Blogging Wins and Lessons Learned

This is the Part II of my quarterly update documenting my 6 months blogging wins and lessons learned. You can also go back to Part I where I discussed the fails and challenges of blogging.

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Celebrating the Wins

Now onto the fun part where I’ll be celebrating some of the wins of the past quarter.

1. Stayed consistent with publishing

Even though I don’t have a defined writing schedule, I’d always find time to write at least once a week.

On the other hand, I do have a defined publishing schedule where I post on Mondays. This was effective to help me establish a habit.

As someone who is not a writer, I find that having a set schedule pushes me to write more. The thing is, I do love writing now, but it’s just so painful to start.

It’s a lot like going to the gym! That initial push to get started is so hard, but after you did it, you felt great!

So far, I’m quite pleased that I have been publishing every week at least once and I’m still enjoying the content development process.

2. The blog is growing

It’s really encouraging to see this blog grow with more subscribers and followers. Even though these are vanity metrics, they are still good indicators.

And as a result of the growth, I was approached by sponsors as well as other companies to collaborate.

What I learned after having few exchanges with other companies is that they really care about your audience size and segmentation. Having the metrics available can provide:

• an indication to brands about your audience reach
• easier access to affiliate programs
• opportunities to be featured on large medias (I have had a few of these)
• social signal to maximize SEO

Though I must admit, my pageviews have gone from the high of 8,000 to the low of 3,000 since the pandemic.

What’s helping me stay afloat is Pinterest! It was helpful to take a Pinterest marketing course. This e-book addressed some of the questions that I couldn’t find via free resources.

***Be sure to follow me on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter where I routinely share contents related to personal finance, motherhood and other lifestyle topics. And if you have already done so, thank you!

3. After blogging for 6 months, I finally got a hang of SEO

Okay, so last quarter, I may be a bit obsessive over SEO (search engine optimization).

Okay, I was VERY obsessive about SEO. But now, I feel more at peace with it.

Last quarter, I saw SEO as like a boss that tells me what to do in order to get ranked.

But this quarter, our relationship has changed slightly as I appreciate its usefulness (yeah you don’t always appreciate your boss right away, if ever).

In fact, at some point I actually saw SEO as some sort of game.

Like getting ranked on Page 1 of Google was the ultimate scoreboard.

And you know what? I did it!

This article got ranked for just two keywords, “overspend baby:”

Why You Shouldn’t Overspend on Baby Items

You can also search for “overspend on baby items,” “overspend on baby stuff” or any other variant on Google. (Please let me know if you can find the article.)

Granted, these are not highly searched keywords, which means that it doesn’t bring much traffic. But nonetheless, it’s encouraging to be able to get it right.

I did make a silly goal of getting at least one article ranked on the Page 1 of Google by the end of this year – and there it is!

Now that it’s done, my obsession over SEO has tailed off a little bit.

(Continue reading or skip over to Lessons Learned where I’ll share my methods on how I optimize my blog posts.)

4. Making better pins

Pins are the graphics you see on Pinterest.

I’m so amazed by how much traffic Pinterest can bring when a pin takes off.

This is the evolution of pageview traffic coming from Pinterest in the last quarter. Notice I just had a huge spike at the end of March.

What I learned is that even though Pinterest may act like a social media, it’s actually a visual search engine.

And just like Google, Pinterest SEO is also very important. However, it’s the combination of maximizing SEO, designing eye-catching pin, and pinning frequently to be the winning formula.

After using this platform for the past three months, I can see its advantages. Taking a Pinterest course could help if you’ve never used the platform before or haven’t found success.

5. Acquiring new skills

Maintaining a blog requires constant learning. In fact, you’ll soon realize that you’re more than just a writer, you’re the CEO of your blog.

Unlike working at a 9-5 job where you’re assigned a specific task, when it comes to blogging, it really is like building your own business.

You have to manage all aspects of the operation and come up with a strategic direction. We’re not talking about old-school personal blogs where you’re just doing it for fun.

We’re talking about managing a blog that can potentially bring in side income.

And doing so requires you to take on many roles and acquire new skills.

To highlight, here are the positions and job requirement for bloggers:

• CEO: Develop a strategic vision and direction for the blog
• Content Creator: Write blog posts, proof read, take/find pictures, and make graphics
• Digital Marketer: SEO, research, branding, promotion/marketing, data analysis using Google Analytics & Google Console
• Bookkeeper: Keep track of revenues, expenses, and income
• Data Manager: Security (logins and spam filtering) and record keeping (affiliates/sponsors/media contacts)
• Outreach and Communication Specialist: Manage emails, comments, and participation on forums and social media groups

I might have missed a few, but these are the main tasks that summarize the skill sets I acquired via running this blog.

4 Lessons of the Past 6 Months

The past six months have flown by rather quickly.

The learning curve from the first three months were intense. You can read about them here: Part I and Part II.

After those initial three months, things become much more manageable.

Here, I’ve gathered four more important lessons learned:

Lesson #1. How to Write a Blog Post that Ranks on Google

One of the wins I achieved is to have this article ranked after just one week of publication.

This is largely attributed to SEO.

Now, I don’t know how the Google algorithm works (nobody knows in fact), but here are the methods I follow:

• Have a web host that connects with WordPress.
• Then install the plug-in, YoastSEO. This will give you a guideline of writing and structuring your post (perfect for beginners!).
• Having an easy-to-read structure is VERY important. You can achieve this by using H2/H3/H4 header tags. These are headings and subheadings available in WordPress.
• Write at least 1,000 words per blog post. This is just a general guideline. The more content you have, the more opportunity for SEO. But, don’t artificially stretch out your post for the sake of SEO.
• Have a picture(s) and use the alt text feature. This text will help the search engine to better crawl and rank your website.
• Research keywords that you want to be ranked for and use them throughout your post organically. This means that the keywords should flow in your content and not added just because.
• Create internal links throughout all posts. This helps with enhancing the navigation of your site.
• Build external backlinks from other sites via guest posting on other blogs or get media mention via HARO.
• Market your contents via social media.
• Finally, and this is key: Publish QUALITY contents consistently and regularly.

This may seem like an overwhelming list of blehs (and it was at first), but they will become second nature after awhile.

At this moment, I don’t even think about them anymore as I go about managing my blog. They’ve become part of my operational processes (haha, I don’t have another way to put it).

However, I know it’s easy to get lost in the technical side of SEO – I know I was!

But to be honest, what’s important is to take it as a learning opportunity. Nowadays, anything that is relevant is online, therefore having SEO as a skill set can help you better manage an online business.

If you want to learn more, I highly recommend checking out Moz’s beginner guide.

Lesson #2. Pinterest Is a Great Source for Driving Traffic

First thing first, I think we need to recognize the reason behind driving traffic.

After all, SEO and social media marketing all serve a purpose: Spreading awareness to your blog.

Here’s a simplified process flow of growing your blog:

As a blog owner, it’s natural to want to grow your blog and see it thrive. But it’s also important to know that it takes time.

So if you’re a new blogger, you definitely want to leverage Pinterest to drive some initial traffic. However, it can be time-consuming to create pins if you don’t enjoy the design aspect.

To alleviate some of the time required to create graphics (i.e. pins), you can check out Canva which is free to use and offers free templates.

Lesson #3. Filtering Out Spammers

As this blog grew, the number of spams I receive also grew. Luckily, Papa Bear figured out a feature on Bluehost to block off spammers.

As you can see, I already have 94 spammers commented on this blog. Blocking them one by one took me about an hour but it’s necessary since I never heard from them again!

If you have Bluehost, go to your C-Panel –> Advanced –> IP Blocker.

Here you can copy the IP address or domain name from the spam message you got, and the spammer will no longer have access to your website.

Unfortunately, if they have multiple IP’s, you’ll have to block them one by one (you can also block off a range of IP numerics). But nevertheless, blocking is still a good first line of defence.

As an added security, we use NordVPN to avoid having our IP address tracked.

Lesson #4. Light HTML Coding

I learned HTML coding by myself when I was in high school. Back then, there were numerous platforms that you can join where you could design your page.

Unlike today’s social media, you have to learn some coding to get your personal page to stand out.

It was fun to code at the time, but it has been such a long time since I’ve done it. But surprisingly, having the foundational knowledge proves to be useful now!

Even though you don’t need to learn coding to make a website nowadays, knowing some light coding can help with SEO and site design.

For example, Google has guidelines on using dofollow, nofollow, ugc and sponsored links. This is to help them better crawl your website and it contributes to your SEO effectiveness. What this means is that you’d have to modify the codes to your links whenever necessary. You can read more about it here.

In addition, I learned to modify the codes of my theme by changing the footer text from “Powered by WordPress theme” to link my About, Contact and Legal pages.

It’s especially important to have my legal pages displayed at the footer so that it’s applicable to EVERY page of this website. If you want to learn more about these legal pages, here’s where I purchased mine: Blogging Legally.

I also learned to hide extra pin images by using this code: <div style=”display:none;”>Your Pin Image</div>. Please feel free to use it.

Conclusion

And this concludes my second quarter blogging update. Thanks for reading this far!

I think that blogging will become more and more prevalent as a personal branding strategy in the future.

To me, blogging is more than an online diary, it can also serve as an online resume or portfolio of your key knowledge.

If you have something you’d like to share, consider building a website/blog. And if you already have one, keep going and don’t give up!

Even though it’s a lot of work, it also comes with the reward of building new knowledge and the opportunities to collaborate with other bloggers, companies, and the media.

After more than 6 months of blogging, I now see it as a side hustle and NOT a full-time job. Perhaps it can become a full-time job when my income increases, but for now, the amount I earned is negligible.

Plus, I planned to reinvest in every cent I get into developing more knowledge or upgrading the tools I use. It’s quite fun!

I’m also purposely not making any “measurable” goals for this blog. I don’t want to stress myself out or worse, burn out!

My main goal is to write blog posts that add value to my readers and to my daughter (the day she’s old enough to read them)!

To me, building out my content library with contents I love writing is more rewarding than earning money at this point.

Stay Healthy and Safe

Finally, I hope you’re all doing fine during this pandemic crisis. If you’re a healthcare professional, I thank you immensely for your service.

Even though it’s a tough time right now, I know we will get through it.

Here’s a PIN