for organic traffic? Let’s just say... don’t hold your breath.

So, what’s the alternative? Well, I decided to ditch the lonely island that was my traditional website and instead set up shop on guide4varna.com. Is it a perfect solution? Probably not. But here, I get to be a big fish in a small pond—instead of a microscopic fish in an SEO-infested ocean. At least now, there’s a fighting chance someone might actually see my ad without me having to sell a kidney.

Page 2

Less than 1% of people searching Google ever goes to page 2, they either give up or change search criteria. So you either have to go all in on SEO or go home

Sponsors

Most of page one is filled with either Google's own content (retrieved via AI from other web pages) or sponsored links. Google will rather show information and take credit for this, than show links to sites that do not pay Google

Weird prices

When paying for ads on Google or Bing, they use a very complex algorithm to calculate your advertising price and unless you are a mathematician, you will never figure out if you got the exposure for which you paid

Guide4Varna may not be the internet’s Times Square, but hey—it definitely gets more traffic than zero. The best part? Listings are based on a simple, fixed (and refreshingly affordable) price. No bidding wars, no algorithms judging my worth. Plus, I know the people browsing are local and might actually need my services—imagine that! As a bonus, I’ve waved goodbye to the joys of maintaining my old website: no more wrestling with SSL certificates, hosting fees, or mysterious backend errors. I just plug into Guide4Varna and let someone else deal with the technical gremlins. Bliss.

Struggling to get your Facebook ads noticed? Website collecting more dust than clicks? You’re not alone. Maybe it’s time to try a different approach—like I did. If more of us local businesses team up and use a shared platform like Guide4Varna, who knows? This little local portal might just turn into a powerhouse, helping Varna’s businesses get seen not only by locals but by curious international visitors too. Strength in numbers, right? Plus, it’s way more fun trying to be visible together than screaming into the digital void solo.