Blog Growth Strategies – Our 22nd Month Blogging

Partners in Fire published monthly updates highlighting their wins, losses, and growth strategies for the first 50 months as an online publisher. We decided to keep these articles for posterity, edited for grammar, clarity, and to add extra context with the benefit of hindsight. 

Here is our 22nd-month update. 

22nd Month Update

Well, we did not improve in our 22nd month as we hoped. Our total users declined yet again for the fourth month in a row! 

A few short months ago, we were narrowing in on 2000 users a month, and now we are back to hardly getting over 1000. 

Let’s try to find out what we are doing wrong.

Readership

Only 1,100 users visited Partners in Fire this month, a little less than last month. We averaged about 40 users per day, but there were several days with fewer than thirty users.

One of our most significant issues this month is that we hardly had any really good days. We only got over 60 users three times. 

Our saving grace this month was our excellent Fincon recap, which garnered tons of attention (probably because we got it out so quickly) and got almost 100 views on the first day it was published. 

Other than that post, our pageviews remained stagnant throughout the month. The one positive is that they were fairly consistent.

We have since removed the article about FinCon, as it was specifically about the 2019 event and no longer served a purpose. It’s okay to remove outdated articles. 

Traffic Drivers

Social Media

Social media continues to be our biggest traffic driver, but that also means it’s where we’ve seen the most significant decreases. 

We only had 499 total visitors from social media this month, a decrease of over 150 from the previous month and a continuing decline from the months prior.

Pinterest

Pinterest is the social media platform with the largest decrease in users. We only had 357 users visiting us from Pinterest, a reduction of 171 users! 

Most of our visitors in the months when we were approaching 2000 users were from Pinterest, so the decrease in this platform hurts our monthly user counts. It shows that you can’t put all of your eggs into any one basket because you never know when things will change on the platform you are relying on.

To be fair, I don’t know what changed on Pinterest. The only thing I did was join some new group boards. My monthly viewers on the platform are still well over 100K, but in the last two months, that hasn’t been translating into page views.

Around this time, Pinterest algorithms changed, and we didn’t change our strategy to match. We didn’t even know the algorithm changed until much later. 

It’s essential to keep up with the news and trends regarding the platforms you rely on for traffic. They’re constantly updating algorithms, and if you don’t keep up, you will be left behind. 

Twitter

We did slightly better on Twitter during our 22nd month than during our 21st, but not much. We had 112 users from the platform, compared to 80 last month. 

Most of that traffic came from my Fincon post, which received a lot of love. I failed to post links to old blog posts, which is kind of dumb because I was getting a lot more traffic from Twitter when I was doing that.

The sad thing is that it’s relatively simple. I’m not sure why I stopped. Sharing on Twitter will be one of my blog goals for the 23rd month, and we will see if it increases the number of users coming to us from the platform.

We all get busy, and things fall through the cracks. We could never keep up with reposting content on Twitter, so we bought a tool that would do it for us automatically. Revive Old Posts lets us republish old content on social media without thinking about it. 

Facebook

Our number of Facebook users remained stagnant during our 22nd month. We had 29 users this month compared to 28 the month before. I haven’t been focusing much on the platform; I only post my blog posts when I publish them, and I don’t post any other content. 

I also rarely remember to share the content on my personal page. Sometimes, I do, and sometimes, I don’t. I need to share more next month. 

I don’t have much of a Facebook strategy at the moment, and since I can’t focus on everything at once, I probably won’t develop one this month. My poor Facebook page will continue to stagnate until I build up the platforms that I feel are more important to my success.

We never developed a Facebook strategy. Some publishers have had incredible success running Facebook groups, but we never had the time or energy to dedicate to the platform. It also constantly sees algorithm changes that impact traffic to publisher’s websites. 

Organic Search

We had 315 users via organic search this month, a slight drop-off from the 338 we had last month. Although I didn’t go back and edit any of my old posts for better SEO results, I feel like I’ve been learning how to write better for SEO, and it’s been showing in my new posts. 

Unfortunately, it takes time for SEO improvements to translate into page views, so only the future will tell if that’s true.

I say I will go back and update old posts every month, and I rarely do, but this month will be different. Rather than just saying I will do it, I will set myself an obtainable goal. I’m going to update two old blog posts for SEO in October.

Updating old articles is a constant battle. It takes a lot of effort to keep content fresh. Sometimes, you must delete articles you loved because they no longer serve a purpose, and sometimes, you go back and cringe at how horrible the writing was. 

However, it’s essential to success. Stale content will bring an entire site down. 

Direct Hits

This month, we saw improvements in direct hits, the only traffic source that grew. 

That tells me our Partners in Fire love our content and keep returning for more. 

Now, to just get more Partners.

It would be easy if I did a giveaway or something like that, but I’d prefer subscribers who want to get notified of new blog posts, not ones who are just in it for the freebies.

Direct hits don’t necessarily come from subscribers. They can come from anywhere. 

Content

I might be biased, but I think we produced some pretty awesome content this month, even if folks weren’t seeing it. We focused a lot on actual financial topics this month, such as ignoring money problems, whether you should save or invest, and peer-to-peer lending. 

My favorite blog post of the month was related to financial independence. We published an epic piece on why living the RV life and financial independence go hand in hand. The two-year plan is to live a life of freedom in the RV, so you can expect at least one monthly post reflecting that topic.

We recently updated the three financial articles but removed the article on RV life and financial independence, as we didn’t feel it served our audience well. 

The decision showcases the difference between our attitude four years ago and today. Back then, it was far more personal and self-serving. Today, we realize that we must consider our audience’s needs. 

Monetization

Affiliates

We’ve still failed at monetizing Partners in Fire, but we learned some incredible things at Fincon that will help us improve significantly. The pro-networking pass allowed us to meet with some new affiliate networks, which we just started with in September. We hope to see an increase in affiliate sales due to these networks in the next few months.

One of my biggest concerns with affiliate networks is CJ affiliates. It has many great companies in its network, but it kicks you off if you don’t make any sales in the first sixty days. The problem is that it takes a long time for individual companies to decide whether to accept you as part of their network. I’ve got quite a few companies in my “pending” queue, and they’ve been there for weeks.

It’s hard to sell when companies don’t even look at your application. It’s also tricky when companies reject you and don’t give a reason. I’m sure many companies pass on us because of our stats, but that’s just how it is with small bloggers. We have to keep chugging and growing to get noticed and start working with larger affiliate companies.

Although we did get a few approvals on CJ, we never made the correct number of sales and were constantly removed from the platform. It’s tough to make affiliate sales when you don’t have a lot of traffic, and most affiliate marketing courses ignore that essential fact. 

Ads

Another new area of potential monetization for us is ads. You may have noticed new types of ads on the sidebar and at the bottom of specific posts. These are from our new ad network, Interactive Offers. 

Their focus is on ads in the financial sector, and they are a new company that is constantly growing. Their primary focus is e-mail ads, which I haven’t pursued, but they also offer the display ads you see below. I’ve only been on the platform for a week, but I’ve already made a few bucks.

Interactive Offers was an exceptional service that finally allowed us to make some money blogging. We only made about $50 a month with the service, but it was far better than the 0 dollars we made before. 

Though we’ve outgrown them, we feel blessed to have had the opportunity to work with them while growing our online presence. 

How We Are Going to Improve Our Readership

At this point, there are two main options for improving our readership. We can focus even more on Pinterest and determine why our views from the platform have dropped so drastically, or we can focus more on other potential traffic sources, such as SEO.

I think it’s important not to put all of your blogging eggs into one basket, so I will try a tad bit of both. With all of the awesome SEO tips I learned at FINCON, focusing on my goal of rewriting two posts for SEO will help improve the number of users finding us via organic search over time.

But I also realize that Pinterest can be an amazing source of traffic, so I don’t want to ignore it just because it’s been down for me. Even at its worst, it’s still driving more traffic than all of my other sources. I think one of the things I can improve upon is writing titles for pins with calls to action. This will give users a reason why they need to click the pin and read more at Partners in Fire.  

The Blogging Journey

As you can see from all my Blog Growth Strategies updates, blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes tons of work, patience, and commitment. 

But if you love writing and want to try it, I say go for it! It doesn’t cost that much to get started, and even if you never make any money from it, you will learn so many things. 

The investment is worth it for personal development alone.

My blogging journey has clearly had its ups and downs, but I’m so happy that I’ve done it. I’m also glad I decided to stick with it for so long—most bloggers quit in the first six months! 

I’ve learned so many amazing things about writing, networking, social media, and SEO so far, and I’m excited for all the new things to come.