Blogging: Month 2
Although I still haven’t made blogging my full time career (just yet), I sure have learned a lot!
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If you are looking for a sign to get out of bed, take a shower, walk outside, or a simple reminder that you are important: Here it is! This is your sign!
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Blog Review: June 2020
Hello, friends! We have now accomplished two full months of consistent blogging!
I can’t help but wonder where Becoming the Best Self would be if we had been putting in this much effort when we first started in August 2019. But, hindsight 2020. Now, we only need to look forward!
If you read our blogging report from last month, May 2020, you know we were pretty excited about our first month of *real* blogging! While we are still stoked to be on this journey, I will say that we did not hit all of our goals last month.
With that being said, we definitely surpassed some of our goals! We also know exactly what we need to do going forward.
We won’t be focusing so much on social media numbers for this review. Although we always want to grow, some of our main goals for June 2020 were related to new platforms! We’re going to look at what all we have added to Becoming the Best Self, the growth we’ve made, and courses we took!
Everything We’ve Done in Two Months of Blogging
Let’s start by capping back onto our goals for June. We wanted to:
- Hit 2.5k website pageviews
- 30k Pinterest reach
- 50 email friends
- 2 posts per week
- 2 guest posts
- Start a YouTube channel
- Facebook Page
- 7,000 Instagram followers
“Okay, Jess. But, goals don’t matter if you aren’t reaching them. So, what’d ya get done?”
June 2020 Accomplishments
We blew our Pinterest reach out the water with a whopping 69.58k reach! Pretty impressed with this number! And, even though our reach beat out our June goals, we are still hoping to go way further in July!
We successfully published one blog post each week. Since it isn’t the accomplishment of two posts, I can’t say we met our goal. But, I am happy with consistency putting out a minimum of one post per month. We also didn’t have two guest posts, but we did have out first one on improving your money mindset!
Lastly, not only did we start our Youtube channel, we brought back our podcast, and created our Facebook page!
Since we’re all about transparency here, we only averaged about 1,200 pageviews and 20 email friends this month. We also were a tad short on Instagram, ending with roughly 6,800 followers for June. I am a little sad about it. But, I can honestly say we didn’t try as hard as we should have on views, Instagram growth, and our email list in June. Instead, we focused on getting more platforms built for our content! I’ll talk about this in a minute, though.
So, like I said, even though we didn’t exactly hit all of our goals, we made some impressive improvements! Let’s go into some of the details now.
The Actual Content
The Blog
I’m pretty excited to say that going into July, we have 24 published posts on our site!
Our biggest hit this past month was our post on boosting your productivity! We gave you 11 tips to help you stay on track with your goals. By implementing some (or all) of these tricks into your regular routine, you’ll become a master of productivity in no time!
This was a huge move for us. Not only was it a very thorough blog post, we also added a podcast and Youtube video on the same topic. Since we embedded them into our post, you are able to view either option on the same page.
We also gave you access to a productivity bundle with over 68 products inside of it!
Throughout the rest of the month, we also published articles on white privilege, quality of life, body image, and brain dumping!
For July 2020, we are wanting to stay consistent with a minimum of 1 blog post each week.
The Podcast
Since we just brought our podcast back this month, we don’t have many episodes up. (We actually have four up, to be exact.) But, it excites me to say that we are on all major platforms- including Apple podcasts!
Our most played episode right now is Gaining and Maintaining a Positive Body Image. We haven’t taken any podcast courses, but may do so in the future. For now, we are primarily just wanting you to have the option to listen to a corresponding podcast to the blog post you will be reading.
For July 2020, we are wanting to post a minimum of one new episode each week that relates to a published blog post.
The Youtube channel
We really don’t have much to say here. I’m not 100% confident talking about this platform. I honestly don’t know much about it, but we’re posting videos.
We currently have four videos up on our channel. Each video directly relates to a published blog post.
Although I don’t exactly know how to reach a huge audience on Youtube, I do love having a video embedded on my blog post!
For July 2020, we are wanting to post a minimum of one new video each week that relates to a published blog post.
The Analytics
I’m only going to discuss our site views and Pinterest because those are the two main analytics we’ll focus on for July.
Pageviews
Let’s first address the biggest goal I wanted to reach: 2,500 pageviews in June. As I said earlier, we did not hit this. Actually, we barely reached 1,200 (which is slightly down from May).
Here’s the kicker, though. I know what I did wrong. We didn’t promote.
Throughout our first month of consistent blogging, we were pushing our content to every sharing site we could! We began our Pinterest board and started adding fresh pins. Also, we shared our blog posts throughout a variety of different Facebook groups.
Now, did I do this during June? Well, kind of. I did create fresh pins for every post, discussed topics on Instagram, posted videos on TikTok, and shared in some groups. But, I didn’t focus on this.
Like I said at the beginning of this post- our focus was on getting a couple more platforms up and running. And, we did. With only 24 hours in a day, it’s pretty hard to maximize everything we wanted to do. But, getting our podcast and Youtube channel to go live this month was worth sacrificing some pageviews.
For July, we will have content going up on all of our platforms which should ultimately drive up our pageviews! We are aiming for 2,500 pageviews for July. Fingers crossed, we’ll get there. (Or, at least pretty close!)
In May, our Pinterest reach was 21.21k. We set a goal to hit a 30k reach. In June, our Pinterest account had a reach of over 69k! To say we met our goal is an absolute understatement. So, what did we do?
Two words: FRESH CONTENT.
Fresh content are pins that are made brand new. Meaning, you’re not re-sharing your (or other’s) old content. I use Canva to make my pins and try to have at least three fresh new pins upon publishing each blog post.
I’ve read lately that a lot of creators, business owners, and bloggers are struggling with their Pinterest reach. I am not sure what mine will do in the next few days, much less month. But, I have the most success when I post a few fresh Pins as soon as I release a blog post.
June Overview
Just because we weren’t successful in reaching all of our goals, June was definitely a month of growth! Having additional platforms for our content means we’ll have more of a natural reach for our targeted audience.
To further our learning, we also took Cate Rosales‘ challenge course on affiliate marketing. I’m working on getting a direct link to her videos from this course, but it was 100% worth it! She was so thorough and such a wonderful teacher, I joined her coaching program as well. (Because you know, we can’t become our best if we stop learning!)
It’s not excuse, but June (as well as the next upcoming months) was a very busy month for me. Both on personal terms and business. I do wish I had worked harder on promoting our content, but I am happy with what we accomplished!
July Goals
We can’t go into a new month without new goals. So, here’s what we’re hoping to knock out of the park in July.
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2.5k pageviews
- We are going to get back to promoting our content heavily this month. Since we put so much work into our blog posts, it seems unfair to not talk about it. (If you want to help me get here, share this post- or any of our posts- with your friends and social media networks!)
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80k Pinterest reach
- More content. More, more, more. I am going to be creating new pins for our old articles and posts as well!
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50 email friends
- Growing our email list has been a little challenging! I’m on a broke girl budget, so I dropped our plan with automations and broadcasts. We’re leaning on our freebies to get our information out to you. If you want to help this goal and stay in touch with us so that you never miss the info we put out, make sure you’re our email friend by clicking here!
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1 affiliate sell
- We may only receive pennies from this, but I can’t wait to make this my full time job. And, that’ll all start with my first sell!
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1 post each week WITH a corresponding podcast and Youtube video
- There’s no need for an explanation with this one. We’re just going to start getting more content out.
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Product launch announcement
- It’s still a secret, but we have something amazing in the works!
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Hit pages 1-3 of Google
- Okay, this may not happen. It will be the hardest to reach. But, it IS a goal, and we’re going to push hard to make it happen this month! (P.s. You can help me reach this goal by sharing this post with your friends, too!)
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7,000 Instagram followers
- We’re roughly 200 short of this goal, but I have slacked off on Instagram content. This month, that’s hopefully changing. I’m going to focus more on engaging with your account rather than constantly posting to our page.
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100 Facebook page likes
- Ah, Facebook. We have 44 likes and 46 follows currently. Hitting 100 doesn’t sound too hard. We shall see!
Once again, my goals are on the line! Time to start working. I don’t think my goals are TOO unreasonable this month. With some hard work and dedication, I’m hoping to reach at least 6 out of the 9 listed!
Within two months of blogging, I’ve learned where to put my time, energy, and effort.
Being already 7 days in, let’s see if I can do it right this month!
Be sure to share this with your friends if they are looking for tips to grow their platform or if they want real insight on blogging for a beginner.
If you have any tips for me, drop them in the comments or send me an email! In true Becoming the Best Self form, we love all the help we can get!
As always, if you need a sign to take care of yourself: this is it.
Get a new platform.
Reach your goals.
Start becoming your best.
Because as we all know:
you are the most vital character in your story!
Related articles:
What I Learned in My First *REAL* Month of Blogging
Peace out, girl scouts!
… and always aim to be the best self you can be.
I am, once again, shocked at the numbers shown for May 2020 on our Pinterest account!
