One Month Recap: Zero to 4,900 Pageviews in 30 Days

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Phew! We made it through our first month on Moms Make Cents. It has seriously been such a whirlwind and I am so grateful for all of the friends I have already made.

The last month has been a little insane at our house. The day after I launched the blog my little boy and I got super sick. I was down, off and on for about three weeks (getting up in the middle of the night multiple times with your sick baby leads to a slow recovery).

July 1st we got the keys to our new place and my hubby started renovating it every night after work. He would leave at 6:00 and get home around 9:00 so there wasn’t a ton of time for me to work in the evenings. Finally, on the 15th we were all boxed up and ready to move in.

With all of that craziness, I feel like Moms Make Cents had a really awesome first month! We are going to talk about the overall growth, what worked, what didn’t and the tools I used to achieve my goals.

I believe it is best to focus on two or three areas during the month where you really want to grow. For me, this month mine were growing my Page Views, Email Subscribers and Pinterest Account. 

Page Views – 4,907

I was blown away when I checked Google Analytics the night of the 21st to record the first months page views. I literally got dizzy when I saw that my brand new blog had had 4,907 in its first month.

Over 70% of my traffic was via Pinterest, 20% was from Facebook (mostly from Facebook Groups I participate in) and the rest was a mix between organic traffic and other smaller referrals.

Email Subscribers – 146

6/22 – 21     7/21 – 146

Difference – 125     Increase – 595%

Increasing my email list was another one of my primary goals this month. Before I officially launched the blog, I put up a landing page with my freebie the Mompreneur Tool Kit. I pretty much only promoted this on Pinterest and was able to get 21 subscribers before launching on July 22nd.

I currently use MailChimp for my email management software. It is great because it is FREE for your first 2000 subscribers. I did, however, upgrade to the $10 a month plan for its automation features. If you want to send out a content upgrade it is necessary to have an email provider that offers automation.

My biggest number of subscribers list is on the Mompreneur Tool Kit, but I also have a reasonable number of subscribers from my content upgrades on my post about Amazon FBA and Free Feminine Stock Photos.

Pinterest – 859

6/22 – 464     7/21 – 859

Difference – 395      Increase – 85%

I absolutely LOVE Pinterest. Pinterest is an incredibly powerful tool to market your blog or business. I knew that I wanted to heavily incorporate Pinterest into my growth strategy.

I have had a personal Pinterest account for years, but it had been pretty neglected, as I spent most of my time on Pinterest managing my client’s accounts. Right before the launch I converted my account to a business account and reorganized my boards.

On the 22nd I had only 464 followers. In one month I was able to almost double my Pinterest followers to 859! There is no way I could have done this without Tailwind and  BoardBooster.

In my post How I Increased My Pinterest Impressions by 1000% in 30 Days I share more information about BoardBooster and Tailwind + how I used it to boost my clients Pinterest Impressions by 1000% in 30 days.

Twitter – 384

6/22 – 199    7/21 – 384

Difference – 185     Increase – 93%

I created this account from scratch about a month before I launched the blog. On the 22nd when I launched I had 199 followers.

I knew I wanted to incorporate Twitter in my strategy because it is a great way to connect with other bloggers and readers in your niche. I hit it hard on Twitter the first couple weeks and then as the month got busier I prioritized my time to focus more on other aspects of my blog.

Instagram: 35

6/22 – 17     7/21 – 35

Difference – 18     Increase – 105%

I have been a major slacker on Instagram. I posted about once a week and didn’t make much effort to increase my followers. This may be a goal in future months, but for now it is not one of my main priorities.

Facebook: 16

6/22 – 2      7/21 – 16

Difference – 14     Increase – 700%

My effort on my Facebook page was even less than Instagram. I did schedule posts for the page, but that is about it.

What worked?

• Used content upgrades to incentivize joining my email list.
• Joined Blogging and Entrepreneurship Facebook Groups to network and share my content. I recommend Blog + Biz BFFs, Creative Super Heroes and Freedom Hackers Mastermind.
• Made blogging besties that gave me feedback on my work and motivated me to always improve. I couldn’t have done it without my girl Amanda at Mommy Imagines.

What didn’t work?

• Trying to do everything at once. At first, I wanted to be really active on all of my social media profiles, but as the month went on I realized I didn’t have time for everything. If I had taken my own advice and prioritized at the beginning of the month I would have been a lot less stressed.
• Getting stuck in the research rabbit hole. I would get sucked in and read every article, listen to every podcast and watch every webinar. This is great because I learned a lot, but it stopped me from getting more done. Knowledge is so important, but sometimes the best way to learn is to try it yourself.

Tools for Success:

Want to know what tools helped me have such a great first month? 

1. BoardBooster – I seriously cannot say enough good things about BoardBooster. Pinterest is my favorite way to direct traffic to my site and over 70% of all of my traffic this month came from Pinterest. There is no way this would have been possible without BoardBooster.

BoardBooster has packages starting at $5 a month and it is seriously the best $5 you could spend for your business. Plus, if you want to try it out first you can use my link and get your first 100 pins for free.

2. Buffer – I use Buffer to schedule my social media posts. It saves me so much time to be able to sit down and batch schedule all of my posts. By scheduling my posts I have more time to focus on other business responsibilities and I have more time to actually engage on social media.

3. SumoMe – See those sharing buttons on the left side of the screen (or on the bottom if you are on mobile) those are via SumoMe. SumoMe is an incredible tool for sharing your content and list building. Along with the sharing icons they also offer, email pop-ups, heat maps and so many other resources. Did I mention many of the tools are free?

4. Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – If you want to monetize your blog I highly recommend this course! The course creator Michelle from Making Sense of Cents makes over $50,000 a month from affiliate marketing. I have been reading her income reports for years so I had to jump when she launched her course.

The focus of this course is affiliate marketing, but she also covers information on how to direct traffic to your blog and optimize your posts that have the most traffic.

I purchased this near the end of month one and within two days I already had my first affiliate sale. As a bonus with purchase of the course you get access to a secret Facebook group. I have learned so much from the group, plus you get to ask Michelle, one of the premier experts in affiliate marketing anything you want! That alone is worth the cost of the course. If you are considering monetizing your blog check out Making Cents of Affiliate Marketing. 

Over 70% of my blog traffic is via Pinterest, so I thought I would put together a FREE Pinterest course for you! Sign up below to find out my secrets to Pinterest.