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Have you wondered if it’s possible for you to start a successful blog? I did! Here I share the good and bad of over a month of blogging. I learned a ton, but I have so much farther to go! If you’re thinking of starting your own blog, hopefully you can learn something. And if you already have a successful blog, feel free to drop some tips in the comments! 🙂

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At the beginning of January, I decided to try something new. In short, I wanted to blog for traffic. I’ve had a website for a long time, but it mostly served as a personal journal-slash-portfolio for freelance writing. Occasionally, I added race reports, or more recently, twin baby reports. The audience for these posts has typically been friends and family only. You can see how the first few weeks went here.

#Bloggoals

To some of you these numbers will sound teeny-tiny. To others, they’ll sound impossibly grand.

My first short-term traffic goal was to shoot for 5,000 pageviews in my first month

My first mid-term goal is to shoot for 25,000 pageviews per month.

My first short-term income goal was to make something from affiliate marketing in the first month.

Yes, I should have defined this better!

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so how did i do?

Let’s talk about where I started from first. 🙂

On January 1st, my pageviews were two. As in 2.0.

Oh vey. Maybe my friends and family weren’t even reading me. Either way, there was nowhere to go but up!

pageviews in month one:

I met my first goal! I was beyond excited to hit 5k pageviews. I’m hoping to double that in the next few months.

affiliate income in month one:

I met my second goal as well! Right now I’m only dabbling in the Amazon Associates program–since I talk about and recommend products all day long from there anyway, it makes sense!

how i did it:

Here’s what I did and some of the challenges I faced along the way.

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writing what i want

I’m definitely not saying this is the way to do things, it’s just what I have been doing. i’ve mostly been writing on the topics of fitness [my tried and true standby], mom life, and writing.

Not only are my topics a bit sporadic, my popular posts are, too. I’m not sure if I’ll narrow my focus or just keep doing as I am for awhile.

Yet…I’ve basically just been writing about whatever strikes my fancy.

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updating my website

This is turning into a constant thing. I was having some issues with my theme a few days ago and started on another revamp. I think it’s for the best though. I needed to simplify and update things, toss old dinosaur plugins, etc. When I’m done [if that ever happens] then things should look cleaner and run faster.

url woes

Ultimately, after listening to some podcasts and google research, I decided not to start with a brand new url. Instead I’ll just do a redirect whenever I pick my new name. I reserved several names, but I’m not absolutely in love with any of them. Here are the ones I picked up:

• Twinfant Diaries
• Be Bold and Simplify
• Create Space and Time
• IVF Life
• To Boldly Goal [current favorite]

Ultimately, I’m not sure if any of them completely encapsulate what I’m trying to do. [What am I trying to do again?] While I figure it out, I’ve just been writing on my main site under the categories Baby, Training Tips, and Writing.

I did some additional work on trying to tighten my focus and message. Here’s what it looks like right now:

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working pinterest

I used to think Pinterest was all recipes and DIY tiny-houses made from popsicle sticks. I didn’t realize how much great information and potential there was! When I started in early January, I had about eleven followers and no engagement. My boards were called “bikes” and “best doggies.” So yeah, I knew nothing.

The last few weeks I’ve been following more in my niche, joining more group boards, and trying to consistently pin and share from tribes.

Here’s what my stats looked like after three weeks:

And now, they look like this:

Dang! Exactly 100k more. I swear I didn’t plan that. I know monthly views are basically a vanity metric, but it’s still cool to see the growth.

tracking popular posts.

My popular posts have fallen under the mom category–but interestingly enough, my most popular pins have been out of the writing and fitness categories. Maybe the mom stuff is helpful and the writing/running stuff is more what you want to have on your boards? I’m not sure. All I know is my most popular pin was a breast pump comparison, yet it has, like, no saves. While my other pins I’d categorize as more “motivational” have lots of saves yet hardly any reads. 🙂

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updating old content

In Ready, Set, Blog for Traffic–a great course I’m taking from Elna Cain–and Blog Millionaire, an awesome podcast. there is a lot of talk about the importance of repurposing old content. So I’ve still been updating some old posts. Now I’m focusing on the Courage to Tri stories posts.

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organized facebook groups

My facebook group situation was a hot mess. I finally went through, organized them all, and pinned only the most active ones in which I plan to participate weekly.

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signing up as an affiliate

I’d blindly signed up as an Amazon associate during my book launch and hadn’t touched the account since. Thankfully it was still going, and as of today, I’ve made just under $30 in comission in the past thirty days. Woohoo!

I’m not sure what other affiliate programs fit my niche. I joined a few others, such as Target and Shareasale. Not sure if or when I’ll become active on those.

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increased subscribers

I’ve gotten about thirty new subscribers the past month, which I’m really excited about! I need to through and clean up my convertkit tags and lists, then thinking about sending out that very first email. I know, I know…should have done that already. Any ideas on what to include?

closing thoughts

All in all, I’ve learned a ton the past month, and I’d consider the blogging a success. I plan to post about my results every two weeks or so. Onward and upward! My next big milestone is 10 – 15k pageviews a month and $100 + in affiliate income.

how to get started yourself

It was much easier to get started than I thought, but I have a lot of experience with small business, wordpress, and other tech stuff. If you were starting from absolute zero, I can see how it would be a lot tougher.

If you’re semi-proficient online, I’d definitely recommend picking up a course like Ready, Set, Blog for Traffic. I’ve learned a lot about the differences between, say, blogging for my neighbor and family to read versus writing so that others can discover.

My best piece of advice is just to go for it. There will never be a better time than now to start blogging.

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