My Fourth Month Blogging
Hey loves!!! Back with another update!
It’s February 1st & I’m here to spill ALLLL the tea on my fourth month blogging!
For those of you who are new here: hi, I’m Bianka & you can ready my other reports here: month zero, first month, second month & third month.
Get that margarita ready & let’s get started because this month I SLACKED, I got distracted so I was terrified of looking at my analytics but I was in for a surprise!!!!
… you ready?
Let’s start with a quick review!
🗒 JANUARY BLOGGING GOALS REVIEW
- 3367 pageviews ✓ SUCCESS with 4290 pageviews!!!!
- 10 new posts ✓ SUCCESS but one’s a gift guide!
- 10 links published X FAIL I slacked and posted 9 recipes + 1 gift guide and I obviously didn’t get any linkbacks to the gift guide so I only have 9.
- 50K monthly viewers on Pinterest. ✓ SUCCESS I’M AT 104K!!!!
- Join 4-5 group boards ✓ SUCCESS I joined 4 new group boards but I’m not sure I’ll stay!
- Complete Unit 03 & Unit 04 of Foodtography School X FAIL… too much reggaeton & tw3rking, my bad.
- Update my freakin opt in because it’s not working X FAIL… I just can’t focus on email marketing & it’s BAD.
- Make IG reels for every new recipe X FAIL… I ignored Instagram AGAIN after finding a decent strategy… UGH.
So I need your attention here.
Like I said, this month I got distracted. I didn’t work as much as I should have & I know it’s bad *BUT*…
… look at those numbers!!!
I almost doubled my pageviews and reached my pageviews goal in freakin’ January, “diet month”, when traffic naturally goes down for most food bloggers.
And I absolutely smashed my Pinterest goals pinning like once a week, whenever I felt like it (bad, bad I know).
So…
… like, TF?!
Now I don’t wanna jinx it but baby this is good!!!
I’m really excited but at the same time I know I could have done more… coulda shoulda.
Like, I couldn’t find the time to complete 2 Units of Foodtography School… who tf am I kidding? This is kinda like when people don’t text back because “they were busy”. No b*tch, I just wasn’t your priority.
I did the same but with my own education which means I need to grind this month. I know myself, as soon as I start seeing some results I slow down & this ain’t right, I truly can’t do it.
Not in this lifetime.
📊 GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Moving onnnn, the numbers are INNNN!!!!
Here you can take a look at December VS January!
So December was that crazy mf where the major Google update made me down half a bottle of Tequila but then one of my recipes got on Google Discover… yea, I remember that.
Well, January was a lot smoother… Google didn’t make me cry but dang, I thought it was gonna be dry af, not gonna lie. And here we are… more than doubled my users/new users, sessions… WOW.
Pages & Bounce rate didn’t do too well but baby I’m happy with my Avg. Time On Page so whatever.
📌 Let’s talk Pinterest
Let’s do this because I know some bby bloggers are going insane over Pinterest & they’re putting in SO much work but their pins are not moving & their impressions are double digits.
Look I’m not at 10m monthly viewers (also f*ck a Pinterest update, they changed all the stats) but I started my account in late September & go read my previous Pinterest update… my account had plateaud & I was stuck at 10k for SO long.
It started taking off last month thanks to my new strategy (mentioned in my previous updated) & this month I wanted to reach 50k monthly viewers but I accidentally reached 104k… I MORE THAN DOUBLED MY MV (yes I’m yelling).
What did I do?
I kept pinning manually and I pinned even LESS than I did last month.
Only fresh content & just a few repins whenever I remembered I had a Pinterest account.
It was totally accidental and I couldn’t believe it when I saw my numbers going up while I was basically doing nothing.
I’m not saying this is gonna work for everyone or in the long run but bby it has worked for me & it gave my account the boost I was looking for.
📊 TRAFFIC
Let’s talk traffic so I can serve you these two pie charts right here:
So while my Organic got a bit better… I’m not too impressed. I know people will say “what tf are you expecting, your blog is 4 months old” but eh…
Like I said, back in December we had the core algorithm update & my organic traffic TANKED for a few days so this month I thought my organic would bounce back but I have a slight 2.2% increase.
I’m not mad, eh, I’m not mad, I appreciate it, thank you.
But I was *SO* wrong lol.
On the other hand look at that Social traffic coming from Pinterest… yup, that’s all Pinterest!
🤍 YOUR DECEMBER FAVORITES
Here’s what people loved this month:
- Greek Lemon Rice Recipe
- Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls With Dipping Sauce
- Russian Piroshki Recipe With Potatoes And Meat
- Chinese Eggplants With Spicy Garlic Sauce
- Sticky Teriyaki Tofu Rice Bowl
- Authentic Khachapuri Recipe
- Spiced Somali Rice
- Russian Oladi Recipe With Apples (Russian Pancakes)
- 5 Ingredient Chocolate Lava Cakes For Two
- Custard Cream Horns
🙂
📧 F*cking email marketing
Look, I don’t like email marketing & I don’t like it to the point of adding “Change my opt in because it’s not working” to my January blogging goals because I thought I had 0 signups when I actually had signups.
Ya… that was back in December and I was CONVINCED every single soul on the planet had flat out ignored my opt-in.
Turns out some people actually liked it & signed up so it worked… I just assumed no one liked it & didn’t even bother checking my ConvertKit.
How bad is that on a scale from 1 to 10? Like 10000000000.
First of all, shout out to the real mvps that signed up!
Second, well… it’s not like I had that many sign-ups okay… still in the single digits & everything so I might have to change the freakin opt-in anyway but OMG I can’t bring myself to do email marketing.
Like not even checking ConvertKit, I had people signing up & didn’t realize it for an ENTIRE month… thank goodness everything is automated!
And I know email marketing should be the first thing on my list as a blogger.
Can I wake up with a raging passion for email marketing instead of drop d34d gorgeous men tomorrow? …
💰INCOME
I started affiliate marketing.
I’m quaking.
Didn’t make a dolla’ bby.
But seriously, I wasn’t expecting to make a dollar because I literally just started and wrote my first affiliate post. To my surprise, it did get some traction on Pinterest but nothing crazy so no sales.
I went with Amazon but that’s all I have to say, really.
No, still no ads. Not worth it yet imo.
👆🏻FEBRUARY BLOGGING GOALS
- 5439 pageviews (back at it with my oddly specific numbers bc of my lil’ scheme)
- Add affiliate links to all my top posts.
- Make 1 affiliate sale… please?! (lol)
- Send out a newsletter.
- Post 12 new recipes.
- Get 12 links published.
- 150k monthly viewers on Pinterest.
- Complete Unit 03-04 of Foodtography School.
- Post 3 IG posts/week + 4-5 stories/day.
- Purge group boards and join other 4-5 good quality boards.
Aaaaaand that’s a wrap!
Thank you for coming to my TED talk lol.
Now back to some a5s shaking in front of the mirror because 2021 is looking a lil bit too similar to 2020… ya feel me?
Oh, I miss LIFE… I’m currently dreaming of eating mangos & avocados on the beach with loud music & cute men with dark eyes & I’m not even a summer person.
Adiós.
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