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1 Quarter 2021
I officially started creating this blog in the fall of 2020, although I have been dreaming about blogging for a few years now. I launched it right at the new year, which means I have just completed the first quarter of this blogs existence!
Going from zero to what I hope will be an income driving blog takes time and work, and building a blog from a basically non existent online presence is a little bit intimidating.
I keep telling myself “slow and steady wins the race” 😂 I hope it pays off!
This quarter I achieved a LOT to start this blog off right! Here are some of the most important things I did:
- Wrote 41 blog posts
- Created a TON of pins and images on Canva (More about it later)
- Commented on other blogs
- Joined several affiliate programs such as AWIN, ShareaSale, Amazon Affiliates, Kartra, and more.
- Wrote a few Guest Posts for other blogs (some of which are going to be published in the next few months, stay tuned!)
- Used Tailwind to drive traffic, and started my own Tailwind Community (Join it! I will pin your pins!)
- Opened a blog Etsy Shop, for future blog-related stuff.
- Participated in Blog Hops to drive traffic and meet other bloggers
- Started an email list through Convertkit (I have been really loving Convertkit! I will write a post about it soon.)
- Made a few Story Pins on Pinterest.
So What’s Become Of it?
I am a part time blogger, this is a hobby for me. I am busy raising a family, running an Etsy shop, keeping a home, folding diapers, sewing, etc. It would be so awesome if I could just hunker down and blog full time, but that’s not my priority.
I fit blogging in pieces throughout my day. An hour here, a few minutes there on my phone, and a lot when the kids nap or are asleep at night.
Some days I don’t work on my blog at all, and some days I work on it for maybe 4 hours total during the day (especially after bedtime.)
So keep that in mind when reading these numbers!
I am happy to say that in my first quarter, I have successfully gained followers, made money, had re-pins from pinners with tens of thousands of followers, and been accepted to guest post on other blogs.
WOOT!
Sure, the numbers are small. But I am a new blogger and I don’t even rank on google yet.
This is kind of an uphill battle, but I am literally seeing results already! Lets hope they keep on growing and multiplying!
Here are the Stats:
- Total Income This Quarter: $33.28 ($3 from Amazon Affiliate, $30.28 from Etsy Affiliates — $30 was a bonus affiliate gift in the form of a gift card, but Hey, I’m counting it!)
- Total Traffic This Quarter: 274 Sessions
- Total Pinterest Engagement This Quarter: 212 (Clicks, re-pins, saves, etc. For impressions I had many thousand.)
My top post this quarter was: Why Flats are Better Than Any Other Diaper
My Top Pin this quarter was for the post: How we paid off $20,000 in 12 months
Top Tools That Helped Me Succeed This Quarter
- The Legal pages and templates from ASelfGuru.
I like Amira. She is a down to earth girl, who writes funny emails, and has a good team working for her.
When I started this blog I was a little intimidated by the Legal aspects of having a blog, I obviously couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer to figure it all out but I didn’t want to try to figure it out myself, either.
Thanks to the Legal Templates and Pages that Amira created (she is a lawyer!) I felt so much more confidant venturing out into the blogging world.
I highly recommend you check them out too, and read more about my experience with them here. - Canva
I spend so much time on Canva. I use it to make ALL my pins for my website, as well as a lot of other graphics, like printables and t shirts. I use it for church projects, my Etsy shops (I have 4), and more.
I like that Canva offers such a great amount of free content. The app is really really good, even if you aren’t on the pro plan.
If you haven’t tried Canva, you should. If you use my links, you will get a free credit for one premium element of your choice!
I have some experience in art and graphic design, and have used plenty of design software, but Canva is by FAR my favorite right now, especially for new users. Its easy and quick and integrates with Pinterest. - Tailwind
I am still in the free phase of using tailwind. I have used up all my free trial, but I continue to manually schedule pins with this tool. In addition, I use the communities feature a lot and it has given me a LOT of traffic and repins! I have even had repins from bloggers who have tens of thousands of pinterest followers, which I think is super cool.
I have created my own Community on Tailwind that I want you to join. Lets help each other out! I will repin your pins! The Approaching Home Community.
Traffic Details
Here is a screenshot of my analytics for the quarter. Not great, but better than 0! I made sure to program it to not include traffic from myself. 🙂
A large majority of the traffic was from new visitors, but I had some come back multiple times!
People found my blog posts mostly from direct links, but also a lot from Pinterest.
Well Yay! I can now officially say that blogging has earned me $33.28.
That’s a small start, but one that I’m happy with. Everyone starts somewhere. One of the most inspiring blogger stories that has been on my mind lately is the story of Pinch of Yum. They started from nothing, and now they are seriously booming! It just takes passion and work!
To keep inspired, I like to use the WayBack Machine to check out what my favorite blogs looked like many years ago when they were just starting. It keeps me hopeful that maybe someday I can be like Katie Kimball or Tracy Gilette!
Future Goals For the Blog:
- I would like to start accepting some type of ‘guest content’
- Start a podcast someday
- Get 100 email subscribers? (I don’t know, I am a little bit at a loss of what to do with email lists. I need to figure out how to make it awesome, not just another spammy newsletter.)
- Make $100
- Get a sponsor?
Hopefully those goals aren’t too lofty for a part time mom ‘blogger’!
This has been the very first Blog Income and Traffic Report. If you’re reading this, great. If you’re not, that’s okay, you will be someday when I have more than 274 sessions in one quarter! 😉
If you liked this post, I will be writing these reports every quarter for the time being. I am very interested to see how it grows!
