Self-Reflection: Seven Months of useful Blogging insights to grow “your” Blog’s traffic

Last Updated on February 1, 2021 by scottkandh

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means if you purchase something through my link, I will earn a small commission. This does not affect the price you pay for the item. I only advertise products that I have used myself and would genuinely recommend.

Overview

Day after tomorrow, February 3rd, 2021 marks the seventh anniversary month of blogging. This post looks at the past as well as looking into the future to see what can lay ahead.

I’m ecstatic that I have 46 subscribers on my blog right now. What is confusing me is why I’m being prompted with one of my apps that there are only 5 people signed up to receive my posts which are sent to their e-mail. I suspect that because I’m ConvertKit for my landing page that there’s a different process which I’m unaware of exactly what’s happening. I’m no longer concerned with why it’s happening. Rather, I’m in the process of contacting subscribers to my blog to see if they would like to receive my blog post (sent automatically to their e-mail address).

One of my pins that is an SEO e-Book has a slightly large number of repins so I’m more inclined to think that pin is causing the subscribers to my blog. This post – SEO Checklist for WordPress Blogs is a very helpful post to provide suggestions, tips, ideas, and tricks to boost your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Pinterest or your Blog. It provides an SEO Audit guide in the form of various checklists and uses step-by-step instructions to strategize your SEO like a professional. There’s also a new feature to bring your SEO to the next level with a Headline Analyzer evaluating the performance of your headline & provides suggested keyword banks: emotional, uncommon, and power word banks.

Blog’s Upcoming things

1. I’m putting less emphasis on blog posts (creating an average of 1 -2 posts per week). The main focus for the next several months is to have pins completed for two of my blog posts.

a. Norman Rockwell Paintings

b. 300 Motivational Quotes and Inspiration

2. I’ve updated all five parts of my Blogging Series post that’s located on my page called Freebies. The resource page of Freebies is the perfect place for me to let you in all off of the Freebies available on PinArtwork conveniently located in one place.

The How to Grow your Blog Series Post is comprised of five (5) Parts.

Each of the parts will concentrate on aspects to help you grow your blog. NOTE: The last two images are for Tailwind. The one with 75 contains a list of 75 Tailwind Communities to join. The last one is my Ultimate Guide to the new Tailwind. Using Tailwind is a great way to showcase your Pinterest pins. It’s much like a Pinterest Group board. The main difference being that a Tailwind Community doesn’t have the pins separated by different categories. All of the pins created by the owner, or shared by other contributors are all thrown into the pot and you can choose to select pins to put on your various boards. Tailwind is a great way for you to get visibility for your pins. I mean after all, if you’re blogging you want people coming to your site and this is one of the best ways other than Pinterest to grow traffic to your blog (with Tailwind). If you want to join Tailwind, I humbly ask you to join through one of my pins (or link) so that I can make a small fortune of $15 if you join.

3. To-Do list item: Put all of the plug-ins that I use on the Free Resources Library page.

Pinterest Challenge for February 2021

 Here’s a summary of the Pinterest strategy that I’ve been using and will continue to use:

I challenge myself to pin regularly on Pinterest, in order to gain more blog traffic (and hopefully more subscribers).

• Pinning at least 50 times per day (Comprised of:)
  
• 25 miscellaneous pins from Tailwind to Pinterest boards.
• 10 through Motivation and Inspiration – this is on-going and will continue to mid or late January.
• 3 through Faith
• 10 new pins in Norman Rockwell paintings
• Looking for 2 new pins to add to boards that are in the home feed.
• Therefore, I’m creating approximately 23 fresh new pins per day.
• Following people that have a blog similar to my niche.

Tailwind – #1 Pinterest Scheduler

If you want to grow your Pinterest followers and/or bring more traffic to your blog this program that will significantly give your blog a boost.

If you need an overview on how to use basics for Tailwind – click on Tailwind Basics. (Note: The program has had a couple of changes since this post was written, for the “current” version of Tailwind visit – The Ultimate Guide for using the improved Tailwind. If you’re interested in joining Tailwind, the trial period is based on 100 scheduled Pins. A major advantage to using is Tailwind is that Tailwind is a Pinterest and Instagram Partner.

Look at how your Pinterest boards can grow by viewing typical results for Pinterest users.

If you’re on the edge of your seat and you’re waiting to start your Tailwind trial, I’d like to welcome you to the Tailwind family.

Ultimate Guide for using the improved Tailwind

Where to find Tailwind Communities.

Tailwind Tribes

If you like my blog, please consider joining my Tailwind Community. The link is provided below for you to join. I look forward to seeing you in my Community. This Tailwind Community is for most niches. Please keep it clean and follow the Tribe rules. I have a dozen Group boards that cover a variety of popular topics.

https://www.tailwindapp.com/tribe/join?h=09jQTlEW0uqwLD

By the numbers

As I mentioned earlier (in another post), I had nearly 700 followers, I’ll plan on closely analyzing this information when it gets closer to July of 2021. That’s a long way for now. Hopefully, with a new Pinterest account, I’ll still be able to get at least 500 followers. I’ll give myself another five months to grow my following and I can look at the stats in May 2021 to see if I’ll be looking at 500 or 1,000 followers as initially planned for July 1st, 2021. It appears that with 295 followers as of February 1st, 2021 I should be able to reach my July 2021 goal of 500 – 1,000 followers. The number of followers has slightly declined after the holiday season which I’ve read is typical for Pinterest and might pike again around July. My goal is to get 100 Pinterest followers per month which average 3 – 4 per day.

Using Tailwind to schedule pins

I’ve dropped my number of scheduled pins in Tailwind to 7 per day. That way it’s a lot easier for me to find pins to put into my queue (as opposed to 20 pins).

I would recommend Tailwind to anyone who is serious about working on their Pinterest account to drive more traffic to their blog.

Did it work?

From Nov – Jan 2021, I noticed a substantial marked improvement in the visitors to my blog and subscribers.  Now I just need to get some information about what’s the correct thing to do when people subscribe to the blog. I’ll share that information with you when I find out. I’ve sent out some e-mails but haven’t gotten any nibbles. But it’s worth a try.

Things I have learned during my seven months as a blogger (that weren’t mentioned earlier).

• I’ve learned how to very effectively use analytics within Pinterest Business and look at top pins and top boards.
• I’ve learned to look more closely at Link Clinks (and they’ve already changed the name on Pinterest) to Outbound clicks.

My blogging achievements

These are things that I am proud to have achieved in the last 7 months:

• One of my blog posts (Star Trek – The Original Series pins) has reached the magic number of 700 total shares and it’s rising by an average of nearly 50 shares per day. I’m guessing that by the end of the month it’ll be well over a 1,000 Total Shares.

• My blog has been nominated for “Best Newcomer of the Year” for the Infinity Blog Awards 2021.  I’m excited because this competition is one that would let the world know my blog’s worth and value. Furthermore, the nominee, finalist, or winner badge/status should increase the trust my customers have for my blog. I eagerly await the announcement of the 2021 awards. Note: 2020 awards were canceled during COVID. I don’t plan to post the badge/status until after I’ve been notified of the results.

• Wrote and published more than 160 posts to cover Pinterest and SEO. 
• Consistent posting usually one post every 2 – 3 days. 
• More than tripled my Pinterest followers from 75 to 295.
• I finished making all of the pins for Star Trek – The Next Generation.

Goals for my blog’s eighth month

• Continue working on the Motivational and Inspirational pins
• Continue working on Faith pins (I’ve been lax on these pins).
• Continue working on Norman Rockwell pins
• Goal of a total of 6,500 pins by 2/28/2021. As of 1/22/2021, I’m at 4,892.
• Goal of 400 Pinterest followers by 2/26/2021. As of 1/22/2021, I’m at 274 so I’m relatively close.
• Goal Engagement Rate of 10% (in Tailwind). As of 2/1/2021, the rate is at 8.2 % which allows the growth of 2.5% more for Tailwind’s Engagement Rate – “% of pins w/ at least 1 pin“. Ultimately, your end goal is to have a Rate of 100% but that’s very long term (year’s out).
  

Financial goals:

• Earn money from my Affiliate programs (mainly Tailwind and Bluehost) on-going.  I need to be more diligent in this arena. But right now without people subscribing I’ve gotten a little lax in this arena. So it’ll require another look if I start getting some more subscribers.

I wrote a post that might interest you called: How to use Affiliate links to Monetize your blog.

• Now that I have 46 subscribers (as of 1/22/2021) I need to be very diligent in this area and I’d like to figure out a way to at least making $100 by the end of my 1st year blogging. It’s something to shoot for. So I’m going for all of the gusto. I need to take it up to the next notch.
  

Goals in a year from now

• Strongly hoping for at least 500 to 1,000 Pinterest followers, July 1, 2021.
• Overjoyed if I have at least 12 subscribers on the Blog. 
• Seeking for 15 fresh pins/day, hoping to have 10,000 pins / 500 repins.

How long have you been blogging for?

If you’re a blogger, drop me a line (Bloggers helping Bloggers).  I’m hoping to hear what kind of ideas you might have to collaborate to build each other’s blog.  Also, I’d greatly appreciate it, that if you liked this post to please pin one of pins from this post. Thank You.

Related posts that you might want to read on my website:

Self-Reflection: Three Months of Blogging

Self-Reflection: Six Months of Blogging

Self-Reflection: How I actually got my first valuable 1,000 Pageviews

SMART Goals examples