I am so excited that I have to share with everyone. I have tripled my page views in 1 month!!
Here are the resources I used and things I changed to finally break through and gain more readers.
I am sharing because I have been so thankful to others who share their knowledge via income reports. I pour over posts like these whenever someone shares so that I can learn from others. I figure it is time to start giving back to the blog community myself.
My page views in April 2016 – 4,000
My page views in May 2016 – 18,000
Yes, that is TRIPLE the page views!!
I need to say a big thank you to my husband for my wonderful graphic! He is the Excel genius in our family. 🙂
I had been stuck for many many months with very low page views (I am talking less than 100 per day). It was frustrating and it was hard to maintain my motivation. I was wondering, how in the world all these other bloggers found their readers. I finally have broken through a barrier.
My goal for a long time was to get over 10,000 page views which seemed like it was going to take forever with the super slow growth that I was having. Well, I finally did it! Plus, I did it in a huge way by tripling my page views in one month.
Here are the tools I used:
- Building a Framework: The Ultimate Blogging Handbook by Abby Lawson – This is book really helped me set up my blog from the beginning. Her videos are great but one of the most helpful things is the Facebook group you gain membership to with the purchase. You can ask any question no matter how small and someone either knows the answer or gives you a link to a youtube video on how to do it. It is invaluable to a beginner.
- How to Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul by Ruth Soukup- I can’t tell you how much this helped me realize I needed to work on my content. Her motto of Content is King really helps me focus.
- Elite Blog Academy – Don’t be scared of the price. Just being on the mailing list gets you access to free resources and webinars through out the year. This course helps you organize and get your blog to professional status. It really changes your blog from a hobby to a business. I highly recommend. This is only open once a year so get on the waitlist now so you are notified when it opens.
Some other helpful things I changed:
- The titles of my posts. I really had to take a look at what would make people actually click through to read my post. Some of my posts were just personal accounts of our life and while I love to share they really don’t drive page views. I will continue to share but maybe within posts that solve problems of my readers.
- Pinterest images – I really studied the images of posts that seemed to do really well. I studied whether the images were zoomed in or out far (zoomed in is better), which text reads better with an overlay behind it, and tried to improve my graphic design skills which does not come naturally to me.
- Boardbooster – this tool really is worth the money so that on the days that I wasn’t working on my blog I still had a lot of traffic coming in to my site. You set up a Pin schedule so that even if you take a day (or a week) off your pins are still posted to Group Boards.
- Pinterest Group Boards – I joined a lot of group boards to expand my reach to way more readers. This is a catch 22 as I found that when I first applied to some boards I never heard back but once I grew my presence on Pinterest with more followers and definitely when I improved my images then reapplied to some boards they accepted me. This is a good thing as I know they don’t accept everyone but can be frustrating as a beginner to try to gain traction.
These are some of the things that I hope help new bloggers starting out. I am definitely still a beginner…I still think my numbers are very low. In fact, some people are probably saying why is this girl with only 18,000 page views writing a post about it but sometimes the bigger bloggers can forget the tiny little changes and steps taken that start the ball rolling.
I am ecstatic to see that big of a jump in May plus my numbers are definitely continuing to grow so this wasn’t just a fluke. I am continuing to work hard all summer and will definitely share any helpful tips again soon.
One of my favorite resources are other bloggers Income Reports. They can be so helpful.
My favorite lately is the 6 months of 2015 from What Mommy Does.
Do you read Income Reports from other bloggers? What are your favorite to learn from? Please share in the comments!
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Pinterest is my #1 source of traffic. I find that making an awesome pinnable image to put at the top of my posts really helps!
I have been going back and forth with putting the pinnable image at the top or at the bottom of the post. My site looks nicer when I put the Facebook image at the top so I have been doing that but I am wondering if it would help to switch that but then my site doesn’t look as great. Ahhh…the dilemma. 🙂
Pinterest group boards have been such a great tool for me, too! I also just started using BoardBooster, so I’m anxious to see how that pays off as well!
Thanks for sharing your tips. It’s such a struggle. I need to be more of a presence on Pinterest. Thanks for the tip about groups. I’ll be looking into that.
Hmmmmm this is so interesting, I keep wondering if this only works for bloggers in the USA because it just does not seem to work for people like me in Europe. I have tried all the tips and still it is so hard. I would also say going from 4000 to 18000 is quadrupling your numbers not triple….I wish I could get more traffic either from tips like yours or Pinterest. Will keep trying.
It took me months and months of figuring things out. Doesn’t it seem like just when you are so frustrated you want to give up that you get a big win?? 🙂 I just went to look at your site and it is beautiful. It looks super professional too! I remember reading your Vienna post a few weeks ago and loving it. Keep on trying!
Thank you for the words of encouragement. ?
I’m always interested in ways to reach out better and bigger to others. The Pinterest thing is something I really need to work on and grow and be more mindful of, as its obvi a big piece of this!
Karen | GlamKaren.com
Gee! Thank you so much!!
Gonna look up these to try and boost my numbers too! Thanks again!
| yvonnesowell.com |
another blogger just told me about board booster and I really want to try it out! Thank you for sharing!
I’ve only recently started making things that are pinnable. I’ve got a long way to go in that area, but I’m learning. These steps sound like it would certainly help boost my traffic. Right now those numbers are pretty low. Thanks for sharing what you learned!
That is a huge jump! That is wonderful! Congratulations on the awesome growth!
It’s a hard working process. Your progress encourage me to boost my statistic. It’s a struggle, and I need to work more on Pinterest. Thanks for sharing the tips, I’ll keep them close to improve my page views.
How exciting is growing like that! Congrats. I, too, love all three of those resources you mentioned. They have helped me tremendously.
Pinterest images are really wonderful for capturing readers’ attention. That is why it is so important for them to be vibrant and engaging whenever you pin them.
That is awesome. I need to work more on my Pinterest account.
I don’t have the money to purchase this handbook but i do appreciate the information about Pinterest. I really need to get better about making pictures to pin. Thank you for this wonderful post.
This is so inspiring and incredibly helpful. I have been hearing such positive things about BoardBooster. I’m definitely going to start using it more consistently.
Congratulations! What a great job! I might take a look at Boardbooster, I have heard really good things about it. I share a lot of personal story as well – I am somewhat a memoir/family lifestyle blog.
Thanks so much for linking up to my income report! I really appreciate it!
Your welcome. 🙂
How inspiring thankyou so much
Wow!! What an inspiration! As a new blogger gaining traction can be really hard. You give some great tips! Thanks so much =)
Good luck with your new blog! It is a lot of work but it feels great when you get some wins. 🙂
Thanks for inspiration! I will try to use pinterest group boards. I have just 2K followers, what do You think is good moment to start applying for group boards?
I started having much better luck when I was over 1k followers so you should be good.
Thanks for this! I appreciate your insights. I think it’s great to hear from a “beginner” (you are far from beginner) and also it’s the basics that work for all of us. Great article.