Hi there!
Welcome to my series, Mom to Mompreneur Blog Growth Update! Wow! that was a mouthful.
For those of you who are new, my name is Elna Cain and I’m a freelance writer and a mama to twin toddlers.
I started TwinsMommy back in March as a way to blog some more – because I just love blogging 
– and engaging with a new audience.
It wasn’t until about a few weeks later – in April – that I really wanted to grow this blog.
I wanted to start a new blog and grow traffic, readers and income and share my story because I know a lot of you are struggling growing your blog too!
I also want to help mamas go from being a mom to being a mompreneur.
Blogging just for the sake of blogging isn’t going to earn you income. Turning your blog into a biz and then creating products, well that’s where all the money is. And I’m chronicling that journey with you!
To catch up with how I’m growing my blog, check out my blog growth series:
- How I’m Going to Grow TwinsMommy + Free Checklist
- Month 1 Blog Growth Update: 4,000 Pageviews Later
- Month 2 Blog Growth Update: 1.6k Pinterest Followers Later
- Month 3 Blog Growth Update: How I Tripled My Blog Traffic, Subscribers and Followers
- Month 4 Blog Growth Update: My Plan for Attack For Beating the Summer Slump
- Month 5 Blog Growth Update: From 0 to 1200 Email Subscribers
Before you get into the nitty gritty of this post, if you’re reading this and don’t have a blog, but want to start one, I have an easy step-by-step tutorial on how to start a blog using SiteGround!
Okay.
Let’s get real here.
Last month was absolutely terrible in two out of my three metrics. Why?
I didn’t meet my goals and I didn’t publish a lot of content. I’ll explain more in the post, so let’s get to the numbers.
1. On My Site
I thought August was my slowest month, but it didn’t compare to September. At least I was GROWING in August.
Here are my stats last month:
Looking back I’m shocked I reached 20k pageviews in the summer no less.
Here are my stats for September:
Did I Accomplish My Goals?
- Launch my printable Mompreneur Blog + Biz planner – FAIL. I had planned for it to be available in September, but life got in the way and my freelance writing picked up big time.
- Set up my Mompreneur Giveaway – FAIL. I only worked on the graphic and reaching out to a few more bloggers.
- Start planning another webinar – FAIL. Didn’t even think about it.
- Aim for two posts a week – FAIL.
- Increase organic traffic (it’s around 6% now) – YES! It’s now 7.11%
Ouch, right?
I was shocked when I saw these numbers. I’m down a stinking 21% in pageviews.
I worked so hard in the beginning, putting out content, promoting my posts, pinning my content hundreds of times, joining Pinterest groups, commenting on blogs, and for what?
Okay. Maybe I’m being a bit melodramatic. I’m in a funk. Life goes on right?
So, what the heck happened here? Was it the summer slump finally hitting me? No. The biggest reason is that I wasn’t producing content.
In July I published seven meaty posts.
In August, it was five (one was a quick post telling everyone about my webinar and the other was a post on YoutTube moms – not meaty posts at all).
In September only five (but two of them are blog reports).
So, not only did my published content go down, but some of the quality also wasn’t there. But, you want to know what’s awesome?
Most of my posts for September generated a lot of comments (around 50 per post). So even though I was low on traffic, my comments seemed to soar
I also updated some things on my site. I updated my headshot and instead of making it circular, it’s now a rectangle. I also updated my About page and included some of my most popular posts.
As for a plan for growing my blog, I think the next step for me is to do some guest posting or interviews. I have one lined up in October and maybe a few more too. I’m looking for podcasts as well since those don’t take up much of my time.
I think if I do some guest posting that I’ll hopefully reach a new audience that can help me grow my blog
Did I Make Money?
September 2016 Income:
This income only includes money generated from Twins Mommy. It does not include my freelance writing service, course sales, coaching clients and writing clients.
Affiliates: $41
September 2016 Expenses:
This does not include my hosting fees, which would be about $10/month because Twins Mommy is hosted with my other sites on a cloud server.
- Tailwind – $15
- Mailchimp – $15
Total: $ 11
Yay! My first month where I’m positive. It’s not a lot, but I’m still not focusing much on affiliate marketing.
Goals for October
- Launch the Mompreneur giveaway
- Create an epic post on how to start a blog
- Reach 20k+ pageviews
- Create one post a week
- Start guest posting strategically
2. Pinterest Marketing
I gained 500 new followers for September. That puts me at 4.8k followers.
This is a decrease from last month, but I’m happy that I’m still growing.
I know having lots of followers doesn’t mean more traffic back to my blog. My average monthly viewers tells me how big of a reach my pins are generating.
It’s down again from last month. So for the past two months I’m not reaching as many people as before.
Did I Accomplish My Goals?
- Gain another 1k followers – FAIL. I only gained half that.
- Pin only 130-150 pins a day using Tailwind – I did drop to 150 pins, but only for a few weeks before I dropped again to 100 pins a day
- Update my Facebook and Pinterest Promo freebie – YES! It’s updated with more groups to join.
One of the biggest reasons things are slowing down is because I started pinning less. Why am I pinning less? Well, I can’t pin 200 times a day forever. People would look over my pins because they see them all the time.
Eventually I have to find a happy medium. Right now, it’s 100 pins.
I also feel that the same people are viewing my pins, making them less effective. I have created more alternate pins and am scheduling those on Tailwind.
Doing such a drastic change will take time to see the full effect. The fact that people are still resaving my pins every day and every hour and I’m gaining followers is only a good thing.
Tailwind Tribes
One thing I started trying out is Tailwind‘s Tribes. It’s a new feature Tailwind is unrolling. Tribes are located in your Tailwind dashboard and it’s a place to share content with a group of people. Think of it like a Pinterest group.
Joining tribes just gets your content more resaves and reaches more people.
I currently belong to three tribes. The only way to join a tribe is if the owner of the tribe provides a link to join. If you’re a Tailwind user, you can try out the tribes fo’ free!
Group Board
If you don’t already know, I have a Pinterest group board – you can join! – and it already has over 100 contributors!
And guess what? Influencer Bryan Harris from VideoFruit joined my little ol’ group board. Totally psyched by that.
Goals for October
- Monitor the 100 pins a day strategy
- Keep creating alternate images for my blog posts
3. Growing My Email List
Last month I had 1290 subscribers. And this month?
I gained 189 subscribers!
It is a bit lower than usual but that’s okay. My lead magnet – The Mom Boss Vault – is still converting so that’s great.
Did I Accomplish My Goals?
- Launch my giveaway – FAIL
- Gain 800 subscribers (mostly from the future giveaway) – FAIL
I was really banking on having my giveaway to gain more subscribers. With client work, managing other blogs and spending time with the twins, it was hard to squeeze in the Mompreneur giveaway.
I also didn’t have any new content upgrades last month. I do want to do more, but it takes a bit more time to get one set up.
Goals for October
- Gain ~800 subscribers (mostly from future giveaway)
- Continue to add content in my Mom Boss Vault
4. Blogger Outreach
One of the cool things this last month was how many people commented on my blog posts and on Facebook. I’m humbled how I’m helping other mompreneurs and lady bosses out there.
I just found out that a follower actually recommended my blog and she’s not even a mama! Wha-what? I think this is the first time this has happened and I’m shocked, happy, humbled and grateful.
It’s stuff like this that really helps me realize that even though I’m not gaining a lot of traffic, I’m growing my followers by leap and bounds.
As I mentioned earlier, I am connecting with other mompreneur bloggers and will be guest posting. I also have my HuffPo post in the cue, but needs some more formatting before I can submit it for review.
I didn’t make any goals for last month, so for now I’ll continue to comment on blogs when I can, reach out to other bloggers about guest posting or doing a podcast and hopefully these efforts will help me grow my traffic.
I’m Doing This Without Help
I started growing TwinsMommy only knowing about digital marketing, since that’s my freelance writing niche. I have yet to try any courses or buy any products to help me grow my blog.
Why?
Well, I really want to try out my methods first. I want to see if what I know from marketing my business, can help me grow my personal blog.
Will I need some help in the future? Maybe. My traffic suffered last month and if I took a course, would that have helped me? Probably not.
What would help me is having the time to grow my blog. According to Jon Morrow,
In my opinion, it’s pretty much impossible to build a popular blog in less than 10 hours a week. If you want to grow quickly, tack on an additional 10.
Um, yeah.
I know I don’t spend 10 hours on this blog. I just don’t have the time. Some weeks I spend 10 hours, but lately I haven’t. I’m hoping over time, I will have more time to focus on this blog.
For now, I have to focus on my other blog since I have a service and a product.
With the hours I use for this blog, I will focus on guest posting, promoting my posts, creating epic content and networking with other mama bloggers.
Over to you – how did you do for traffic, followers and income last month?
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