How I Went from 0 to 3000 Page Views in My First Month of Blogging: The Breakdown A New Blogger Will Want to Read

The Breakdown:

The first month of blogging has been INSANE. I went from 0 views and no blog to over 3000 views in my first month! I put a week of prep into it and then just couldn’t wait to launch, so I did! In this first month of blogging, I have learned SO much. I didn’t realize that I was taking on another full-time job. I love teaching, but now I also love blogging! I’m doing my best to succeed at both. Over this last month, I have tried a lot of different things to make my blog better— some of them worked, some of them didn’t. I’ve found that I can so easily spread myself very thin.

In order to combat overworking myself and burning out, I have compiled the data from my first month of blogging in order to see what worked and what didn’t and share it with other new bloggers as well.

Dates: January 13th- February 14th

Viewer Stats

Number of Page Views: 3110

Number of Users: 1551

Number of Sessions: 1920

Average Sessions Per User: 1/23

Averages Pages Per Session: 1.62

Bounce Rate: 74.74%

Average Session Duration: 1:06

Number of Likes: 34

Number of Comments: 48

Blog Post Specifics

Number of Posts: 16

Most Popular Post: My Travel Must-Haves (326 Views)

Least Popular Post: 5 Travel Tips That Will Make Your Life Easier (47 Views)

My Favorite Post to Write: Unbelievable Tricks to Finding Cheap Flights That Will Save You Hundreds. Finding cheap flights is my JAM. I’m obsessed with travel planning, even if it’s not for me! This post was so incredibly easy for me to write because I do these things every day of my life. I just thoroughly enjoyed talking about these amazing tricks that have saved me and others TONS of money.

My Least Favorite Post to Write: The Perfect Destination: New Zealand. Honestly, I want to go back and update this one because I just cranked it out to have another post on my blog. I know that I can do so much better than that. I am going to go back and change it soon.

Blog Stats

Best Day:

February 1st

Visitors: 160

Page Views: 221

Worst Day:

January 23rd

Visitors: 8

Page Views: 11

Visitor Behavior

New Visitors: 1551

Returning Visitors: 173 🙁 Bummed about this number because I want people to like what I have to say enough to come back. But also, excited about this number because it’s higher than 3 which means more people than my parents read my blog!

Email Subscribers: 14

Visitor Acquisition

Social: 1383

Direct: 175

Organic Search: 25

Referral: 20

Facebook Ads:

As I started utilizing my facebook page more and more to gain visitors, I was also getting prodded more and more by facebook to create an ad. I finally decided that there was no harm in trying it and that I wanted to do it for the data.

I wanted to see if it was worth it.

Here are my results:

Number of Facebook Ads: 5

Money Spent: 78$ (Facebook gave my a free $30 credit to use at the end)

People Reached: 13,412

Post Engagements: 431

Links Clicked: 418

Cost Per View: 26 cents

Was it worth it? NO WAY! Facebook ads, even though they were targeted at strategic audiences, showed very low results for the money spent. Many of those link clicks showed HUGE drop-off ratings and had low times actually spent on the page. I didn’t gain a single email follower from it or see any real difference between me self-promoting through various outlets and paying for an ad. These ads did nothing but cost me money. It was an interesting experience, but I would NOT recommend it to a new blogger.

Social Media Following:

Pinterest:

Original Monthly Viewers: 0

One Month Mark Monthly Viewers: 7.9k

Original Followers: 0

One Month Mark Followers: 58

Personal Boards: 9

Group Boards: 1

Facebook:

Day 0: 0

1 Month Mark: 210 (probably 65% my friends)

I invited everyone on my friends list to like my page and that helped quickly boost my followers via facebook.

Instagram:

Followers at the beginning: around 650. I’ve had this instagram for a while to post my photography.

Followers now: 706.

I use tailwind to post on instagram, but I am not consistent at all. Most of my effort has been concentrated on facebook or Pinterest. In reality though, the most important thing to me right now is CREATING. I want to create my blog, my brand, and most importantly, good content. I feel like I am writing all of the time.

Methods of Gaining Traffic:

Tailwind: Free version

Tailwind is an app and website that allows you to queue your Pinterest and Instagram posts and schedule them for the most ideal times to post. I like this system because it helps me manage most of my social media accounts all on the weekends so that I don’t have to worry about them during the weekday when I am working. I LOVE this program.

Tribes are groups that share and support each other to grow a greater following and increase your reach via these social media platforms. I have found it HIGHLY effective in growing my Pinterest following.

Number of tribes: 5

Number of shares of other people’s pins: 22

Number of Reshares of my pins by others: 23

Number of Repins by others on Tailwind: 7

Number of pins posted: 13

Reach: 43.1k

Facebook Groups:

Facebook groups have probably been the HIGHEST generator of traffic for my blog. I actively participate in a ton that have to do with the travel niche or blogging in general. Being active means that I comment on multiple posts and join the general discussion. I actually love doing this because I am learning SO much from others about the things that I am passionate about. I have found an amazing community of travelers to engage with. Plus I only add my posts to the pages when they directly apply to a question that someone asks. Like if someone asks about what to do in Venice, I can link my post of How to Spend 24 Hours in Venice.

Number of groups joined: 30! It can be overwhelming, so I am mostly active in 5 of them and am semi-active in the rest based on how much time I have on my hands.

Link Swaps

Two link swaps: I have done three different link swaps with people. I have found that this only generates a small amount of traffic right now, but I hope that it will continue to grow my reach. Plus, it’s great for SEO!

Acquisition Reports

Plus/Minus Expenditures

Facebook Ads: $78. See above, not worth it.

Pinterest Pins: $21. I was so overwhelmed by everything, but wanted to start a pinterest account to grow my following. I paid someone on Fiverr to make some pins for me to get me started. Worth it. Would I do it again? Not now because I learned how to make my own easily on Canva.com.

Website Fix: $10 I seriously broke my website at one point so I paid someone on Fiverr to fix it for me. Worth it.

Jetpack: $9 a month. Worth it! It opens up so many opportunities with WordPress.

Blue Host: $8 a month. Worth it! It’s how I got my domain!

Premium Theme: $23

Total: -$149. Worth it. Getting a blog off the ground requires an investment. I’m still learning so much about what is worth it and what isn’t. Hopefully my data will help you.

Amazon Affiliate (Income):

Number of Sales: 4

Revenue: $7.61

Amazon Affiliate Status: Officially Approved. I am SO proud of this one. I didn’t expect to make any money in my first month. This was such a surprise and it was the best seven dollars that I have ever made.