This is a full year report on my blog Mom Wife and Everyday Life.
2022 was the second full year running it.
momwifeandeverydaylife.com
The past 2 years have been a journey. I love so many components of blogging. It has been a passion project for me outside of my normal job and parenting. I feel over the past 2 years I have learned a lot of the basics of blogging.
I know how to publish on WordPress and promote with Pinterest. The list of things I never thought I could do grows daily.
Let’s jump into comparing my year 1 and year 2 stats.
| Year 1 2021 in Full | Year 2 2022 in Full | |
| # Posts | 78 | 52 |
| Google Analytics | ||
| Users | 4150 | 6827 |
| Pageviews | 7665 | 9949 |
| Sessions | 5186 | 7788 |
| Google Search Console | ||
| Total Clicks | 39 | 76 |
| Total impressions | 3092 | 2813 |
| Average CTR | 7.09% | 3.35% |
| Average Position | 46.8 | 35.2 |
| Email Subscribers | 0 | 5 |
| Impressions | 421.38 K | 444.99 K |
| Engagements | 10,710 | 15,782 |
| Total Audience | 237.86 K | 257.39 K |
| Engaged Audience | 4884 | 7579 |
| Total Income | $19.26 | $14.08 |
| Total Expenses | $419.75 | $485.27 |
Ok so as a while their are positives and negatives. I will say a few of my stats are skewed for year one. When I first launched my website I clicked my own articles and links in large numbers because I was testing things with formatting and basically just learning.
Pageviews for example were probably much lower than what Google Analytics told me. At some point I learned how to remove my actions from counting for the most part. That first month or two though were off.
Posts
In the beginning I published a lot of content. It was basically all I was doing with my blog. There is no use in monetizing or promoting if your website is bare. I batched a lot of content early and slowed down on publishing throughout the year.
Year 2 I published every Wednesday or once a week. This worked great for me. It gave to time to get better at other skills such as creating pins. I also spent more time creating things like email opt-ins and a digital product.
Year 3 I plan to publish every other Wednesday. This is quite a reduction. Honestly writing is a huge part of what I enjoy about blogging so this is a bit of a bummed. I plan to prioritize getting my content out to readers through better promotion. Writing content is no good if it isn’t getting to those who need to read it.
Google Analytics
The stats I pulled from Google Analytics include: users, pageviews, and sessions. Each of these numbers went up by about 2500.
Honestly I would have loved to see more substantial growth, but seeing these numbers is a reminder that I am going in the right direction.
One major effort I am making in 2023 is to dive into social media promotion. I will be taking a deeper look at my traffic sources, specifically social, organic search, and direct. Previously all social traffic was from Pinterest. I would like to see my users, pageviews, and sessions go up from social media like Facebook and Instagram.
At one point I did get 1000 pageviews in a month. I think I was actually close to 1500. I wasn’t able to sustain it though and then my Pinterest account tanked.
I would like to see more consistent months around and over 1000 pageviews a month in 2023.
Google Search Console
Google search console is still a bit of a mystery to me. I directly relate it to SEO. I attempt to use key words in my posts, but am not 100% clear on what I am doing. Overtime I thought I would naturally get better at this, but I am not really seeing it.
If you look at the impressions and clicks those numbers are very low for an entire year.
I don’t exactly understand the CTR. SO I am not really going to talk about that.
The average position from my understanding is ideally a low number because that means your position is closer to page one on google.
Now that average position I presented in the chart is an average over 12 months. I don’t know if it is better to report as an average on the entire year or report where it was in December of each year.
December 2021 47.4
December 2022 30.8
Ideally this means I am on the right track and hopefully my articles will continue to rank higher. Being in the general mommy niche is definitely struggle when it comes to ranking.
Email Subscribers
I believe is started to take my email list more serious at the start of 2022. I created about 10 different freebies that are places in about 60-75% of my articles.
I was excited to get those 5 email subscribers, however, I would like to see many more subscribers.
I think I need to go back and work on creating a stronger freebie ad delete some of my simpler freebies that are not converting.
I truly thought it would be easier to grow my list once I put the freebies in place.
My Pinterest strategies have changed over time. When I first starting pinning it seemed like you could pin a single pin to multiple boards and you needed to pin a lot. I believe I did around 10 pins a day at most.
Then things started to change. I would create 4 slightly different versions of a pin and every other day have it go out to 4 boards total.
I quit doing that and got down to the point of 1 unique pin only being used one time and posted to a single board.
I also eventually dropped to publishing one pin every other day. That is where I am currently at. Part of me wants to up my game, but I also need to maintain balance and focus on other areas. I do not want to be consumed by Pinterest.
As far as my numbers 2022 could have been substantially higher. I had a crazy crash with my account. I think I got flagged for spam or something. It flat-lined and took a couple of moths to recover.
Despite the huge Pinterest setback I did see some solid growth. Nothing crazy, but I’ll take it. I hope my Pinterest account goes wild in 2023. We will have to see how my strategy evolves.
Income
Income was down. I can’t exactly say why income was lower in 2022 versus 2021.
I have dabbled in ad income and struggled. Most of my income is from affiliate links.
I don’t consider this in my direct control. I post articles with links and leave it up to the reader.
Clearly I am not getting better at convincing my readers to use my links.
I also have a substantially larger number of posts out there in 2022.
Honestly it is a bit disappointing. I need to get ads back on my site. I need to get my articles in front of more readers for both ad revenue and affiliate clicks.
I so badly want this blog to make really money and become my full-time income. It would be amazing to get to work from home and share what I am passionate about.
I am going into 2023 with 12 week plans and goals. I am going to put focus into one area and master it. I am going into the year 2023 thinking about this blog as a business. I have a limited amount of time to get it going and make it work. Otherwise I will have to find a different job. My current job will be coming to an end soon.
2023 has to be the year I turn this blog into a real business.
Expenses
My expenses went up. This is mostly due to December of 2022. I renewed my hosting.
When you purchase hosting you are typically getting a really good introductory price. I would recommend purchasing for 3 years. I only did 2 years.
All of my expenses over the past 2 years have been from hosting, theme, domain registration, and I purchased a blogging bundle of courses.
I do not currently have and recurring expenses for software or programs. Everything I use is free or I use the free version.
This includes: Canva, Convertkit, Grammarly, Coscheduler, Pinterest, Unsplash, Birme, Google Sheets, Gmail, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and probably a few more I am forgetting. It is amazing what you can use for FREE.
Conclusion
I hope to see way more progress in 2023. It is always nice looking at the year as a whole and now being able to compare two full years blogging. It is crazy I have been working on it this long. I have poured thousands of hours into my blog.
I truly love it, or I would not have made it this long.
I want to see it succeed and become a real job. I believe it can earn me a modest income.
I am going into 2023 with focus and plans.
I have learned to switch from goal setting to routine and habit setting. I am working to create action plans rather than lofty goals.
You can’t just say you want 10,000 pageviews. You have to work for it and take actionable steps.