This post may contain affiliate links. If you use the link I receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Thank You!
Overview
Blog Name: momwifeandeverydaylife
Period: January 2021 to July 2021
Experience: This is my first blog
Launched: January 10th 2021
A Quick Timeline
- 9/1/20 started researching blogs
- 10/1/20 set the goal to launch a blog January of 2021
- 10/1/20 started writing content
- 11/1/20 set up Canva account to create pins
- 11/10/20 had 20 blog posts written by now
- 12/10/20 set up new Pinterest account
- 12/18/20 created excel sheet for tracking pins
- 12/19/20 downloaded stock photography for pins and posts
- 12/21/20 put content through grammarly
- 1/5/21 purchased domain, hosting, theme
- 1/6/21 playing around with theme options
- 1/9/21 built pages
- 1/10/21 created disclaimers
- 1/10/21 learned how to interlink articles
- 1/10/21 website went live
- 1/11/21 fixed SSL issue
- 1/12/21 set up Google Analytics
- 1/20/21 published my first pin on Pinterest
- 1/26/21 scheduled to publish my 16th article
- 1/31/21 removed myself from Google Analytics-I think
- 2/1/21 applied for Amazon affiliate program
- 3/6/21 50 lifetime users on my site
- 3/9/21 publishing content every 4 days
- 4/13/21 400 lifetime users with 1690 life time pageviews
- 4/21/21 looked at Google Search Console for the first time
- 6/23/21 1000 lifetime users
The Numbers
Published Posts
My number of published posts started strong and then started to dwindle. This was perfectly ok and in fact, was part of the plan.
Before launching my site, I had nearly 30 articles ready to be published. I didn’t want to publish them in a day though and be down to nothing.
I wanted to get a decent number of posts out quickly to give them more time to get indexed.
I also wanted to spread out my publishing to show that my website would be consistently publishing new content.
I took my time scheduling them out throughout the months. As I was going I continued to work on the setup of my site as well as continuing to write content. Another huge priority was the creation and publication of pins.
In the beginning, it is easy to get overwhelmed with design and technical issues on your site. Having a stockpile of posts to publish was extremely helpful.
You can hear more about my plan by reading Steps to Take Before Launching Your Blog to Guarantee Success.
Users
The growth in my number of users was amazing in the beginning. From January to February I more than doubled my users. Then from February to March I almost hit 9X the users. March was so exciting.
Then the following months the growth slowed. April took a dip and then May and June bounced back. They just didn’t have the same strong growth, which was a bummer.
I am happy to say though that in 6 months over 1000 users have visited my website. I hope I have helped these users learn valuable and helpful information.
I am looking forward to seeing growth in the next 6 months.
Pageviews
Do not even look at the pageviews for January! This is complete junk! 12 users did not look at 673 pageviews!
It was all me! I am shocked I visited my pages that frequently. At the end of January, I attempted to remove myself from my Google Analytics. Hopefully, I was successful!
Other than that you can see that my pageviews went along with my number of users. March was a great month, while April had a dip. May and June then work their way back up in pageviews.
Pinterest Impressions
My early Pinterest impressions were skewed by the creation of my account. During December and January, I was pinning content that was not my own. This was the time of board creation and getting pins belonging to others on these boards.
January 20th was when I started pinning my content. As time when on and I had more posts published and therefore more pins to publish I started doing my content exclusively. I just couldn’t be bothered with pinning content belonging to others. There were too many other tasks to complete.
February shows my drop because I was not yet established on Pinterest. With time I grew. April surprising wasn’t a bad month for my Pinterest impression, despite it being not a great month for users or pageviews.
I hope to continue to see my Pinterest impressions rise because Pinterest is greatly impacting the number of users who visit my site.
I don’t have too much to say about Pinterest saves. It looks like in six months I got 54 saves. Of course higher numbers are in general better. However, my concern is getting traffic once I place ads and clicks on my links to make income. So saves do not equal income necessarily.
Saves likely would improve my standing with Pinterest though. And this could lead to more pin exposure for my account which in turn leads to more views and income sources.
Pinterest Followers
I don’t particularly care about this number. I am very tempted to delete it from all my reports. It just doesn’t really tell me anything. I don’t feel I have any control over it.
Email Subscribers
I don’t think I have any email subscribers at this point. I need to work on this in the future.
Income
My total income for the 6 months is $5.53. For the number of hours I have put into this blog that number just doesn’t cut it. For now, I am enjoying blogging and am not in dire need of the money, I still have my full-time job. But the dream is to make money with this.
If you think about though making $5.53 for one hour of work sounds terrible right? Well, I would estimate I have done 500 hours of work over the past six months and the three months preparing for my launch.
I have found an old piece of content by Income School where they say that by this point you should have earned $9 and that is probably with having ads on your website. This makes me not feel as bad.
I will say it was tough not to make any income in May or June after having my best earning month in April. You always want the numbers to keep going up!
Overall those are my many thought on the income I have from 6 months of blogging.
I could only screen shot three months at a time so my income is a total of the two screen shots below.
Expenses
I have not incurred any expense beyond my initial setup.
I paid for Bluehost for 2 years on the Choice Plus plan which costs me $190.80. I also purchased a $49 theme which I do not use. It was too confusing to me so I use the free version of Astra.
I have not paid for any other tools such as Tailwind or any courses.
I am trying to do this on my own as affordably as possible.
Goals
I have not been super strict on writing down goals. Overall the most important thing to me has been to keep up on my content and pin publishing, which I can confidently say I have done!
My goals were simply to get this blog launched and see what I could do.
I was proud of myself when I made my first Amazon sales. That was proof that I could earn money.
Future goals I have:
Work on email subscribers.
Get accepted into the Target affiliates program.
Place ads on my set, likely with Ezoic by October so that I am ready for the holiday season.
Publish pins with pictures I have taken and cut back on stock photos
Strategy/Changes
For these past 6 months, I have made small changes along the way. I have drastically improved my titles. Pinterest description pins as well as actual pin quality have improved. My organization and processes have become better and more streamlined.
I think one major part of my strategy is to make slow changes. I do not try to implement too many new things at once. Then you have no way of knowing what caused increasing or decreasing results.
In the future, my strategy will of course go through some changes.
One thing I intend to start implementing soon is publishing pins with unique photos I have taken rather than using stock photography or at least drastically decreasing my use of stock photography.
Another change to make in the near future is placing ads on my website. I didn’t want to do this immediately and hoped to make a better income with affiliates. I would love to see some income coming in via ads for that monetary motivation. Q4 is supposed to be the best time for ads revenue too.
Something I need to work on is growing an email list. This isn’t my favorite task. The way I will gain subscribers is through free PDF’s with a subscription. The technical side of this has me a bit overwhelmed.
Resources
Canva
Grammarly
WordPress
Astra
Feelings
My feelings are constantly changing during this blogging journey. I am proud of myself. I am proud of what I have accomplished. In the past 6 months, I have launched a website with 48 posts. I have created and published hundreds of pins.
I don’t have much to show for it yet, but I am enjoying what I am doing.
Blogging is a source of happiness for me. I am a young mother and work as a nanny. My life is constant cooking and carpool. This blog is my mental stimulation. I crave it and I need it.
I could easily put every free moment into working on my blog.
At the times I get down about my lack of view or visitors I step back and look at the overall progress.
Screen Shots
Conclusion
I am proud of myself for what I have accomplished. I have a few goals that I need to work on achieving and I hope that with time my traffic will increase and with that my earnings.
Check Out My Articles
January Income Report Mom Wife and Everyday Life