This is what I learned May 2018 Blogging Progress Reports

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I can hardly believe I am documenting another month of blogging in the books! As I look back over the last couple of years and the last 5 months, in particular, I can honestly say this is my most favorite job I have ever had. Besides being a mom. This is why I like to document my blogging progress reports.

I have been thinking about it and I probably won’t be documenting my blogging progress report for more than a year. It all depends on how my blog grows and what happens during that growth.

Besides helping people, my other goal is to make $1000 a month and once that goal is achieved, I don’t think it benefits anyone for me to document my blogging progress report.

May was a struggle. I was SO busy with life and blogging that it flew by. During the month of May, I felt like I was chasing pageviews and trying to keep Pinterest happy. I had to assess my Pinterest strategy several times. My pageviews started crashing the first week of May and the rest of the month I was helping them recover.

Additionally, we had workers in and out of our home so I was working more sporadically. So my hope for 12 posts to be published had to be adjusted. This is not what I had hoped for since it was the last month before the kids come home for summer.

Why Blogging Progress Reports

Let’s talk about why I post these reports and then we’ll get on with the good stuff!

• I post these reports for myself. So I can reflect and see how my blog is growing.
• I post them for the new blogger who is trying to figure out how to grow their blog.
• I post them for the Mom who is wondering if she can start a blog and make money.
• I post them to inspire people to think outside of the 9-5 traditional job and think about earning an income a different way.

The reports not only help me, but they encourage and inspire others to think about starting their own blogs. If you are wondering if you could be a blogger, my answer to that question, um yes! You can be a blogger too. It just takes work, dedication, and willpower. If you have all those things then you can do anything!

Now let’s get on with it, shall we?

Content

Eight brand spanking new posts were published in May. I’m pretty excited about that consistency. I was aiming for 3 a week but it seems like 2 a week is a little more doable for me. I’m just glad I was able to remain in a content creation groove.

The top posts for May:

The Surprising and Delightful Benefits of Walking for Exercise
How Grandma lived the Life of Save your Money
More Lessons from Grandma Be Wise and Practical
How to add more exercise and activity to your day
How to get a better nights sleep

Email

At the beginning of the month, I was all excited to use the new templates I purchased from Kara Fidd in The Complete Bloggers Template ToolKit and I just didn’t get it done. So for June, I am hoping to get that done.

I wrote a review of Kara’s toolkit. You can read it here, An Honest Review of The Complete Bloggers Template Toolkit

I had a couple new people added to my email list. I really need to give this more focus.

Pageviews

4943

This is a sore spot for me right now. I feel as though I should have been able to do better. BUT, since I was pulled in a lot of different directions I realize now that this number is actually really good. Plus it’s May. May is like the new December. It’s one of the busiest months of the year.

My pageviews were down from April. I feel like I spent the majority of May chasing pageviews and then the last week of the month I had to reassess and reorganize. It was hard. I have a better plan for June.

I am still using Tailwind and Boardbooster to pin my own pins throughout the day. I am manual pinning third part content.

I took several courses on Pinterest to come up with my Pinterest strategy. My favorites are Pinteresting Strategies, an eBook by Carly Campbell and Pinning Perfect by Blog Clarity. I have taken other courses on Pinterest but these 2 are the ones that I learned the most from.

If you are looking to learn more about Pinterest, I highly recommend you start with Carly’s book. Its focus is on manual pinning and I believe while you manual pin you learn about how Pinterest responds to pinning. Plus it’s priced really well. This week I have gone back to her book so I can assess my pinning strategy, again. This will be my 5th time reading her book.

Income

Google Adsense: $11.40

I only earned money from ads this month. Since my pageviews were down I was expecting to earn less. I had clicked in Amazon, but no purchases. I may have to evaluate if there is another way for me to be earning income with my blog.

Recap

Pageviews: 4943

Income: $11.40

Expenses:

iMark Interactive: $29. This is my IT guy. He does everything for my site. My site went down at 10 PM one night and he was fixing it. I am so thankful for his service!

Boardbooster: $10. I love Boardbooster. I love knowing that my pins are being distributed while I am out running around taking care of end of the school year stuff.

Just Keep Blogging Mentored Membership Community: $15 Kim Anderson of Kim Anderson Consulting just launched this mentoring community. I am pretty excited about it. Plus the cost is amazing! For $15 a month you can have a mentoring community where you are all working toward the same goal of growing your blog.

Looking into June.

Summer and pool hours. My afternoon office will be at the pool. I’m still debating if I could bring my laptop to the pool but water and laptops don’t mix so it scares me.

Summer Hours

I have decided that I am going to get up at 5 AM and work on my blog for 2 hours before my kids wake up. I wrote down 5 things I want to accomplish every morning at that time. It is actually 6 AM as I write this post.

30 Day Challenge:

I plan on doing all these things for the next 30 days.

Write for the first 30 minutes of every day.
Manual pin 100 pins a day
Create 1 new pin for an old post.
Research keywords for my posts so new posts are set up for SEO better.
Publish 3 posts a week.

My thoughts are if I get up at 5, I will have quiet time before my kids get up. I am a morning person and spending that time writing will help me to feel like I have accomplished something for the day. Once I have written for the 30 minutes, then I can edit my other blog posts. My hope is I will get ahead in my content so I will have some in July.

Finally, I am so thankful I made the leap and decided to try blogging and share my blogging progress reports with you! When I signed up for Elite Blog Academy I never thought in a million years that my little blog would grow. I had very little confidence in myself. I had a dream to be a writer that I had shelved for many many years. Now that is a reality.

If you have ever thought about blogging, please take a moment and send me an email. You will have to sign up for my newsletter to get my email address, but I want to help you! I believe blogging can be life-changing. It is for me and I want that for you.