My 10th Month Blogging

my 10th month blogging report

Hey guys!

I’m back with yet another blogging report!

If you’re new to my blogging reports: hi, I’m Bianka and this is my “food blog experiment” series where every month I set new blogging goals and then report back the results to keep track of how my new food blog is growing!

Here are my previous blogging reports: month zero, first month, second month, third month, fourth month, fifth month, sixth + seventh month, eighth month, ninth month.

Let’s get started!

🗒 july blogging goals review

(Can’t believe it’s already August!!!!!)

• 20k pageviews – FAIL 18933! 🔻
• Post 1 recipe/week for a total of 4 recipes – SUCCESS! ✅
• Get 4 links published – SUCCESS! ✅
• 300k monthly viewers on Pinterest – FAIL 298k! 🔻
• Focus on affiliate marketing – SUCCESS! ✅

📊 google analytics

Well. I haven’t been able to hit a pageview goal in like 2 months now. I’m never *that* far from my monthly goals but I’m not there either.

It’s been happening since I decided to scale down my posting schedule from 2 posts/week to 1 post/week so that’s most likely the reason behind it. I’m still trying to hit my old goals while being on a different (and weaker) schedule. Eh…

I’d like to go back to 2 posts/week but my schedule is *so* full that I just don’t wanna set any unrealistic expectations, at least for now.

It’s also worth mentioning that summer isn’t exactly known as blogging or food blogging season and I know a ton of established bloggers have much lower pageviews & sessions during summer so that could be another reason.

📊 traffic

Pie break! (Dang, I kinda wish I had some cherry pie right now).

Wooooop!

Look at that jump in organic traffic! So so happy & grateful!

My social traffic has slightly decreased but I’ll take it as long as it’s paired with a good increase in organic.

Social traffic is good traffic, don’t get me wrong, and it’s the only type of traffic you’ll get at first so it really is good traffic *but* you can’t build your foundation on social media, you can’t rely on it and you don’t want it to be your main source of traffic.

Big companies like Mediavine will not approve you if the majority of your traffic comes from a social media platform.

And you can’t really rely on Pinterest, Instagram, or any other social media as they’re all extremely volatile.

They can change the algorithm and mess with your ad income, shut down (bye Vine), lose popularity (what’s Snapchat in 2021?), or change overnight (Instagram recently declared they’re not a photo sharing app anymore because they realized everyone’s on TikTok so now they wanna be TikTok).

You really can’t build your foundation on social media.

Yes, Google rolls out tons of updates and you can have up downs on there too but it’s not a social media platform. It’s Google.

Alright.

I think you got it – lol. Moving on.

📊 social media

pinterest

Speaking of the dev il…

I got back on Pinterest.

Nothing has changed. My fresh pins get 8 impressions in a week. They used to get over 1k overnight.

This is exactly why you can’t rely on social media.

Look, Pinterest helped me *a lot* back when I was new new and I still get good traffic from them but it’s all from older pins. Fresh pins just don’t get any impressions, saves, or clicks.

There are bloggers losing 30k/40k followers overnight (yes, really get out there, reach out), people getting blocked because they were “caught up in spam filters”, people losing hundreds of thousands of pageviews in a matter of weeks.

These are major concerns when you run a business. Big bloggers aren’t blogging for the thrill of it, it’s their business. Your ad revenue can go from 6000 to 1000 really quick. If you have a mortgage, rent, car payments, bills, kids, you will lose sleep over stuff like that. It’s not “just social media” or “just numbers” or “a hobby”.

Sure, there’s affiliate income, products, etc. but your income can go from comfortable to dry in a matter of hours or days. Pinterest hasn’t been helping or even talking about what’s going on. I think they’re still outsourcing their help tickets too (not sure) which doesn’t make it any better.

I wonder if someone will be able to sue, eventually.

For me, I’m sticking to a pin per post and that’s it.

If Pinterest isn’t working for you, you’re not the only one.

👆🏻august blogging goals

• 24k pageviews.
• Post 1 recipe/week for a total of 4 recipes.
• Get 4 links published.

That’s all for my 10th month blogging!

My reports and goal lists have been getting shorter over time and it’s mainly because I now know what I want to focus on and what I can realistically fit into my schedule (which has changed a lot in the past few months).

Thank you to each and every one of you that comes back for these reports or takes the time to leave ratings and reviews on my recipes!

xo,

Bianka