4 Months of Mommy Blogging, Blog Income and Traffic Report
Who I am and Why I started a blog
This blog income report post is about what I did during my third month of starting my blog to see how much I’ve grown from beginning to current time. First, a short introduction of myself. My name is Megan, I’m a licensed pharmacist that became a stay at home mom. My husband is a current resident and we have a 17 month old with a newborn. Being at home all day can really become boring. As a new mom with no family nearby, I have been dealing with a huge shift of not only my responsibilities but also learning how to become a stay-at-home mom. This shift was NOT easy but I found myself slowly coming to terms with taking care of a tiny little baby mainly by myself.
To pass some time I would turn to Youtube and went back to watching a young lady who talked about how she became a blogger and why. Her blog is BySophiaLee and got inspiration to start her own blog from her dorm during college because of stay-at-home moms. These moms were holding down the house and running very successful blogs. I’m talking like over $20K a MONTH.
After watching her videos, I became interested in doing what she did. By that, I mean that I started a blog! I did watch a lot of other types of Youtube videos ranging from blogging, content creation, and content calendars. With this motivation of seeing how others can be successful if they just stick with it and are consistent with it, I made that dive to start blogging about motherhood.
What expenses I had
To start a blog you’re going to need to get a website url through a hosting company. I went with the typical Bluehost to start off and paid a lump sum for the full year of $47.88 so this was not part of this month’s expense. Disclaimer: The affiliate link through Bluehost can earn me commission with no cost to the user.
If you’re interested in getting started with a successful blog of your own – check out this post here. I give some of my favorite tips of where to start and the beginning of blogging.
In the future I want to purchase some courses directed toward SEO and Pinterest – BySophiaLee’s in particular, but for now I am sticking with gathering free information from Youtube videos.
In total, to start up the blog and how much I spent so far is – $67.88. This month was $0 of spending – that total is just what it cost for me to start up the blog. I restarted my Canva premium trial, so currently I am not paying for that but it’s $15 a month if I decide to keep it.
What I made
- Amazon Affiliate – $0.78; Thank you to those that use my links to purchase items.
Stats
- blog posts this month – 5
- total blog visitors (past 28 days) through google dashboard- 70
- pinterest past 30 days (monthly views – 9.7 K & impressions – 8.96 K & outbound clicks – 79 )
- In the stats comparing this month to last month, the algorithm changed on Pinterest and seasonal content is being pushed out – leaving my blog will lower traffic than before
If you’re interested in seeing how my stats have grown A TON since my first month, check out my month 1 of blogging blog post here.
This month’s summary
This month I found that it was harder to create posts and create pins. The blog still has plenty of drafts that are scheduled so I am still ahead of the game, which is helpful in the consistency of the blog. My baby has been taking up a lot more of my time while I try to juggle life of 2 under 2 WITH the help of my husband while he’s on paternity leave for a week more. Since being out of the NICU, I haven’t been able to dedicate much time because of the sleepless nights and constant breastfeeding or giving medications to my baby.
The algorithm for Pinterest changed and I saw a HUGE dip in my engagement. From outbound clicks to impressions, it went down about at least 1/3 of what I had previously. I am still continuing on with what I’m doing because being consistent is the best way to succeed.
Amazon Affiliates
I was unable to get any new click throughs this month. At the end of last month I made an additional 0.78 cents which is great because my goal was to get a dollar by the end of my first year blogging. I continue to create posts that I link back to amazon with what I recommend to myself and my friends. I have no current plans to change what I’m doing.
Pinterest was the main platform to get my content on in order to send people to my blog to start generating traffic. This platform (Pinterest) is a great tool because it is a visual search engine which allows for your site to be directly linked to the pictures.
For every blog post I created, I made 4 pins. I planned on having all my blog posts numbered so I can outline my pins with 2 pins going live on pinterest daily. Uploading and adding the content to each pin has been very long. I think I will end up creating folders by week of the content I plan on posting to make it much easier to upload the entire photo versus going through each blog post folder. I also upload and schedule the pins on a weekly basis so it’s not too overwhelming. Every Sunday is when they get uploaded and I edit them on Monday to schedule.
Algorithm Change and Challenges
There was a new algorithm or AI change and it really messed up a lot of people’s accounts. People who saw over 1 million users engagement went down to 100K. Mine went to practically zero around the same time as everyone else. It was the middle of August, maybe the 15th or so. I again don’t plan on changing what I’m doing. I still have 2 posts a day and I’m rotating the blog links now so the most you will see the same blog post is once a week. After a month or two, I will recheck the stats to see if they went back to normal or if my current strategy is still working. The only way I will change is if someone I trust on socials mention the algorithm changing.
Also, there have been a lot of sponsored posts on Pinterest. A lot of people are complaining about it. I didn’t notice until I searched up why my engagement was down. I went from having a ton of clicks as a new blog to essentially none. The sponsored posts are taking up a lot of the real estate on the site currently. Hopefully this changes soon.
Last Months Goals
- Have 2 pins a day on Pinterest – done
- Create a pin calendar to easily schedule and set up pins – done
- Continue to work on Amazon Affiliate Income – dont
What’s Next & Goals
- Have 2 pins a day on Pinterest
- Create a pin calendar to easily schedule and set up pins
- Continue to work on Amazon Affiliate Income through strategic blog posts
- Increase number of seasonal blog posts
- Learn about ‘rich pins’ on Pinterest
- Try more recipes to take pictures and post on the blog