I don’t do these very often. Blog updates that is.

Perhaps once or twice a year, when something spectacular happens or if I’m proud of an achievement but that’s what has happened! In the last few months I’ve been setting small targets and actually achieving them. This small victory, one goal at a time has proven to impact my blog growth fairly significantly.This month I wanted to correlate my results. It’s more for my own interest I guess, but I thought it’d be of use to any bloggers who are looking to grow their blogs and perhaps had overlooked some of the methods I’ve used.

The same three things always apply when building your blog.  Quality-Content, Time and Consistency.

 Some times I lack in all of these. Whether it be not using my time wisely and writing rubbish content because of it, or writing amazing content and not having the time dedicated to create good pictures and networking. Which,subsequently, is also why I’ll never win a blog award but it is relevant. As I’ve really looked at my blog since writing that post. I had set my mind on everything I was going wrong. Not because I want to win an award but because I want to write a blog that succeeds at helping people. So I set about to do the exact opposite of what I had just been talking about. I needed to focus on my work.

The past few months I had spent more tine on the blog but still wasn’t producing ‘quality’ content. I had spent too much time on thinking what my readers wanted to read and not what I wanted to write and ultimately, that’s a death sentence. If you lose your passion for writing then you lose the will do write and afterall, that’s why I have a blog. To write.

I needed a re-think and I wanted to look at my blog as though it was my weight loss. Motivation, Inspiration and hard work and for me, those three words were far more useful! It seems to have paid off.

Blog Growth

Per day: 53 Average with a high of 130

Overall: 1,696

My stats have increased by around 18% which is substantial to anyone but when it comes to my blog with a difficult niche and small audience. This time of year blog growth is a big part of where I’ll be next year. It sets you up with new Christmas viewers who are looking for bargains,Christmas health tips & healthy gift guides so plan accordingly. The month has really stood out to me, not only because I had slowly been growing views but because I took a full week out and my views still increased! I rarely take week-long breaks and really hate to do it but the past few weeks I’ve had the odd day off here and there and not felt worried to do so because I was confident in my scheduled work.

Why? 

I have put my view increases down to a giveaway running (but I’ve only had 80 direct views from that) So it’s not had a huge impact I’d have hoped.That along with my new camera, I have spent time planning images in advance. My camera was on the cheap side of a camera so the image quality is still not amazing but it’s 100% better than before and I’m hoping that that has shown through. My Pinterest has sent over 200 views this month so that’s definitely showing me that images are key to this game. It’s also largely to do with my views from twitter which, since adding buffer to my scheduling, has increased blog views 12%.

Most popular post of the month: Eugene DNA Weightloss testing.

Twitter

Twitter growth: 900-1696

My twitter is perhaps the biggest change for me this month. I had decided to focus my attention on it from November first and increase my views to my blog by increasing my followers. Which has really helped me boost my stats. From giveaways to successful interactions, I have gone into detail on how I steadily increase my twitter following in this post. How I increased my twitter following.

Most popular tweet of the month:

Pinterest

Followers Gained: 49

% Monthly Pinterest views: 48.56%

This growth happened through the lovely blogger community and I really do mean, community. I know of several bloggers who link to and promote other blogs because they genuinely enjoy the work or want to really grow the blogger sphere for the better. That being said I was in a group a few weeks ago when I stumbled across this amazing post on growing your Pinterest following. The post had covered a lot of points I hadn’t really considered. Including posting and re-pinning images from other bloggers who may, in turn, pin your work if it’s relevant to their readers but… Grow your boards first. 

This month I have spent 10 minutes each evening pinning images that are relevant to my readers into relevant boards. I have gone from 190 followers up to 240, it’s not a huge leap but eh give me a chance.

Other points of growth

• My E-Books.

I actually made sales on my E-Book, for the love of lentils. The only reason I know about it is I had an email pop in my inbox from Kindle and, since I don’t own one. I investigated. My E-Book from almost 3 years ago actually made some sales this year and I had a payment go in for November 2nd!In total I’ve earned £33 over the past 3 years. I’m signed up to a commissioning scheme so they take 75% of the cut so it was only £1.26 that went into my bank this month but It shows that people want to read what I’m writing and that’s always a good sign.

• Freelance writing.

I’ve recently set myself up a people per hour account. Essentially it’s a job site. You enter in what skills you have and jobs you require and you’re paired with other people who are interested in working with or for you. I’m yet to make more than £40 on there as my first project came at a very inconvenient time for me, I was ill for a week! Subsequently, it has removed me from the system so another paying site needs to be found.

• My youtube

I’ve not spent a tonne of time on my youtube but it is  point of growth. Having uploaded a video each week for the last 6 weeks I’ve found that I’ve had 30+ more subscribers. I’m not advertising or publishing them anywhere, not even twitter so I’m shocked to see any growth but… I’m super happy!

Personal and blog development.

This year has been a year of development for me and it has really impacted me as a blogger and as a writer. I’m more pro-active than ever and I’m a lot more honest about myself. I’ve been tweeting and mentioning when I’m having a non-motivated day and when I’ve been eating junk food. I think telling the truth about the ‘bad days’ show everyone that – yeah, it happens. Where as in previous years I put on a falseness that I was good all the time. 

I think this year I’ve proved that my blog must come first in terms of work.I have set a schedule for 8am-2pm for blog related work and sticking to it for blog growth. It’s what I really want for myself and eventually IT WILL pay off. I just need to carve out a better-earning plan because £31.07 in E-Book revenue and a few products do not an income make.

I hope my blog update has been helpful or at the very least, not a complete bore  for you to read. Have a great week!