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 Twins Mommy 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
- Month 6 Blog Growth Update: Checking In (Pageviews, Subscribers and Income)
If you’re reading this and you want to start a blog and follow my plan, check out this easy step-by-step tutorial on how to start a blog using SiteGround!
Holy moly, what a month!
With the Epic Courses Giveaway and my epic mom blog round up post, I’m epic-ing done mama! Ha… That was so big and cray-cray that once it was all done, I didn’t even write a blog post for Twins Mommy last week.
I needed the break.
So, let’s get to it. Did I meet or exceed my goals? Have I reached 25k pageviews? Let’s find out.
1. On My Site
Oh man, was September such a slow month! My pageviews dropped from 21k to 17k. I was worried I already peaked and was going downhill from then.
Let’s look at those number again. Here are my stat’s for September:
So, how did I do for October?
So close to reaching 25k pageviews!
Did I Accomplish My Goals?
- Launch the Mompreneur giveaway – Yes! The Epic Courses Giveaway was a success!
- Create an epic post on how to start a blog – Fail! No time to get that going.
- Reach 20k+ pageviews – Yes! So happy I’m on the up and up now!
- Create one post a week – Yes! I actually created two posts a week for the month!
- Start guest posting strategically – Yes! I’ll talk more about that later
I can’t believe I accomplished most of my goals! This is amaze-balls mamas! As an entrepreneur I get all these crazy ideas and want to do them like RIGHT.NOW, but of course, life gets in the way and nothing ever gets done.
So, I can’t believe I kept my head down and worked my tail off.
*Happy Dance*
And you now what?
As soon as I posted two posts in one week, my pageviews went up from 17k to 18k. WITHIN.ONE.DAY. When I saw that I knew that I had to post two times a week for that month. And I did.
Can I keep it up? Probably not, but with the holidays looming, a lot of blogs slow down. This means less client work and more time to devote to my projects – Twins Mommy and my freelance writing course.
So, what did I do to bring in traffic aside from posting twice a week? I strategically guest posted. This means I chose certain blogs to guest post on based on their niche and target audience.
If their target audience were similar to mine, then I considered guest posting on that blog. I managed to snag 4 guest posts for October!
How 10 Up-and-coming Mompreneurs Make Time to Grow Their Blog – Huffington Post (I finally submitted my post and it was published a few days later! I’ve been sitting on this contributorship since February!)
3 Powerful Ways to Grow Your Email List on Pinterest – Living for Naptime
Mom to Mom Interview: An Interview with Elna Cain – Kids, Cash, Chaos
Daring Women Friday – Elna Cain – Amber Uninhibited
Even though two out of the four were interviews, I’m so happy I was able to guest post to help me grow my traffic for Twins Mommy. I’m working on more guest posts for November (and some podcasts!), but not sure if I can get them all in. Right now I’m in the process of updating my freelance writing course with new lessons so I’m writing A TON right now.
Oh, and guess what happened?
My twins are phasing out their nap! Yikes…this leaves me NO TIME to do anything….OK… I’m being dramatic, but I only get four hours a day to write for my clients and my blog posts and newsletters and content upgrades….
What I want to start doing is waking up earlier. After reading this post and reading a ton more of Amanda’s post like this one and this one and this one I got the fire to start waking up earlier even though I’m not a morning person (I’m a momster in the morning )
I’m going to challenge myself to try to wake up before everyone for November. But, I need a vibrating alarm like the FitBit, since it’s nearly impossible for me to wake up (and I don’t want the kids to wake up either). I’ll pick up a second hand FitBit another day.
Goals for November
- Reach 30k pageviews
- Publish a start a blog post
- Start creating more content upgrades
2. Pinterest Marketing
I picked up 500 new followers last month! I went from 4.8k to 5.3k.
It looks like I’m pretty stable with growing my followers. This is the second month that I gained 500 followers. I’m doing nothing new like following people as a way to follow me back.
I’m not pinning more – I set my Tailwind schedule to 100 pins a day – and I’m not actively trying to get on more group boards. But, I’m getting invited to a few each month.
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.
Finally! It’s on the up. Last month I was down 3.5% with my average monthly viewers at 281k. I’m happy to know that even though I dropped my pinning schedule from 200 pins a day to now 100 pins a day, that I’m not losing viewers, but actually gaining more traction.
Did I Accomplish My Goals?
- Monitor the 100 pins a day strategy – Yes! This strategy is working. I’m growing my Pinterest followers and traffic.
- Keep creating alternate images for my blog posts – Yes! I made a few more alternate images for older posts.
Besides pinning to various groups boards and my own group board, I started to make alternate images for my blog posts. So some blog posts have two or three images.
I’ll see if doing this will help me attract new visitors to my blog. It will also tell me which new alternate pins are doing better, i.e. have more saves.
Goals for November
- Create more alternate pins
- Focus on description keywords
- Join more Tailwind tribes
3. Growing My List
I’m not sure if you can tell, but I LOVE email marketing. It’s part of my freelance writing niche and I have a couple of posts on Twins Mommy that talks about emailing.
Last month I had 1479 subscribers. This month I broke 2,000!
I gained 642 new subscribers to my list!
Out of the six months of actively growing my blog’s traffic and email list, this past month has been the biggest growth! How’d that happen?
Two big things were the giveaway and probably my roundup post.
The giveaway generated 320 new subscribers. The other 322 subscribers may have come from the epic roundup post I did. I asked every contributor if they would email their list and promote my roundup on social media.
And one other thing that maybe helped grow my email list was adding some old content upgrades on newer posts. Yes, I’m lazy. I haven’t created any new content upgrades, but my old ones are pretty darn awesome so why not still promote them?
I made sure to include a few of those last month, which probably helped generate more subscribers!
Did I Accomplish My Goals?
- Gain ~800 subscribers (mostly from future giveaway) – Fail! But, was it really?
- Continue to add content in my Mom Boss Vault – Another way to say create more content upgrades. And no – Fail!
Even though I didn’t accomplish any goals last month, I gained a lot of new subscribers so that counts eh?
Goals for November
- Create more content upgrades
- Generate 400 new subscribers
- Create value emails (i.e. not always a push to my blog) and create exclusive strategies for my subscribers
4. Blogger Outreach
For a while I haven’t been setting goals for this metric, but I still like to include it. I’ve noticed more new visitors leaving comments on my blogs last month. I know readers of my blog still come back more and more each month. I’m so humbled that people remember my blog and come back to see what’s happening.
This is truly an amazing thought to me! As I mentioned, my other blog doesn’t get many pageviews each month or comments, so to see that people come and leave a comment and mention me on Facebook is crazy!
Even though I’m an introvert at heart, I have no problem asking people to contribute to my post or network with me. Writing is an easy medium for me since I can self-edit before submitting my post or emailing.
I was floored when I posted in two or three Facebook groups asking mom bloggers if they’d like to contribute to a roundup. I got a lot of moms wanting to contribute! My roundup of 15 or so turned to 40 in only a few hours!
Thank you for all of you who participated! Your blogs will go on my blog commenting list and I’ll be sure to follow you too!
I will continue to comment on blogs when I have the time (maybe that extra time in the morning can be for blog commenting?).
What’s Next?
People must be wondering why am I growing my blog’s traffic and list? I’m also trying to monetize this blog, but for now my focus isn’t there yet. My goal is to create a product or course for Twins Mommy.
I’m also toying with a Pinterest Marketing service, but not sure if I want to add another service since I offer freelance writing and coaching. Now that my twins are probably going to drop their nap, this leaves me very little time to focus on my personal projects.
I want Twins Mommy to grow. I want to provide a lot of free and awesome tips. Give. Give and give some more. I want to do more webinars, start a podcast, do YouTube (maybe), create a Facebook group. Do it all, but one thing at a time. As I mentioned I am an introvert so all those mediums may not be great for me. But I can dream, can’t I?
Right now, I’ll pump more blog posts and see if I can squeeze another webinar in before the year end. My twins will probably go do preschool next spring for two days out of the week. This will give me some time to organize my business and set some goals.
If you’re interested in learning what I’m doing to go from mom to mompreneur then make sure to sign up to my list!
Over to you – how’d you do on your blog last month?
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