Confession #1: I love reading a good blog traffic report or blog income report. I find them to be educational and inspirational. I especially love the ones that go really in-depth about what they have been doing that gets results versus the thing they tried that fell flat. My favorite person to go to is Pat Flynn over at Smart Passive Income. His income reports are amazing!
Confession 2: Although I love reading other people’s traffic and income reports, I am terrible about tracking my own efforts. I think this is pretty unwise of me and is a habit that reveals itself in various aspects of my life. It’s something that I want to change.
Which brings me to the point of this post.
I want to hold myself accountable and to be able to track my progress with my blog. So I’ve decided to start publishing a monthly blog report. Starting out, I will only be tracking things like traffic, tools/courses I have invested in, blog-related events, and my blogging goals. In the future, I may be brave enough to discuss my blog-related income, but I’m not quite there yet.
So, without further ado, let’s jump in!
This first one will be a bit different. So that I can track my progress throughout the year, I figure I should backtrack to January as well as February.
January
# of Blog Posts: 4
I wrote a post where I reflected on 2016 as well as one where I talked about my plans for 2017. Then I wrote a post about how my son and I beat the winter blues, followed by one on decluttering your life.
# of Comments: 99
While two of the posts did fairly well with comments, one of them didn’t get much engagement.
# of Sponsored Posts: 1
I currently serve as a brand ambassador for Central Arkansas McDonald’s, so I tell a story each month about how McDonald’s ties into our lives. In January I talked about how their play place is a lifesaver during winter.
# of Pageviews: 2,554
This was a really drastic drop from the 6,000+ pageviews I had in December!
February
# of Blog Posts: 1
Eek! February was a very slow blogging month as I only posted once, getting a bit honest about my biggest struggle losing weight.
# of Comments: 50
Considering the fact that I only posted 1/4 of the number of posts as I did in January yet still got half the number of comments says something. Perhaps this topic of struggling to find balance with my diet really hit home with people?
# of Sponsored Posts
I really dislike it when my only post for a month is a sponsored post. Even though I try my best to provide value, I need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
# of Pageviews: 1,747
As you can see, when I posted less frequently, there was a definite dip in my pageviews.
Social Media Followers
I don’t really pay too much attention to how many followers I have on social media until it’s time to apply for blog campaigns, so I have no clue how my stats have changed since January. However, here is where they currently stand:
Facebook: 5,096
Twitter: 2,264
Pinterest: 1,613
Instagram: 572
Google+: 220
Youtube: 17
I’m not really surprised about the fact that Facebook represents where the majority of my audience is since I spend a lot of time on there. It is the # source of traffic for me, followed by Pinterest, and then Twitter. However, I notice that people on Facebook generally find me through sources other than my fan page.
March Goals
I would really love to hit 3,000 pageviews this month and then go on from there. I think that it is definitely possible if I spend more FOCUSED time on my blog. The plan is to write at least one blog post each week. I missed last week, but this is my second post this week, so that makes up for it. Right now I have one post that I’ve started and ideas for a few more that I would love to get out of my head and onto the screen for you guys. To help me to get more focused and organized, I am actually creating some printables, which I am going to give away as freebies (you may have noticed that tab in the header and wondered why it’s empty). I am hoping to get us on a good schedule that allows time for homeschool, my business, and my blog (in that general order) plus household stuff and a bit of socializing.
Confession #3: I have a terrible habit of taking courses, but not actually implementing what I learned. So one of my goals right now is to work my way through all of the current modules in this program I am in that will help me to better reach and serve my audience for my freelance writing business.
Another goal is to finally start sending out emails to my readers. That has been on my to-do list for soooo long. Now that I actually do that for my clients, I feel pretty silly not doing it for myself.
I think that’s about it for my first blog traffic report. I have some work to do, but I am committed to putting in the effort to get my blog, my business, and my life to where I want them to be. I’ll report back in April to update you about my progress for this month.
If you’re interested in keeping up with my progress, feel free to sign up for my mailing list below. I will be emailing you guys with updates on blog posts, freebies, and more.
