Partners in Fire posted monthly updates showcasing their growth strategies and status for the first 50 months as an online publication.
We decided to keep these articles for posterity, and to help any novice bloggers see what it takes to grow a website from scratch.
Here’s our 27th-month update.
27th Month Update
Our 27th month was fantastic!
Over 1400 users visited Partners in Fire, a growth of 100 during the shortest month of the year.
Readership
Our readership looked bad during the first half of the month. During this period, we saw only between thirty and fifty users a day, which was less than in previous months.
However, about midway through the month, we saw a shift. Our average jumped to between sixty and seventy users per day – a massive increase for us.
The increase resulted from improved Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and special features.
Traffic Drivers
During this period, we saw traffic from various sources. Organic search was the top driver, but we also saw users from social media and referrals.
Organic Search
Partners in Fire had 553 visitors via organic search this month, a slight increase over the previous month. However, slow and steady improvement is the goal, so I’ll take it!
Our organic search traffic increased during the last week of the month. During this time, we averaged over twenty users a day from Google. I hope this portends a pattern of growth, but you never know with the Google Gods.
We only updated one old blog post for SEO this month, so I’m happy to see the growth because I didn’t do much to deserve it.
A goal for this month is to get back to updating at least two per month.
Top Search Drivers
Our top post via organic search is “How to be a Twitch Affiliate in Thirty Days,” which is fun because I don’t have a lot of related content.
I haven’t touched Twitch since my last relationship ended, even though it’s something I’d want to do once I achieve financial independence (turning gaming into a side hustle is the dream, isn’t it? I could get PAID to pay my favorite Legend of Zelda games!).
We’ve since created a content cluster around Twitch, with articles on how to stream, grow your stream, and make money playing video games. However, the original article dropped in the rankings, so we don’t see as much traffic. We get a little traffic from the entire cluster each month.
I’m doing a better job writing for SEO. My last few posts have been well over 2000 words (I don’t even know how it happened!), and I did at least a minimal keyword check before posting, which is more than I’ve done in the past.
“Writing for SEO” is a loser’s game. It’s constantly changing, and as we discovered with Google’s Helpful Content Update, it doesn’t work. Instead, we need to write for the audience.
Long-form content used to be what “SEO wants,” but if it’s not what people want, it’s not worth doing. If you’re just filling up space to make an article 2000 words, you’re doing it wrong. However, if it’s a complex topic that needs 2000 words, you’re doing it right.
It’s not about the number of words; it’s about answering the user’s questions.
None of this has resulted in those pages ranking yet, but hopefully, as they build backlinks and spend some time online, it will result in more views.
It takes a long time for articles to rank. It could take up to two years to see growth in organic traffic. If you aren’t willing to wait and market your content before it ranks, blogging may not be for you.
Social Media
Only 369 users discovered us on social media this period, a drastic decline from last month. Despite the low numbers, it still ranked as our second-highest traffic driver.
We wish our organic and social traffic would rise together, but so far, it’s been like a lever. One goes up, and the other goes down. I don’t understand why that happens.
Even six years later, it’s the same story. One platform goes up, another goes down, and algorithms constantly change. Blogging reinforces the adage, “Don’t put all your eggs in a single basket.”
We saw the most significant decrease on Pinterest, with only 230 users from the platform. I decided to leave Tailwind this month, so I stopped scheduling posts and had no time for manual pinning.
It’s no surprise traffic declined when I haven’t put any effort into it.
I’m experiencing a technical error with Pinterest whenever I try to do something. I get an “error establishing database connection” notice when I try to go to any Partners in Fire post via Pinterest. When I hit refresh, it’s okay, and the problem only happens when I visit from Pinterest.
If others are getting the same problem, it’s no wonder I’ve seen a drop in traffic.
Tech fails all the time. We don’t know what caused that problem on Pinterest, but it eventually resolved itself. However, it also proves that you can’t rely on a single platform for traffic.
I need to do more manual pinning to stay relevant on the platform now that I no longer have Tailwind, but the suspension scared me. How much pinning can I do at one time without getting banned again? Why did I even get banned in the first place?
Pinterest said it was a mistake, but how do I avoid it? I’m not sure. I took the time for manual pinning today, but I know I won’t get my content on Pinterest nearly as much as I did when I had the pins scheduled. However, those didn’t result in page views, so I don’t think the scheduler was worthwhile.
Around this time, we stopped posting to Pinterest altogether, as we weren’t seeing results. However, we still received a little traffic each month, as pins are typically evergreen on the platform.
We didn’t do as well on Twitter this month as I had hoped. Only 67 users found us from the platform, a slight decrease from last month. I’ve been failing at engaging on Twitter recently (Breath of the Wild has been sucking up way too much of my time!), and I know I have to do better.
At this point, we weren’t prioritizing the website. We said we were, but we chose gaming over marketing. That’s a valid choice, but there are trade-offs to everything. The less time you spend building your brand, the slower you grow.
One thing I did do this month was share an old post every morning. I failed at that last month, but I still had fewer users visiting from the platform. I need to increase my engagement on the platform.
Here’s hoping March will be better!
Engagement on Twitter (now X) is lower than ever. It’s barely even worth spending time on the platform. We post our links there, not for traffic but for SEO.
We did surprisingly well on Facebook this period, especially considering I didn’t do anything other than share my most recent blog post. I don’t even share it on my personal page; it’s just on my Partners in Fire business page.
But even with that, 69 users visited us from the platform—an increase of nearly 30 users! I know I need to be better about posting engaging content on the page, but that’s a nut that I just haven’t been able to crack. I’ve tried posting silly memes, jokes, and inspirational images, and none of them has gotten any engagement.
Maybe I should start sharing fake news memes and other obviously ridiculous things on Facebook. That’s all I ever see shared on Facebook, anyway.
We never spent time developing a Facebook strategy. It didn’t seem worthwhile.
Direct Hits
Direct hits accounted for 285 of our visitors this period, an increase of over 30 users.
This month, we also got a handful of new subscribers, putting us in the triple digits for the first time.
I love seeing the slow growth in subscribers transition to a slow growth of users via direct hits!
Direct hits can come from anywhere, not just subscribers. More than likely, our direct hits came from random websites rather than subscribers.
Referrals
We had significant referral traffic this month, with three fantastic features.
CampFire Finance and Tread Lightly, Retire Early, featured our article highlighting the absurd idea that you can’t enjoy life if you are poor, while Our Bill Pickle featured our post on Imposter Syndrome.
I love that other brands in the space like our content enough to feature it on their sites. We get that sweet referral traffic while building juicy backlinks, which will help our blog grow organically.
A big thanks to all three of you for the features!
CampFire Finance no longer exists. Our Bill Pickle is still live, but the roundup we were featured in was removed, and their last article is from 2023.
Link building is a never-ending task. Websites that link to you constantly disappear or delete content, so you must always look to build fresh backlinks.
Content
This month’s content was spectacular, and I’m not just saying that. We wouldn’t have gotten those excellent backlinks if we didn’t have some great content, right?
My two favorite articles both discuss insidious ideas of wealth and privilege that keep poor people poor while blaming themselves for their struggles.
Our article on “The Poverty Trap” is an exposé about systematic failures that keep people trapped in a cycle of poverty. I read studies on systematic poverty and compared them to Americans’ experiences.
Honestly, I was shocked at how perfectly our system fit into the models, which were generally developed with third-world country poverty in mind.
Our article on Poverty Shaming was written in response to tweets that said that if you are in debt you should scrimp and save and never enjoy anything. That advice is backward, unfair, and unrealistic, and I explained why in the post.
The realism spoke to a lot of people.
We recently updated both articles and feel they’re still as relevant today as they were six years ago.
Theme of the Month
If I had a theme for the month, I’d say it was identity.
First, we published a post on Imposter Syndrome. I’ve struggled with feeling like I don’t belong in various settings, from my professional life to my blogging life. We need more discussions in all spaces highlighting psychological impacts and how to overcome them.
We also published two posts about identity theft, how to prevent it, and what to do if it happens to you. I have personal experience with identity theft, and I think it’s vital to hear about it from a real person rather than a company trying to sell you a service.
I rounded out the month with posts on spending too much on junk food and the biggest ways people waste money.
We recently updated all the articles from this month. They’re cleaner, easier to read, and offer more realistic information to serve a wider audience better. In addition, we added a new article defining identity theft, as we never fully covered that topic in the two original pieces.
None of the articles currently rank well. However, with the updates, we hope they start to rise.
Monetization
I don’t think I need to say anything else about it. There is no change on the monetization front.
How We Are Going to Improve Our Readership
Although I’m happy with how our 27th month went, it only went so well because of our fantastic referrals.
We can’t count on that every month.
Improving our SEO game will benefit us the most in the long run, so I will update at least two of my posts this month. However, I also don’t want to put all of my eggs into one basket, so I need to grow at least one of my social media channels.
Last month, I discussed growing Facebook. Unfortunately, time got away from me, and I didn’t do anything about it. I think I will keep that as my goal for this month.
Facebook can be a huge traffic driver if you get the game right, and I don’t think it will hurt to focus on that for a few months. At the very least, I might be able to grow my page and get one or two more users a month.
That would be a win.
Check back next month to see if I actually followed through with it and if it got us anywhere!