Any analysis from simply looking at an article isn't much help. Most people tend to look at their own work through rose-tinted glasses.
Look at it logically using measurements that help show you what is happening. Assess whether your article has the potential to get search traffic based on search volumes. Determine where your article currently ranks in Google, and analyse engagement data to see how those searchers feel about your work.
Look at the search term you are trying to rank for. What is the average search volume? 100? 1000? 10000 monthly searches? Is it worth ranking for? There is no benefit to ranking for a term that has minimal to no search volume. You'll get little traffic simply because there is no traffic; not because your article is poor. Look at what terms you rank for, assess them based on search volume and relevance to your content, and adjust on-page accordingly.
Does the article rank on the first page of Google? What quantity of traffic are you receiving from Google? A ranking in first position is estimated to result in receiving roughly 42 percent of all searcher click-throughs. If you look at the average search volume for the term you are ranking for and calculate 42 percent of it, that is the average traffic you will be able to achieve in first position for that term.
If your article doesn't rank in either positions 1, 2, or 3, it's not likely many searchers will bother visiting your article. In this case if there is a decent search volume for the keyword, your aim should be to increase rank and that will give you traffic. There could be underlying issues with the quality of your content that prevents it ranking, or the competition can simply be stronger based on their SEO profile. Even if your content is remarkably better than a competing article, the competitor will still beat you in most cases if they have better ranking factors like backlinks, social metrics, and on-page SEO.
If you are in first position for your search term for a keyword that has traffic, but very few people are actually clicking through to your article from search results, why is this the case? What is it about the title or description that may cause searchers to believe your article doesn't present an answer to what they want to know?
Then look at engagement data. How many people spend a great deal of time on your article? Do many people simply click back out or stay less than 30 seconds? Less than 10 seconds? Is the bounce rate for that page much higher than average for the rest of your subdomain? This tells you that people may not like the article, or that it doesn't accurately reflect the topic they were expecting to read about. If a very high number of people leave immediately after the page loads, this is a good sign that it doesn't match the search term. If people stay but not for very long, this can mean there are problems with user experience or the information itself, even though it matches the search term.
If the metrics show poor engagement data, figure out why this is the case. Are searchers finding your article through a keyword that doesn't relate to your article? Does the keyword you are targeting closely relate to your article? Is the user experience poor; eg, awkward structure, riddled with spelling mistakes, etc. Grammar and spelling don't have the utmost importance, but if they are so poor as to make the article difficult or irritating to read, the searcher will likely click back to search results.
Concrete data puts you into a position where you can accurately assess what is happening rather than guessing. It is a core principle of marketing that results need to be both measurable and achievable. If you don't know how many views you can expect when ranking for a search term, you can't measure whether you are successful.
