3 Months Into Blogging: Building A Foundation

So I got this idea when I reached over 15,000 pageviews in my second month of blogging. That was absolutely crazy to me. I mean, I didn’t know anything about blogging when I decided to do it, yet I have somehow managed to get to this point. I must be doing something right.

Instead of writing a post about that milestone immediately, I decided to take a page out of Blair Blogs’s book and create a  3-month update series sort of thing. Of course, she did quarterly updates on her marriage, while I’ll be doing it on blogging.

I started this blog on May 29, 2016, so technically this post was supposed to be published on August 29th, but I decided to wait till September to see the monthly pageviews. So let’s just pretend I published this two weeks ago, shall we?

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//Month 1: May 29-June 29

I didn’t focus much on the marketing aspect of blogging this month. I spent a lot of time writing and editing posts. In the month of June, I published 18 posts. They were really long, thought-out, and helpful posts too, which is good because when people came on my site, there were other posts they could go to if interested.

I also spent a lot of time messing with the design. I added plugins, created a color scheme, a brand… Those are some of the reasons that most people stayed. When a blog looks professional, it’s easier to take it seriously. I’m glad I put effort into that.

I created social media accounts for the blog. I created a Twitter and Facebook Page for it. I was pretty good about posting on Twitter. Not really on Facebook. That’s because the social media scheduling tool I use doesn’t work for Facebook pages. I also branded my Pinterest account. I added keywords, branded all of my boards, and created a business account. If you want to follow, click on the links.

Blogging made me very productive that month. I don’t think I watched any T.V. I was just on my computer blogging. My parents were probably wondering what the heck I was doing all that time because I was on my laptop A LOT.

Monthly Pageviews: 648

Those pageviews were probably all me and the few friends I told about this blog. I’m fine with that. July is when I spent more time on marketing, so my pageviews skyrocketed.

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//Month 2: June 29-July 29

I honestly didn’t plan on blogging as much as I did. Despite my month long travels, I was able to publish twice a week in the beginning. They were really long evergreen posts, too. I was really good about scheduling out posts early, so I was able to enjoy my vacation without worrying.

My biggest reason for the dramatic increase in traffic was Pinterest. I did use Pinterest in my first month of blogging. I just didn’t have many followers. Joining group Pinterest boards was the answer to that dilemma. By pinning to group Pinterest boards specifically for college students, I was able to increase my readership by a lot because my posts went out to thousands.

Other than that, I wasn’t very active in terms of my blog. This makes me really happy because I had managed to 23X my traffic without doing much.

Monthly Pageviews: 15,040

Storytime: The day I was at Magic Kingdom, I got a notification on my phone saying that Making My Way was getting a huge increase in traffic. At this point, I was happy to be getting 50 pageviews a day, so I had assumed that I had maybe reached 200. Was I in for a surprise. When I got to the hotel, I checked my laptop and I saw that I had reached over 2,800 pageviews!!!! And there was already over 500 for the next day! (It was 2 AM. We were at Disney World way after the fireworks. We saw the parade twice) I’m digressing. I really wanted to jump on the bed, but I was sharing the hotel room with three of my cousins, who didn’t know I had a blog, so I kept it to myself.

(Also, completely unrelated. This is for Girl Meets World Fans: He chose Riley!!!! My cousin from Australia and I were so happy. We saw the episode on my laptop in New York a week before the episode came out. Okay. Digression done. The only reason I’m mentioning it here is that this happened in July.)

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//Month 3: July 29-August 29

I was pretty lazy in the month of August. After such a fun and crazy month, I had fallen out of the habit of blogging, so I didn’t blog as much as I had wanted to.

As you all know, I started my Freshman year of college last month, so that took priority. I was far more focused on school and work. I still managed to get a lot of pageviews and comments. I even got an email from a reader in China, who told me she loved my blog! That was a highlight of the last three months

Monthly Pageviews: 12,187

I’m happy with this number considering that I didn’t spend as much time on marketing. My goal was 10,000 and I exceeded that. I plan on working on marketing more in the next few months.

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//Goals For The Next Three Months

• Create A Professional Blog Email Address– Having a blog email address will make this blog more professional. It’ll also help separate my personal email from my blog stuff.

• Increase My Social Media Following– I have different goals for each platform, which are listed below. Hopefully, this will motivate me to schedule out social media beforehand.
  • Pinterest: 1000
  • Twitter: 100
  • Instagram: 200
  • Facebook: 50

• Add 3 Opt-In Freebies– I want to focus some on building my email list in the next few months. Adding opt-in freebies is a start.

• Add Advertisements To This Site– you can’t sign up for Google Analytics until your blog has been live for 3 months, so I’ll be able to add them now.

• Join A Sponsorship Network- this seems like a good place to start in terms of monetizing this site.

• Buy A Professional Design (My current one is free)-I already have a design in mind. I just have to convince myself to actually buy it. This will happen eventually. I just don’t like spending a lot of money at once, but it’s a worthwhile investment that’ll take this blog to the next level.

• Join Board Booster– Or some other Pinterest scheduler. So far, I’ve been doing this manually, but getting Board Booster will save me time and increase my traffic by a lot. It’s also very inexpensive.

• Comment On Other People’s Blogs -I have been really bad about this. I love reading blogs, I just don’t comment much. I plan on doing more of this.

• Reach 30,000 Monthly Pageviews-So basically, double my current traffic. This should be doable.

•  Revamp My About Me Page– my “About Me” page isn’t as good as it could be. I plan on rewriting it and making it way better. The thing is, it’s really awkward writing about myself and I really hated writing that page the first time. I’m going to try to fix mine ASAP because “About Me” pages are important.
• Write A Guest Post– Preferably on a site that has more traffic than mine. I keep putting this on the backburner because I want to focus more on making this site better. If any of y’all are interested in guest posting, just shoot me an email.

• Create A Media Kit– I’ll have to do this anyway in the long run, so I might as well do this now. For those of you who don’t know, a media kit is like a resume for a blog.

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//My Overall Reflection

I honestly had no idea how much I would love blogging when I started doing this. I love writing every day and responding to comments and emails and creating graphics. I’m really enjoying it. Before starting this blog, I really didn’t think I was that good of a writer, but the comments I hear really make me happy, so thank you for that. You guys make my day, and I’m so excited to continue this and to see where it takes me. Thank you all.

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Well, that’s it for this update. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my first three months of blogging.

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What advice do you have for new bloggers? What did you do in your first few months of blogging?