How I Grew my Website Traffic Over 500% in One Month

Making money online is not a new thing for me. I’ve been earning (almost) all of my income working virtually since 2014. However, blogging as an income stream didn’t occur to me until this year. I started reading blogger’s income reports then purchased Ruth Soukup’s Elite Blog Academy course and thought “I could totally do this!”

I started Freelancing Mama so that potential clients could get a feel for my style. I hoped that I could get some service based work from this blog. And I did!

However, once I had baby #2, I realized that working from home was getting a lot more complicated. I started seeing how I would need to be incredibly organized and very flexible with my time. This is when blogging and creating products became appealing. I am able to write posts and create products at midnight (like I am now!), 6:00 am, 12 pm, on the weekends or whenever.

Virtual assistant and client work usually needs to be done during normal business hours. Even if there’s some flexibility, I need to be available and checking my email during business hours to answer any questions or address any urgent issues. I don’t have time to do that at a high volume right now…and honestly, I don’t have the desire to either.

That said, everything takes work. Online business of any kind is hard work. I plan to continue working with clients and offering services for the foreseeable future. I even plan to ramp up in the next few years when both of my children are in school. But I’m also giving blogging and creating products a go. I’m interested in seeing if I can make this work. I believed in myself enough to go from a traditional career to a virtual one. I believe I can pivot again.

Now, let’s get to the good stuff!

How did this month go?

This was the first month where I really dug in, did a bunch of research and found out what I could do with my current traffic.

My site was redesigned and unveiled in July. The new site is set up specifically to turn this blog into an income stream. I am thrilled with the results and think the site looks great! If you’re looking for someone to redesign your site, I highly recommend Pixel Me Designs.

Overall, this was a month of learning and implementing. The biggest takeaway was that I need to stop learning and start working. I’m a perfectionist and I can get paralyzed by wanting to make something the best possible version of itself before I let anyone see it. I’m telling myself that done is better than perfect and I can always release version 2 later on.

Monetization 

In August, I monetized my blog. Ads and affiliates are the options that I’m using right now. I plan to add products in the next few months.

Ad networks

Right now I’m with Google Adsense. Once I reach 30,000 page views per month (which seems like an insane goal right now), I will apply to join Mediavine, which I’ve heard great things about.

Affiliates

I became an affiliate for several different places whose services and products I love. I’m not going to promote something that I don’t use and enjoy. That said, here are the affiliates and their rates.

• Grammarly

Rates: $.20 for each user that downloads the free grammar app, $20 for each user that upgrades to premium

I use Grammarly every day. You can read more about how I use it here and try it out for yourself!

You can sign up to become a Grammarly affiliate here.

• Amazon Associates

Rate: 4% of the product’s price

I use Amazon affiliate links for products that I recommend. When someone buys something from that link, I receive a commission. My post on Potty Training Using the Oh Crap! Method includes affiliate links.

You can sign up to become an Amazon Associate here.

• A2 Hosting

Rate: $85 per sale

I did a bunch of research and enlisted my tech-savvy husband when looking for hosting for my website. We settled on A2. They have 5x the speed for WordPress sites (which is what many websites and almost all blogs are running).

**Note: I have not promoted this affiliate yet, except for an ad link in my sidebar. I will be writing a comprehensive post about how to set up a website and why you should for your freelancing business that includes my affiliate links next month.

You can sign up to become an A2 Hosting affiliate here.

Products

I don’t currently offer any products, but plan to launch at least one course in 2018.

Website Traffic

In August, I increased my traffic by over 525%!

August’s traffic was 4,454 visits. My highest day of traffic was August 16  where I received 912 views. In July, I had 712 views for the whole month.

Here are my three most popular posts this month:

1. 10 Quotes About Motherhood That Will Make You Cry
2. Daytime Potty Training Using the Oh Crap! Method
3. How To Work From Home With No Childcare

How I increased my traffic

This month, I really focused on growing my website traffic. I used two methods to do this – being more active on Pinterest and participating in Facebook groups.

1) Being more active on Pinterest

I not only pinned more (around 20-30 pins per day), but I also joined three group boards and began posting my content there and repinning others content. I started creating three distinct images to pin for each article I post, each with unique titles and captions.

For every post I write, I come up with 10-12 possible titles. Then I check all of the titles in the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer and use the top three.

For example here are the three images for my post “How to Manage Your Time and Energy Using the Pomodoro Technique.”

       
2) Participating in Facebook groups

I joined several Facebook groups to promote my posts and help others promote theirs. I participate in at least one thread per group per week.

The groups I joined were:

Mom to Mompreneur
Mom Bloggers Tribe
Creative Ninja Nation
The Blogging Crew
Inspired Bloggers Network
Connect & Cultivate with Ivory Mix

Social media stats

About half of the time I spend on my blog goes to promoting on social media. Here are the sites I’m active on.

Pinterest

66 followers on my Pinterest page

576 average daily visitors

Facebook

96 likes on my Facebook page

Right now, I’m focused on building up these two platforms since they generate the most website traffic. I may add an Instagram account eventually.

Income

I made some money on the blog this month!

Total earnings: $29.72

AdSense: $2.56

Amazon Affiliate: $2.16

Grammarly: $25

Some of these earnings won’t be paid out until I reach a certain threshold ($10 to $100).

I’m quite proud of all of the progress I made on the blog this month! I can’t wait to see where this will take me.