Welcome to my first ever blog traffic update.
After toying with the idea of starting a blog for almost two years, I finally started it in July.
What was my primary intention of starting Crowd Work News?
I wanted to help others to find online work opportunities and side gigs that can be a good source of income.
So how was my first month?
Traffic
Within the first two days of the launch, my traffic was over 1K page views.
I did a lot of word-of-mouth marketing before my launch. I knew that many of my friends, acquaintances, and many others were looking for work-from-home job opportunities and could not get past the scams.
I posted about the blog in forums and talked about it in different Facebook groups related to remote jobs.
Now, after one month of blogging, my page views are over 16K.
The things that helped me to get this traffic including the following:
- Popular posts
- Pinterest (my biggest traffic source at 60%)
- StumbleUpon
- Facebook (this is from the Facebook groups I participate in)
Some of my posts had massive page views—maybe it wouldn’t much for a seasoned blogger, but for me, it was HUGE.
7 WAH Jobs without Any Expertise (3,634 )
Top 25 Companies Hiring Remote Workers Regularly (2,208)
Pinterest
I had zero followers on Pinterest, and now I have 280 and it is growing. I want to increase the monthly viewers to 200,000.
Two things helped me to get most of my traffic from Pinterest
- Group Boards
I joined about 15 group boards and started pinning to them. I would say this is the most effective way if you want to see traffic coming from Pinterest, even with fewer followers. BoardBooster
Automation is something you should do if you want to up your Pinterest game. I was manually pinning my pins to the group boards, and it was taking all of my time.
BoardBooster automates all of your pinning processes. You can schedule your pins to the boards, decide the best time to pin, see your best-performing pins, run campaigns, and so much more.
The monthly plans start at $5, and your first 100 pins are free.
If you are having trouble getting the hang of BoardBooster, Rosemarie Groner of The Busy Budgeter has awesome videos on every feature of this tool.
Update: The MOST USEFUL resource that helped me to get traffic from Pinterest is Pinteresting Strategies. This is by far the most useful eBook for beginner bloggers to get started with Pinterest. I jumped to over 2.5 million views on Pinterest after implementing the tips in this eBook. It’s gold!
Most of the traffic came from my participation in Facebook groups.
One resource that I found very useful for understanding the Facebook game was Brittany Ann’s Strategies Worth Sharing. This eBook comes with super actionable tips on making your Facebook page look awesome and getting likes.
StumbleUpon
This was a BIG surprise for me; I was not sure if I would get any traffic from this social media channel at all. But as it turns out, StumbleUpon is my second biggest source of traffic.
Once I knew it was bringing good traffic, I started making some changes to my profile.
The things that helped me get some traction were
- I stumbled in the ratio of 1:9 of my posts to others posts. QuickSprout has a very good post with tips on how to get started on StumbleUpon.
- I made it a point to be consistent in adding pages or stumbling. I read that it makes a difference on StumbleUpon if you participate on a daily basis
Twitter – 200 followers
I know, that’s not a big number, but my twitter is growing slowly. I am aiming to double that number for the month of September.
Instagram – 60 followers
I am a bit slow on Instagram. It is a visual media, and I find that, along with your content, photos do well on Instagram. Lucky me, I am a photography buff, so I keep posting the photographs that I take along with my posts. Hope to see the number grow next month.
Related:
Month Two Traffic Update: How I Got over 25,000 Page Views with a New Blog
Month 3 Blog Update: 50,000 Page Views and My First Income Report
How I Made $2,347.17 in 4th Month of Blogging
How I Made $3,226.89 in 5th Month of Blogging
Email – 45 Subscribers
I am totally new to email marketing and did not have a plan for list building when I launched.
I did have a pop-up with my newsletter and job leads opt-in. What I have learned is that content upgrades and opt-ins are the starting points of building a list.
If you are new and struggling with building your email list, then you will find Meera Kothand’s blog extremely helpful. She has many posts that are exclusively meant for newbies.
Things I did
I believe in doing at least one thing every week toward the growth of my blog. Maybe I should do more, but for now, I want to learn a lot and do things slowly.
I created a simple content upgrade for one of my posts and promoted it.
I reached out to a transcription company to interview one of their freelancers.
Monetizing my blog is one of my goals and in that process, I signed up for the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course. I have followed Michelle Schroeder-Gardner’s blog Making Sense of Cents for a very long time now. She makes $50,000 a month only from affiliates. Awesome, right?!
I know the power of affiliate income as I have some Amazon stores from which I earn a good side income, which is entirely passive. So investing in this course to learn more about affiliate income strategy was something I would definitely go for.
I will be publishing a detailed review of the course soon.
If making money from your blog is your goal, I suggest you invest in this course.
What I learned
You have to promote on different platforms. I thought promoting on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram was enough. But StumbleUpon surprised me.
It is a good strategy to promote on different platforms to see which one gets you the most traffic, and then work more on that channel.
Researching and writing posts take up most of my time. I do love promoting, but what I have learned is that automating the promoting part can save a lot of time and can give the best results.
What’s Next
Traffic
I know my traffic spiked because of my prelaunch promotion, but I will continue to follow the strategies I am using now and see how I can grow further next month.
I am aiming for 25,000 page views in September. I know that’s a big target, but I think it is achievable if I try harder.
Subscribers
I am focusing on growing my list. I am trying to work on getting the list up to 100 subscribers. Fingers crossed!
With many more posts about making money from home, interviews, and a super useful freebie, I am excited about my next month.
Stay tuned!
Update: All the below resources have helped me immensely to reach this point. I highly recommend them, and they can be quite helpful to all of you—no matter what stage of blogging you are at. I am happy to answer any questions you may have about these resources.
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – This is by far the best course I have ever taken, and it has helped me with many aspects of affiliate marketing. This course is a must for anyone who is serious about making money from a blog.
Pinteresting Strategies – Carly’s Pinterest strategies helped me grow my traffic exponentially, and in turn, my income. I have tested them, and they work.
Facebook GPS – Tracie is a pro when it comes to Facebook strategies, and her course is a complete guide to growing your Facebook followers. My reach is increasing every day as I keep implementing tips from this course.
Traffic Transformation – I love Lena’s eBook for the fact that she dives into getting traffic from less frequently used platforms.
Strategies Worth Sharing – This is an eBook I bought even before starting my blog, and it helped me to reach 700+ likes on Facebook. With Facebook being the second biggest referral for traffic for many bloggers, you need to invest in this resource to grow your traffic.
How was your first month? Please share in the comments. I would love to know about your update.
Sireesha,
How exciting! I love reading about blog income and traffic reports. They are inspiring and motivating.
That’s amazing you had 16K pageviews for your first month! I only had 4k! You are definitely on your way to a growing tribe of followers!
Hey Elna,
Thank you so much for commenting. Traffic and income reports inspire me a lot. I am working on growing my subscribers this month. I love your traffic reports and hope to see your income report soon :-). You are such an inspiration!!
That’s an epic level of traffic for your first month! Well done. Can I ask what levels of traffic you’ve been getting from StumbleUpon?
Hey Lloyd,
Thanks, hoping to increase the numbers next month. StumbleUpon drives 40% of my traffic to the blog.
Very good, I’m going to try some of these. Being a new blogger is very daunting especially when you have no idea what your doing. Thank you
Hey Phil,
Thank you, I know how it feels. It definitely helps if you have some tools or resources to make the process easier. Glad this post helped.
Congratulations Sireesha! What an wonderful achievement, thank you for breaking it down into segments – its interesting to see how people use different social media channels and traffic boosting strategies.
Hey Cynthia,
Thank you!! Happy to know this post was helpful. Yeah, it is always good to test out which social media channel performs better for you. I know many bloggers who get HUGE traffic from Instagram, which is something I am testing now.
Will definitely have to implement these tips! I’m having a bit trouble joining Group Boards, though– any tips for how to go about this?
https://www.theeditorialistla.com/
Hey Marissa,
Glad you found this post helpful!! Initially, I had some trouble joining group boards. I normally send emails to the group boards requesting to join. They do usually reply with an invite, sometimes it might not be very quick. Don’t go for big boards, try to join smaller boards at first. This worked for me, hope it does for you too:-)
This is amazing. Congrats on the awesome first month numbers. I’ve been blogging for almost a year and I’m stuck at less than 100 views each day. I’ll try some of the things you did especially Pinterest boards and hopefully it will increase my page views and ultimately my engaged readers. Thanks for the info 🙂
Hey Melanie,
Thanks!! I definitely suggest you try the Pinterest group boards and Boardbooster. These two things are the biggest reasons of my Pinterest traffic. Hope your numbers go up soon.
Thanks this is super helpful and I am pinning for future reference, I’m a newbie so soaking in all the info I can 🙂
Hey Kari,
Thanks for sharing!! Glad to this post was helpful for you:-)
Hi sireesha,
Awesome post and mind blowing stats. U created records. Congrats on your phenomenal growth.
The images are totally enticing. Good work.where do you create them?
I’m there on pinterest, recently joined two major group boards,they are not working for me. Will give a try for smaller boards.I’m there on Facebook groups, which ones do you find are interactive and generate traffic?
Hey Sowjanya,
Thanks a lot:-) I am using Picmonkey for editing my images. You can also use Canva, but I am more comfortable with Picmonkey. You can find more group boards for Pinterest on PinGroupie, it’s a group board directory. I am in around 8 Facebook groups. I am in Women Winning Online, SH Nation, Turbo Blogging & Business. All of these groups are amazing, they share so much information. Happy to help, if you have any more questions.
Hi,
Fine tips delivered by you😃
Keep up the great workðŸ‘
Great! I will follow this in future 🙂
What incredible information. This is seriously some great tips. StumbleUpon has been a bit of a mystery for my blog but I am going to look at the QuickSprout post now.
Hey Renee,
Happy you found this post helpful:-) I am still working on making few changes on my profile in StumbleUpon. I know it’s not the ‘usual’ traffic source for many, but I am testing to see how it does in the coming months.
For some reason this made me think of my numbers.
Twitter – 172 followers
Pinterest – 161 followers
Instagram – 39 followers
I never post about my blog to Pinterest or Instagram, and it MAY help for me to do so. I hear Pinterest is a great for views/traffic, and I should probably do something about it.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Hey Stephanie,
Thanks!! You should definitely post your blog content on Pinterest, it is the MAJOR traffic source for many bloggers.
this was a great read. I have grown my blog so fast in the last two months. I love hearing different ways i can keep doing that.
Hey Erica,
Thanks!! Nice to hear about your blog growth. It is hard to grow a new blog exponentially, happy to know you are growing fast. All the best:-)
Wow that’s so great! Congrats on your first month of blogging!
Hey Jackie,
Thank you!!
This is such a great breakdown! Thanks for this post, I love seeing how other bloggers grow their brand!
Hey Christine,
Thanks for commenting:-). Glad you liked the post. I love traffic and income reports, they are so inspiring:-)
Wow, fab stats! It sounds like you have a really good strategy. I really need to sit down and work out a schedule and strategy to be consistent with promoting.
I have a personal finance group board you can join if you like 🙂
Hey Francesca,
Glad you liked the post:-). I am still new and learning to promote. It is quite exciting to discover new ways of promotion. I would love to join your group board. Thanks for the invite!!
Hey Sireesha,
Congrats on getting 16k page views in the first month. I am also trying to use StumbleUpon to increase page views and am surprised to see my results. Do you have any suggestions on how to get more comments? I don’t seem to much comments on any of my posts.
Hey Rohit,
Thanks:-). StumbleUpon is a social tool which I think can give you good traffic. I am happy that you are seeing good results with your strategy. I don’t do anything particularly for comments. One thing that I do is connect with other bloggers, which results in they commenting on my post, if it interests them.
Sireesha…
Wow…its so inspiring to see your stats.
I am pretty new at this and its so overwhelmeing…. your post certainly inspires me. I will check out the courses you suggested. Thanks
Hey Susrutha,
Thanks:-) Happy to know my post was helpful. It is still overwhelming for me, but I believe in using tools and resources to maximize the results. Definitely ,try the courses they are the reason for my surging numbers. Send me a mail if you need any help:-)
Sireesha, you may want to double check that your Google Analytics Code isn’t duplicated on your site, could be leading to inflated stats!
People’s bounce rates aren’t usually that low – usually a sign of duplicated code 🙂
Hey Raelyn,
Thank you so much for the tip. I am going to look at the backend if there is any duplication of the code. You are always so helpful:-)
Congratulations on your first month I definitely need to read that ebook. I’m still lucky to get 10 visitors daily.
Hi Sireesha, I am so glad I found your blog. Wow, you are such an inspiration. I am hoping by using some of your tips I would grow my audience Too. Great job.