The month has gone by quickly so far – we are halfway through July already! Life has been busy with a family reunion in Island Park, work, and the loss of my full-time job on Monday the 8th (more on this later).
I set the goal to make a change and gain financial independence on the 26th of June, and have been making a lot of edits the last few weeks. I have started by going back to my first blog posts and cleaning them up. Since they were written in 2015, it has been a long time since they were touched. I have worked to make sure that my SEO performance is better, that there are good, quality links in each one, and that they are serving a purpose – helping solve a problem or question in some way or another.
You can check out a few of my first blog posts EVER here:
Vision in Chaos – A Battle Against Fear
A New Dream – Designing the Life You Want
In Awe – The Quiet Service of Angels
I have realized that although it is great to write for the purpose of helping people and not prioritizing money as the main reason for blogging, if the posts are not optimized and quality, nobody will find them and they won’t help a single person! (Rookie Mistake #1)
Lesson Learned: If you want to help people, make sure that your blog can be found!
The results of the first half of the month? Not a ton of traffic so far, but I am focusing on fixing the old so the quality of traffic and value of my posts is higher. It will be worth it to have discoverable content moving forward as my blog grows.
So how did I do so far in July? Let’s take a look.
Blog Stats
These are the stats:
- Pageviews: 717
- Sessions: 600
- Users: 568
- Pages/Session: 1.20
- Session Duration: 00:00:45
- New visitors: 91.6%
- Returning visitors: 8.4%
- Bounce Rate: 86.83%
Across the board, the bounce rate between 26 – 40% is awesome. 41-55% is average, with 56-70% higher than average. Anything over 70% is disappointing. This will be a big push to eliminate bounce rates through the coming months and get it where it should be.
This is one of the reasons I am focusing on fixing a lot of my old posts, as many are short in length, and don’t have any internal links to other helpful articles.
Readers all around the world
It is fun to see that I have readers spread across the world, from North America to Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe.
The top 5 countries are US, India, Canada, China, and Australia.
Other countries include Hong Kong, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Thailand, Ukraine, Vietnam, and South Africa.
WOW! Thank you all so much for visiting my blog and following along!
Most popular posts:
It seems my readers really loved the post How I Paid Off Over $26,000 in Debt, which tells my experience making minimum wage after graduating and shares my strategy for paying off all my debt and finding financial freedom. I loved seeing comments come in and hope it helps others follow the same plans to get debt free and start saving for the life they want to live.
Engagement/Comments
Overall, the engagement was low, but I am excited to see the growth and interactions with all of you. I want to hear all about how my post has either inspired you or helped you in some way.
Drop some comments, people! I will make sure to reply to every single one of them.
Do you want to guest post? My rules are simple and straight-forward:
- The article must be original content, no plagiarism, and it must not have been posted anywhere else
- The article must be about blogging/finances/travel/living your best life/pursuing passions/…
- Ideally it should include a personal story, so that my readers can relate to you.
- Ideally it should at least be 1,000-1,500 words
- Must be the final version, no drafts
- You agree to reply to comments
- If you are a blogger, you agree to link the post on your blog and share it on your social media platforms.
Top Channels
Blog Stats Top Channels
- Social
- Direct
- Referral
- Organic Search
Top Referrers
Thank you guys, ya’ll rock. As a fairly young blog, I need all the help and traffic I can get!
Social Media
- Pinterest has been great. I currently have 429 followers and 107K monthly views. Not a bad start for pushing forward full force! This is my biggest source of traffic currently, and I plan to focus primarily on continuing to grow this platform the most. I don’t love social media, and would prefer to share everything I have to offer through the blog and connecting through Pinterest.
My next strategy with Pinterest is to first redesign my pins so that they are branded and fluid across the board, which will help my readers recognize my brand and style as they get more familiar with the blog. I also plan to utilize Tailwind, since it has provided massive success to driving traffic for blogs without spending hours a day pinning.
If fellow bloggers could also invite me to collaborate on group boards, it would be appreciated. Right now I belong to only 1 shared board, and my hope is to add at least 10 boards a month.
Rookie mistake #2: I didn’t start out using Google Analytics really at all to track success. Initially, I figured even if nobody read my blog, it wouldn’t be a big deal because at least I am following through with my goal. But then it really doesn’t do any good so I need to keep up with data.
Lesson Learned: Data is important so that you are not only sharing content that will be discoverable through Google, but also so that you can set goals and continue to stretch yourself and gain new knowledge.
Other social platforms – Like mentioned above, I don’t love social media so I may continue to just use Pinterest and avoid Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for the foreseeable future.
Subscribers
Please share with your friends, family members, colleagues… the mailman. After all, this blog is about Growth, Living your best life, and Gaining Financial Freedom. If it helps you, it could help them too!
Featured in
Thank you very much to Magnify Money for featuring my story on becoming debt free after college!
Magnify Money – How I Changed My Lifestyle to Pay Off $26,000 in Loans More Quickly
Blog Monetization
As I mentioned in my previous post, since I have been running this blog for many years and just started focusing on monetizing it, that is one of my biggest priorities. My first priority will always be to create content that will make your life better – whether through inspiring you to be brave and take a leap of faith or sharing products I love, I want to help you out.
My blog is about blogging tips, financial security and independence, travel, life, and tips for becoming your best self no matter what stage of life you are in.
Therefore, it only makes sense for me to try to monetize the blog using the tips I share on here so that they are proven steps and not just ideas that might work. This is why I am sharing my progress, tips, and the lessons I figure out along the way.
Google Adsense: I am working to understand Google Adsense and will potentially use it in the future but want to focus on organic traffic first.
Affiliate Links: We have signed up for a few affiliate programs that we think our readers will benefit from.
If you want to start blogging, Bluehost can get you started. Make sure to also check out other resources that I recommend such as books that have helped us get where we are.
- Rookie Mistake #3: I should have started applying for more affiliate programs a long time ago. I make it a priority to only select affiliate brands that I love and support and use myself, so you will never get a product from me that isn’t being personally used to create this blog or in my own life.
Lesson learned: Start applying for affiliate programs when you first start blogging. Make sure you have some blog posts up ahead of time though – otherwise they will probably reject your application. Just don’t take it personal. They want to see that you are going to be a good partner for their business.
Sponsored Posts: I have considered doing sponsored posts with a few brands, but for now I am going to focus primarily on affiliate connections until I decide I am 100% behind the brand that approaches me. Like I said before, I can’t just take the money – I want to make sure the product will rock your socks before I back it up.
Work-Blog-Life Balance
My work-life balance or work-blog-life balance has not been great. I think this has been my main excuse so far for letting the blog slide and take the back seat in my plans. Once I finished up with my job for the day (8 hours of staring at the computer screen) I had a hard time getting motivated to spend more time here.
As I mentioned above, this has changed as of Monday with my unexpected loss of employment, so I am going to be pushing the blog’s performance and strategy 100% and making sure that I get to my goals I set. You can see why now, I need this to work out more than ever before.
I will keep track of how I am feeling with the new blog-life balance. My work is now turning primarily into the blog. I want to give my efforts all the way here. Keep me accountable! If you have quit your full-time job for blogging or decided to blog as your main source of income after losing your job, I want to hear about it so comment or private message me!
And for those of you who blog or have side gigs/hobbies that take so much time, how do you find that balance?
Special thanks to those who:
- Visited the blog
- Read my posts
- Commented on my posts
- Shared with friends
- Liked the posts
- Featured me
- Are bloggers who have paved the way for my learning and growth!
Thanks for reading! Please comment, share, and subscribe. I am stoked to get to know you all through this connection.
Do you want to start blogging? Bluehost can get you started. Make sure to also check out other resources that I recommend such as books that have helped me get where I am.
Do you want to learn more about my voyage? Stick around and start reading my posts!