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Welcome to my report for my third month of blogging!
You can find previous reports here: first month blogging and second month blogging.
My third month blogging: the context
I think month three is where I’ve settled into a routine, and started to think about my blog being a part of my life for… well, potentially forever.
In months one and two I joined ALL the blogging groups, signed up for ALL the courses, and generally overwhelmed myself.
In month three I’ve managed a better work-life balance. I’ve also got into a pretty good traffic building groove. And it’s the first time I’ve earned income from my blog!
My third month blogging: the goals
This is what I aimed for last month:
- Page views: 2,500+
- Twitter followers: 100+
- Pinterest followers: 100+
- Instagram followers: 120+
- Email subscribers: 11+
My third month blogging: the stats
Here’s what you came for!
- Page views: 3,357 (+1,485)
- Twitter followers: 153 (+38)
- Pinterest followers: 103 (+28)
- Instagram followers: 165 (+77)
- Email subscribers: 22 (+13)
- DA: 20 (+10)
- Blog expenses: £94.78 (Photoshop, Tailwind, and the Genius Bloggers Toolkit)
- Blog income: £1.16 (From Awin* and Amazon)
How I doubled my traffic in my third month blogging
Here’s my traffic graph for the last three months (in sessions):
You can see October’s traffic was fairly flat until the end of the month. Basically, I had some pins take off on Pinterest and drive a bunch of traffic.
60% of my social traffic is coming from Pinterest. It is by far the easiest way to drive interested, engaged visitors to your blog.
Last month I subscribed to Tailwind* and joined some tribes and some group boards. This month saw me reap the success from that. I had a huge platform to push my pins out to, despite only having 100 or so followers myself.
My Pinterest ‘reach’ went from 54,101 at the start of October, to 129,752 at the end. This extra reach can be attributed to those Tailwind Tribes and Group Boards.
I’ve also scheduled pins for almost the whole of November already, meaning I can just browse Pinterest and pin for fun for most of this month 🙂
Blogging Tools and Resources
- My blog is hosted with Geek Storage*.
- My social share buttons are via the WordPress plugin Social Warfare*.
- I use Tailwind* and Buffer to schedule my Pins and my Tweets respectively.
- My newsletter is sent via Mailchimp*.
- All blog images are made with Photoshop.
- I signed up to Awin*, Amazon, and Shareasale* for different affiliate programs.
- The most money I’ve spent so far was on the Genius Bloggers Toolkit (no longer on sale).
Blog content from my third month blogging
I wrote 1 guest post which is being published in November, and 9 blog posts. The most popular were:
- Christmas Gift Guide for those on a budget
- How to spend less than you earn
- Save money on your groceries
I stuck mainly to my ‘theme’ of money management. I will admit that I found it a little wearing to have to stick to one topic for so many blog posts. I’ll probably not do such a ‘full on’ theme in the future.
No more monthly reports?
I’m dropping the monthly reports. But don’t panic! I’ll still be talking about my blogging journey. However, I’ll be replacing the monthly reports with quarterly ones. This helps take the pressure off ‘instant’ growth and puts the focus where it belongs – on slow, sustainable growth.
I’ll check in again at the end of December! At that point I hope to have made a minimum of £5 from the blog… wish me luck!