From 0 to 90K Pageviews in 9 Months: Blog Report

Like a lot of new bloggers, when I first started my blog, I spent a lot of time reading blog income reports and getting advice from more established bloggers.

As Seaside Sundays is now 9 months old,  I thought it might be helpful to share what has worked for me and what didn’t work quite as well. 

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Seaside Sundays launched in March 2017. I bought my domain and hosting in January but spent the whole of January and February setting it up and writing some blog posts to create a library ready for launch. I also wasted a lot of time with hosting issues and eventually had to switch hosts.

If you want to start a blog, I do recommend writing 5-10 posts before you launch, just to give you something to promote on social media.

If you haven’t started your blog yet but want to do it the right way, you can join my Make Money Blogging Free 5 Day Course. 

Blog Traffic Report

The first visitors I received on the blog were on March 31 2017 and I got 72 pageviews. This was from a Facebook share group.  9 months later, on 31 December, I received 3595 pageviews in just one day. You can see I experienced great growth in my first year.

Here you can see my Google Analytics for the year:

My blog traffic really took off in May when I started doing manual pinning using the method outlined in Pinteresting Strategies. I regret not buying that book in April because I saw results within days as you can see with the first bump in May.

Traffic remained somewhat consistent throughout fall with Aug – Nov having almost the exact same numbers.

In December 2017 I had 91.2K page views which was my highest ever. I had a couple of viral pins and I think the topics that I blog about like saving money and starting a side job, got more popular as the new year approached.

Blog Income Report

I made my first dollar in April 2017 (from Amazon Associates), the first month that Seaside Sundays was live. Since July, I have consistently made over $2000 and this amount has steadily increased as the spread of affiliates v ads v sponsored posts has fluctuated each month.

I no longer publish blog income reports on the site, however you can check out some of my earlier ones here:

My Very First Blog Income & Traffic Report: May 2017

Income Report for June 2017: My 3rd Month of Blogging

From 0-70K pageviews in 4 Months: July 2017

I still make the majority of my money from affiliate marketing and ad revenue has grown a lot since I moved to Mediavine Publishing Network from Google Adsense.

I did quite a few sponsored posts in the fall and one of my goals this year is to grow that segment of my blog income.

What Did I Do To Experience Such Growth?

1. Published blog posts consistently. I always publish at least 1 post a week, sometimes up to 3. I don’t think you need to blog on a schedule these days but I do believe that 1-3 posts a week is ideal, especially when you are starting out and need to create a database of articles.

2. Used Pinterest Group Boards. Although my goal for 2018 is to diversify my traffic even more, Pinterest has been the game changer for me as far as blog traffic is concerned. If you are a new blogger, Pinterest is probably the quickest way to start seeing traffic to your blog.

Here are some resources that will help you get started:

9 Simple Ways To Improve Your Pinterest Game Quickly

8 Pinterest group boards for mom bloggers

How to get started with Pinterest group boards

If you are interested in learning more about how I pin to my group boards, as I mentioned above, I use the Carly Campbell’s technique from her awesome book “Pinteresting Strategies“. I highly recommend checking it out if you want to get traffic fast.

I also use Tailwind for looping my new blog posts and getting them out there fast.

3. Interlinked blog posts.  I learned this from the Traffic Transformation guide from Lena Gott.  I honestly had never considered how important it is to your pageviews to keep readers on your site. Make sure to include a link within a post if there are other related posts that the reader might be interested in. 

4. Refreshed old content. I constantly go through my old posts and add new information, create new images and pins and add new related content that I have published. I’ve had posts that went nowhere initially suddenly go viral when I create a new pin or Facebook image. I try and update at least one post a month.

5. Shared my posts.  I made great use of Tailwind Communities which are a free sharing tool from Tailwind scheduler.

I consistently get a few thousand page views a week just from using tribes and it literally takes me about 20 minutes a week.

While my results from using Tailwind and Tailwind Tribes are personal,  Tailwind also publishes the Typical Results of Tailwind for Pinterest Members every year, so you can see exactly what the average growth rate looks like for their members and I think you will agree that it is quite impressive.

I also joined blogging Facebook groups and shared my new posts a few times a week. It’s also a great way to find new content to share with your readers on social media.

You can read exactly how I use Tailwind tribes to promote my pins for free in my step-by-step tutorial. 

6. Took advantage of every freebie out there! As a frugal mom blogger, I am not huge on spending thousands on blog courses or conferences. I have bought a few that are totally awesome (here are my favorite blogging courses)  but I made sure to get every single freebie I could find.

My Favorite Freebies For Bloggers:

Free Blog Traffic Bonus Guide – this is a must-read. It’s the bonus section from Traffic transformations which I mentioned above.

Free Pinterest Planner – I download this planner every year.  Make sure to check out their podcasts too.

Free stock photos – there are tons of resources for royalty-free photos that you can use on your blog.  Here is a list of over 20 sites with free stock photos to get you started.

And my two freebies are worth a mention if you are a new blogger:

How to make money blogging  – Free 5 day course

How to create a viral pin  – Free ebook

I also use as many free resources as possible to promote my blog. 

What I wished I hadn’t done

1.Ignored social media. I realized too late that social media is essential for sponsored posts and brand ambassadorships. I wish I had worked on it from day one.

2. Got bogged down in Facebook share groups. At one point I was spending over 3 hours a day on reciprocation threads and when I got burned out and stopped, I realized that my traffic didn’t decrease at all.

3. Ignored my email list. I had read so many times that it’s important to grow your list and really nurture it and I honestly haven’t been great at that.

Currently, I have over 2400 subscribers and I know I have sucked in keeping in touch with them. I had getting emails every day from companies and bloggers so I have erred on the side of not being annoying, potentially at the risk of not writing enough. I promise to be better this year!

Goals for Next Year

I honestly didn’t realize how much time blogging would take. Maybe I am just really slow but each post takes me about 3-4 hours including images and descriptions.

I also manually pin as I mentioned above and that is a bit time consuming. Did I mention I also work full-time?  Prioritizing, therefore,  the important things is my biggest goal for next year.

I also hope to keep growing my blog income traffic.  Connecting with even more readers this year is also a major goal!

More Blogging Tips:

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – Is it worth the money?

Start a blog and make money the right way

How to optimize your Pinterest strategy

How to choose the right web host for your blog