Month 2 Blog Growth Report: 1,224 pageviews

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how to start and grow a blog

This is my month 2 blog growth report for you, sharing my analytics, what strategies I’m using, what’s working and what’s not.

I have recently decided to take this blog a lot more seriously and create a proper strategy to grow it. Pretty much from scratch.

Pssst. If you don’t already know, I also created a FREE 7-DAY Challenge on how to start a blog.

I don’t know about you, but I have read tons of content on the topic of blogging and how to grow a blog.

And while all stories are inspiring, the ones that share their analytics and exactly what strategies they used to grow – those helped me the most.

I want to give that back and share my own process in the hopes that it inspires you too.

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If you haven’t seen the previous month’s analytics, read that here first if you want to compare: Month 1 Blog Growth Report.

Let’s get into all the deets.

how to grow your blog pageviews and gain blog traffic fast

1. Analytics

In October 2019, my pageviews grew quite a bit, so I was quite pleased about that. It’s not a massive growth, but any progress is better than no progress.

As long as the blog is growing, I know I’m doing something right.

So this month I had a total of 1,224 pageviews.

google analytics monthly how to grow a blog

You can also see below the previous month’s pageviews, for comparison purposes. Last month I had 765 pageviews. We’re getting into 4-digits now, so I’m feeling quite motivated to keep on going.

google analytics monthly how to grow a blog

What I have noticed now that my views have gone up, the bounce rate has also gone up a bit. Which is not ideal.

If you don’t know what that is: it’s the amount of time people spend on your site after they’ve clicked on it. A high bounce rate means they left pretty quickly.

I think the main reason for that is that I don’t have enough content on my blog in certain topics.

I looked at what my most popular posts were this month:

A lot of my posts are not long-form, the text content is quite short. Meaning people will go through them quickly. AND I don’t have enough posts in certain categories. People need more related content in order to stick around for a longer period of time.

That’s going to be my focus going on.

What am I doing to help with that?

I have installed a Related Posts section at the bottom of each blog post. And in the sidebar of my blog. So that when someone is done reading a post, they have an incentive to read something else on my blog.

I am also going to make a series of posts, which will hopefully help with this too. I’m working on that at the moment and I hope to get those posts up next month.

Email subscribers

I mentioned last month that I want to look into email subscription services. If you’re new to blogging, pretty much everyone recommends that you start building an email list very early on.

I’ve never really dabbled into it until now.

I had an email list that I couldn’t really control myself, it was just a basic feed one offered by Blogger, which basically sent out an email whenever I posted something new. I had about 30 email subscribers on there, but it wasn’t really generating a lot of traffic or anything like that.

After reading loads on this, I’ve decided to get a good email system in place, and I signed up on ConvertKit. I used the trial at first, but I now decided to invest in the proper plan.

It is supposed to be the best platform for bloggers who are trying to grow their audience and I have to say, their interface is very user-friendly and quite easy to use.

Update: Since writing this blog post, I have decided to switch from Convertkit to Flodesk. If you would like to know why, I wrote a whole blog post about it.

I have so far only imported my list of 30 subscribers into it, so I haven’t been actively promoting it or anything.

how to start and grow an email list for blog marketing

I am going to be working on it more in the next few months.

2. Pinterest

For my Pinterest analytics, I’ve still got quite a bit of growth going on. Last month I had nearly 60k monthly views (total audience). This month, I’ve got 81.87k monthly views.

pinterest monthly analytics how to grow a blog

I’m not doing a lot differently than last month. I’m trying to create 1-2 pin graphics for each blog post that I publish. I have joined a couple of group boards, but I’m not really actively pinning a lot.

I know I need to get better at this, but it’s easy to forget about pinning most days as a busy mom.

I’m not pinning consistently everyday, but I know I should.

A lot of bloggers seem to be using Tailwind – a pin scheduler that is supposed to help with this. I haven’t used it yet, but I might add it to my strategy in the next few months.

3. Number of posts

I published 4 blog posts this month, so that’s not too bad. I’m trying my best to be consistent.

how to start and grow a blog in 2020

However, I’m already working intensely on next month’s content, because I am planning to publish a whole series of posts.

4. Strategies I used

Here is what I previously wrote down at the beginning of this month:

  • Post at least once a week – I did!
  • Pay attention to the SEO checklist for every post I did this too.
  • Start working on the Instagram freebies series – I’ve been working a lot on these, so they’ll be coming up next month.
  • Create at least 1-2 pin graphics for each post – I did.
  • Join some Pinterest group boards – I only joined a few, I need to apply actively to more group boards as I haven’t really prioritized it this month.
  • Pin more actively on Pinterest – I did more or less. I’m not super consistent with this.
  • Look into email subscription lists – Yes, I started my email list this month.

This is pretty much the strategy that I’ve been using this month and it’s worked out quite well. I feel like I’ve got growth both on my blog and on my Pinterest, so I’m going to continue using this strategy and take it a bit further for next month.

5. Goals for next month

Here are my plans and strategy for next month:

  • Post at least 2-3 times a week. This is quite bold, but I want to get a lot more content out there
  • Keep in mind the SEO checklist for each blog post
  • Post my Instagram series with the freebies (Lightroom presets + Instagram highlight covers)
  • Start growing my email list with the freebie incentives above
  • Continue creating at least 1-2 pinnable images for each blog post
  • Have at least 5-10 group boards joined on Pinterest
  • Share my blog posts on socials (Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest – my main ones)
month 2 blog growth report analytics and strategy

Do let me know if you found my month 2 blog growth report helpful. And if you’d like to see more.

How are you growing your blog?

What strategies do you plan on using this month?

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