How I Got Over 9k Views My First Month Blogging

Are you asking yourself how can you grow your blog traffic? I know I was so set out to learn as much as I could. And, guess what? I’m sharing what I’ve learned so you don’t have to spend hours and hours searching for what works!

I had been thinking about starting a blog for a really long time. But, I, like many others, was scared. What if no one cares about what I have to say? What if no one reads it? Who am I to write about anything? So on and so on. So I finally (after many months of lurking in blogging groups) got up the courage to start my blog! If you are thinking about starting a blog check out my post about how to start one and start making money here.

Best. Decision. Ever. First off I love writing! So having a hobby that I can make money off of that I love doing… that’s gonna be a hard yes. I also love helping people. Through my blog, I can help other women like me. Maybe you are suffering from postpartum depression and need to hear you aren’t alone. Well, I wrote a blog post about my experience (Check it out here How Brad Paisley Changed My Life yes that’s the ppd/sleep deprivation post I promise). Are you staying up all night worried about your newborn doing everything in your power to not reach into their bassinet and feel their breathing? Hey me too! I wrote a blog post about the products that helped me sleep at night (check it out here).

Blogging is a creative outlet for me where I hope to help other people know they are not alone. Motherhood is not easy. Like really not easy. So we need to stick together to compare horror stories. Like the time my son blew out his diaper so bad it covered his back all the way up to his shoulder blades. More affectionately known as poopocalypse in our house. (Sorry if you ever read this bug. Your dad and I still love you no matter what).

It’s a fun way to share wonderful stories. Like when my son’s first word was momma. That’s right my little angel said momma first. Even if you aren’t a mother or blogging about motherhood sorry for that digression. Blogging is a way to share your passions, hobbies, stories, life. It has given me a platform to share some of my experiences and hopefully help other people in similar situations.

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How I got almost 10k views

1. So that brings me to how I got almost 10,000 views (9,545) from 100 different countries (that’s over half of the countries in the world! Whaaaat. See the picture below for the 10 countries) in my first-month blogging. As in my first month ever. Not as in my first month blogging with this blog but my 20^th year blogging in general. Literally never blogged until now. If you are considering starting a blog I really hope you decide to do it! Check out my post on how to start a blog and make money! (Check it out here: how-to-start-a-blog )

Research Research Research

Alright here is a little insight into my personality I am a nerd. A geek. A research loving bookworm. So I found as many blogging groups as I could find to join (and lurk in reality). I read every article I could get my hands on. Borrowed books from the library (yea I love the library…. Seriously though it’s the best). Pinned pins so many pins sooo many. And basically learned as much as I could on the topic of blogging before I started my blog. Here is what has brought so much traffic to my blog and what I have learned from some of the most successful bloggers.

Passion!

In case you can’t tell yet I’m really passionate about my blog topic. This is the only way you will succeed as a blogger. You have to love what you decide to write about. If you are starting a blog just to start a blog it is going to be so hard. First, you won’t even enjoy it. Second, you will run out of topics for blog posts then it will be work just trying to come up with something. Instead of having a plethora of blog topics that just come to you naturally. I straight up have a list of at least 100 blog topics that I want to write about and I just started my blog a month ago! Finally, it will show in your writing if you aren’t passionate about what you decide to blog about.

Pinterest!

Pinterest brings me about 70-90% of my traffic so that means thousands and thousands of people found my blog because of Pinterest. If you take nothing else from this post please hear this PINTEREST IS YOUR BLOGGING BEST FRIEND. Pinterest essentially is a search engine where it is free to place your ads… it’s baller. I grew my monthly viewers from 1k to over 318k in one month! (UPDATE I now have now grown to over half a million monthly viewers in just under 3 months) Coming up I explain the steps I took on Pinterest to achieve this rapid increase.

So how can you utilize Pinterest to the fullest?

First is group boards.

My first viral pin came from a group board. This brought my Pinterest from 2,000 monthly viewers to over 100,000 monthly viewers in one week! The power of group boards cannot be overstated. Join them and join them like now.

Just keep in mind that group boards are only successful when all of its contributors pin each other’s content. The Pinterest algorithm favors boards that are really active. So you can’t just dump a bunch of your pins and walk away. Well, first because that’s against the rules of virtually all group boards. Second, because Pinterest will just shove your board to the bottom of everyone’s feed never to be seen again.

Joining group boards is fairly easy. Once you find a group board you like and may want to join look at the board description. If it is accepting new contributors there will be detailed instructions on how to request access in the board’s description. Which in most cases involves you following the broads creator, emailing the creator explaining why you want to be a contributor to the board, and a promise that you will follow their rules. I just started a group board for anything mom related if anyone wants to join. My board is called Motherhood and you can check it out here.

Second is pinning every day!

Like I already mentioned Pinterest favors accounts/boards that are active. Your Pinterest feed used to show you the most recent pins first. Not anymore! Now, it is a smart feed where it analyzes content to show you what you would be most interested in. So, if you want to get eyes on your pins you need to be active so Pinterest puts your pins at the top of people’s newsfeeds that are interested in your topic.

Manual vs. Automated

There are two ways to stay active on Pinterest. First, is Tailwind, which is an automatic pinning scheduler.  Tailwind has a free trial for the first 100 pins. I have found myself combining Tailwind automation and manual pinning and it has been working out awesome! Tailwind also has something called “tribes” it is basically a group board. I had 4 re-shares of a pin from one of the tribes I am apart of and it had 9.5k reach! Tribes are awesome. I started a tribe you are interested in joining it click here. If you aren’t a Tailwind member you can also use that link to sign up. I will get a Tailwind credit if you sign up just to be transparent. (Boardbooster is similar to tailwind but I have never tried it so I am not sure if it is free/ user-friendly).

So, if you have time to manually pin throughout the day then I wouldn’t bother with Tailwind. If you don’t have time to manually pin and you may miss days here and there and not be active, I would definitely use Tailwind. You can schedule your pins for the next day/week/month whatever you want with Tailwind so you are never inactive. My advice is to try out both and see which you are more successful with. On one hand, Tailwind analyzes your pins/boards to find the best times for your pins to be posted. On the other hand, manually pinning gives you more flexibility to pin when you want. This will definitely be different for each person so it takes a little trial and error to discover what works for you. But, for me, a rule of thumb is no less than 20 pins a day (that includes me sharing my original content as well as sharing other pins) usually I manually pin 5 pins every couple of hours and have a couple scheduled through Tailwind.

Third is using the right keywords

Put keywords literally everywhere. In your bio, in your board description and in your pin descriptions. By keywords, I don’t mean “mom” “diy” etc. Yes, those can be keywords but you also want to put phrases that your niche typically uses. For example, when you type homemade baby food into the search bar this is what shows up

So, when I make a pin about homemade baby food I have those key phrases in the description (here is my pin on making homemade baby food https://www.pinterest.com/pin/161074124158082606/ as an example). Do this for your boards as well. Find the keywords that relate most to your board and put those in the description.

Fourth is always include a vertical pinnable image in every blog post.

This will encourage people to repin your content and with an eye-catching vertical Pinterest optimized image, you will get more repins which leads to more blog traffic. I typically include my pinnable images at the very bottom of my post (like the one below). But, I have seen it put at the top of a post as well so that just depends on your style. But, no matter where you put it just make sure you include one. Canva has a lot of free templates. I also use Fotor (which I pay for) because it seems like everyone uses Canva so I like to have options so my pins don’t look identical to everyone else’s pins.

When creating your pinnable images make them vertical, always have your blog URL or name somewhere and have two options in each post (see the two below for examples) And, that is it! I hope my tips help you grow your blog and Pinterest! Feel free to check me out on Pinterest @TheSnoozyMomma