As I’m writing this, June is coming to a close! My blog is about a month old now. I wanted to write this blogging report to reflect on my growth and set my goals for next month.
A Little About Me
I am a little over a year out of college, so still hanging in that weird bubble where my “adult life” has begun, but I’m feeling as inexperienced as a college student. I started at my full-time job in March around the same time COVID-19 hit, and so my first experience with working began in-virtual, at home.
Why I Started a Blog
To be honest, I initially got drawn in after reading an income report by Making Sense of Cents (over $1 million with her blog!). BUT I knew that blogger millionaires were few and far in between. It’s like famous YouTubers, or award-winning actors. There’s a lot of hard work, a bit of luck, and a dash of talent.
I’m still in training at my full-time position, and it’s a position where my creative outlets are limited. I’m happy where I am, but I needed a creative outlet. This is where my blog comes in.
If you want to learn more, feel free to check out this post on how I got a job in Big Tech with no experience.
Balancing a Blog With a Full-Time Job
It’s sufficient to say that my blog is my quarantine project. I spend all my free time on it. I’ve always been a bit of a workaholic, and blog-life balance has been rough. The great thing is that I don’t feel like I’m working!
I spend my lunch hours, after-work hours, and weekends planning my post schedule, writing posts, and designing pins.
It’s honestly a bit much, and so I’m writing out a blogging report to keep track of my goals and limits.
Month 1 Goals
I wasn’t sure where to start with goals, and so what I set down were pretty modest.
- Publish 12 posts
- Reach 200 sessions
- Reach 5k monthly viewers/audience on my Pinterest account
- Have at least 1 article in every category
- Create downloadable PDFs (added this goal halfway into the month)
Month 1 Stats
Month 1 was great for the blog! I’m a little too obsessed with checking Google and Pinterest Analytics, but it was so addicting to watch the numbers grow. It was incredibly slow in the beginning, but once I figured out how to design pins that drew clicks, everything grew exponentially. Though, as of this morning, traffic has slowed down from the weekend. Gonna try and figure out how to combat that.
Here’s where I’m at as of June 30th:
- Published 20 posts (3 were written by my sister, Cynthia, for her RA series).
- Starting to feel a little burned out, though. For a while, I was writing a post every day.
- Reached 928 sessions!
- My blog traffic exploded in the last week of June, thanks to my Pinterest. But, it died over the weekend, and I’m trying to figure out if my new Pinterest boards have something to do with it.
- Reached 108k monthly viewers on Pinterest!
- My two most popular pins got 11k and 10k impressions each.
- Starting this week off with a downward trend when it comes to my personal pins.
- Follow me! https://www.pinterest.com/milkteatheory/
- Even with that many impressions, I have only 14 followers. Going to try and grow that, but it’s been a little harder.
- Read about how I grew my Pinterest audience here.
- Income: $0
- Finally got Google Adsense approved yesterday! It took me about a month. I also removed the max. amount of ads from my pages, so not sure how much this will make me.
- I have an article in every category(: And created one downloadable PDF (my Job Interview Cheat Sheet).
July 2020 (Month 2) Goals
The end of month 1 had me really excited, but my blog traffic has been quite low at the start of this week. I’m feeling a little bummed, but will try to figure out what’s not working with the Pinterest algorithm (will write a post about how I grew my Pinterest from 0 to 108k monthly viewers in one month!).
- Publish 12 articles
- Trying to lower this to save my hands.
- Create Pinterest board covers, or at least have a cohesive theme
- Reach 2000 sessions
- This might be a bit of a stretch, but I’m hoping I get can the Pinterest algorithm figured out by then!
- Reach 300k monthly viewers on Pinterest
- Currently, I have no goals in terms of income. Not trying to set any monetary values just yet. I’m focused on growing my blog and creating quality content.
- Not focused on growing my email list just yet, either. Will work on that once I get more content on my blog.
Stress Points:
My blog is multi-niche at the moment. I guess you can say it’s a lifestyle blog. I’m trying to figure out what I most enjoy writing about.
Excited to see where July takes me! Stay tuned for another blogging report next month. 🙂
Wow, your stats are impressive! I’m a new blogger, and I barely met some of my goals LOL. Hope you achieve your July goals! 🙂
Hi there! Welcome to the blogging journey, too! Thanks for leaving a comment. I think I got lucky my first month–to be honest, July has currently been a bit of a struggle haha. Goals are great ways to keep motivated, but I try not to let myself feel too down when I can’t meet them. There’s always room to grow and things to learn–and it’s different for everyone! Good luck with your July goals(: