Last year when I started this blog, I looked for an article that dove in and shared some realistic stats, from a homemaker’s perspective, about what a first year of blogging looked like. I wanted to know details in areas of workload, expenses, earnings, and overall stats like sessions, email subscribers, and social media growth. I never found what I was looking for, so I’m sharing my raw data with you. It is the data from the day my blog went live – to exactly 12 months later!
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When my dearest friend said, you should make a blog. I laughed out of embarrassment and said “No one would read it!” She kindly replied, “I would!” We chatted about it some more and her words and encouragement sat on my heart for a couple of years.
A few years later, my sister and I were talking about blogs. She had gone through a course a year prior and encouraged me to take the course as well.
I decided to do the course and it had tons of information. I knew absolutely nothing about starting a professional blog, let alone that you could monetize it.
We then built our own websites together and got to work. For the next year we would meet weekly to help keep one another accountable to our goals, discuss progress, and work through obstacles. This was a key to my drive. I needed an accountability partner to help keep me engaged and focused. Life as a mom to four young kids is time consuming to say the least!
How do you start blogging?
Get educated!
I highly recommend taking a course. I am sure there are a lot of good ones out there, but I personally took the course, create your blog dream. It was so informative that I have decided to go through it annually. It has more information outside of just creating your website. I really felt blessed that my first course was so great. It was truly worth the investment, and I gained so much knowledge quickly.
Whatever course you choose, make sure it covers topics like: setting up a blog, creating a brand, how to make great blog content, social media platforms and how to use them for business, setting up email, how to monetize your blog, and overall encouragement and growth. One of my favorite things about the course I took is that there is a private Facebook group that has so many other students at different stages of their blogging journey with great tips and advice and above all, it’s a great way to connect with other bloggers.
I obviously loved the course I took, but if you’re serious about it and want to compare courses, you definitely should. It is an important investment in your business!
Expenses during the first year of blogging
Get organized – figure out what courses you want to take and how much money you want to spend up front. For me the minimum expenses to get my blog up and running and ready to present to the world was $593.
This covered:
- BigScoots – they handle migrations, installations, offer expert recommendations, fix broken plugins, set up emails and SSLs while also ensuring your website is totally optimized and running smoothly.
- Domain ($80 for 5 years),
- Domain host ($7.95/month) I paid for their basic features to host my domain. However, after one year of blogging I have upgraded to another plan to support my growing monthly visitors!
- WordPress – I use this for website design and creation. I am most familiar with WordPress, but there are others out there that are good. It’s just my preference.
- Create Your Blog Dream course ($249 one-time payment) or Create Your Blog Dream Course Bundle ($398 one-time payment for blog course and YouTube course, this is what I did.)
- My theme through Feast Design Co. – This is the pretty layout you see when you visit and navigate around my blog. You can use a free theme on WordPress, but I upgraded to this very inexpensive option so that I could have more control over the customization of what my website looked like. I used the Seasoned Pro Theme my first year ($19/one-time cost).
Oh, by the way, everything I spent above, I submitted to my CPA for a tax write-off! Check with your CPA about the regulations for your state, as it may differ state to state.
Free and purchased programs used during my first year of blogging
- Canva (Free option) – This is a fantastic resource for creating images for your posts and to pin on Pinterest. I personally used the free version for about 6 months. Then upgraded to Pro. It is probably my most valuable resource for blogging.
- Convert Kit (Free option) – My first year was focusing on creating great content. I didn’t have anything to sell to an audience, however, my goal is to create products to sell digitally. Starting an email list right away is a smart thing to do so that when you are ready, you will already have an audience interested in your brand. I try to send out monthly emails because I like to connect with my audience – it’s not all about sales!
- Yoast SEO (Free option) – This is a plugin in WordPress. If you choose to use WordPress you can install the free option. It is helpful; however, this is a plugin that I wish I had upgraded immediately. It helps so much for ranking and getting seen on search engines. I upgraded after six months of blogging. After upgrading, I had to go back through all my old posts and make sure they were updated. I highly recommend the paid version.
- KeySearch (Purchase only) – This was also purchased six months after starting my blog. It is a great resource for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ranking. This resource will help you learn to write better and become a better authority in the topics you are sharing. It is also one of the more inexpensive options out there.
Not all these things are exactly “necessary” however, I think that they are vital to getting great content and becoming competitive with all the other bloggers in your niche.
Readers of Traditional Home Living receive 10% off all products when using discount code THL10 at perfectsupplements.com Thank you for being here!
How much work is done during the first year of blogging
This isn’t something that will look the same for everyone. As for me, I have four kids. My oldest was seven at the time and my youngest was seven months old when I started blogging. During my first year of blogging, I figured out what worked best for me and my family. Primarily, I focused on the blogging side, and not so much on social media, except Pinterest (which I’ll talk about later).
While I would get my baby to nap, I would work on editing my images through Canva on their app. I get homeschool done before 3pm, then start on making dinner. You can read about my schedule for staying organized in our homeschool.
After dinner, the kids go to bed around 7:30-8pm. This is when I work on my blog. I am tired, but excited to work on something I enjoy so much. It might time me a couple of nights to finish up the post, then I ask my supportive husband to proofread for me. I am not a night person, so I am likely to make more mistakes in my writing at night time.
Aiming for 2 posts a week my first year was difficult. Some weeks accomplished that goal, other weeks were crickets. Let’s talk about how much you should post on your blog next.
How often should you post
The answer is as much as you can.
This is easier to say than to actually do. This will absolutely depend on your personal life and how much time you can set aside to blogging each week.
As a mother to four, I homeschool, make all our meals from scratch, manage the home, and now blog. My goal at first was to get two articles posted each week. In the beginning, I was able to reach that goal. However, it was incredibly stressful. I was exhausted.
As the school season approached, then the holidays, then the dreaded gloomy winter rolled around – I became less productive on the blog. However, over the course of my first year, I was able to get 59 blog posts up. I am personally very proud of that. That is an average of one post per week.
Going into the next year, my personal goal is to get a blog post up per week again.
Now you may be wondering, why does this all matter? Well, the more consistently you add to your website, the more sessions, domain authority, page authority, google clicks, etc. happen. This is all important because it is what companies want to see when you want to become an affiliate with them.
The power of social media
Let’s look at my numbers after doing this for one year.
1. Google – my stats:
Ranking on google is tough. Understanding and implementing SEO techniques is a learned skill and takes time. There are companies out there that can fast track you to rank higher on Google, but it really is a long game. Domain authority, backlinks, key words, and other SEO techniques all help increase how Google ranks your blog content.
- My domain authority (DA) went from a 1 to 13 in my first year. The range is between 1-100. This is a pretty decent rating since it takes years to grow DA. Really popular bloggers usually rate around 50-maybe 60 in their DA.
- Sessions started at zero (of course) and reached a peak of 5,500+ per month. Focusing on getting traffic on your blog is super important because ad agencies prioritize this number heavily.
- Clicks from Google searches are hard to get and will take significant time. Nevertheless, I will share my low numbers. I went from zero to 163 clicks per month. I do believe this started doing better when I bought KeySearch and started writing more efficiently with SEO tactics.
The biggest thing you can do on your own is have quality, useful blog content for your readers, and answer questions with long key words. I personally have learned a lot from influencers on Instagram. However, I did purchase Yoast SEO Premium and KeySearch six months into blogging and that helped immensely.
2. Pinterest – my stats:
I was so blessed by the course I mentioned earlier, because it really covered the power of Pinterest at great length. For my first year of blogging, it has generated the most traffic to my website. Specifically my blog post about Naturally Reversing Tooth Decay.
For my blog, Pinterest had the best return of investment in regards to how much time I spent and how much traffic was driven to my website. Consistent pinning, joining as many boards as I could, taking all my own photos, and creating beautiful pins all helped users like my content and visit my website. This did take some work and time, but that is my best advice for how I grew so quickly on Pinterest during the first year.
- After one year I have reached a peak of over 200k monthly views on Pinterest.
- My most popular pin was shared over 6,000 times.
- Pinterest was my number 1 traffic driver helping me achieve over 5,500 sessions in a 30-day period.
Needless to say, it helped me grow faster in my first year than any other platform and the work I put into Pinterest was worth it!
Read our personal story about how we reversed tooth decay!
3. Other social media platforms
As you know there is Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and others. I personally didn’t spend much time on these platforms because my focus this first year was to consistently write great content that would serve my readers.
However, I did generate some traffic from Instagram and Facebook to the blog. I will continue to put effort into those outlets; however, they are not my main focus for the first couple of years.
How much do bloggers make in their first year?
I can’t tell you what everyone else is doing. I am sure I am somewhere in the middle though. Without further a duo, here is the income I made during the first 12 months of blogging:
$1,212.80!
Now that averages out to $100 per month and certainty won’t pay for much in today’s economy. However, most statics will tell you not to expect anything your first year of blogging. Nevertheless, I am thrilled that I made more than I invested into this blogging journey this first year!
Seriously though, I did not expect to start making money blogging my first year. Let alone, pay off what I spent to create this space on the internet, and then some extra! My first paycheck didn’t happen until six months in, and it came from my affiliate marketing through Amazon.
In my next six months, I reached out to three other companies from which I have used their products for years and got accepted to be an affiliate from all three! I also had enough visitors each month in the last six months, to apply for Google Ads and get some income through that as well.
My goal for year two is to triple that number and I am confident in my abilities after learning so much this first year! Who knows, I may even quadruple it!
Someday I hope to sell products on my site. However, the biggest focus for now is increasing traffic and building my email subscription list, all through providing quality content for the readers of this blog.
Speaking of my email subscription list, my first year I gained 20 subscribers! I was so nervous emailing people I didn’t know; however, I really enjoy it now and have been excited with each new subscriber to my community.
Despite the hard truth that blogging won’t be a big money maker in the first year of blogging, I still decided to do it for couple of reasons.
- First, my dear friend suggested I do so, and that truly encouraged me so deeply. After getting educated, I had the confidence to get started.
- Second, I wanted to share with others about all the things I wish I had known 10 years ago when I was becoming a mother and homemaker.
- Third, once I heard that I could monetize this without selling a product and just for sharing knowledge and information that is likely to benefit others, I was so excited!
- Forth, this is a great way to organize all my recipes, natural remedies, and so forth for my personal use!
If anyone tells you that blogging is easy money, you have my permission to laugh. While it might be easier after you mature into it, the first year has not been easy. It has been a lot of upfront time with little return on investment. However, I am still all in because I know that it takes time. I see that after my first year already, and the small return and connections made have been wonderful!
It has been a learning curve in many ways – learning Google Analytics, Google Console, and how to set up email for subscribers is not a walk in the park. It will be different for everyone, but once you get something working, you can repeat that and keep serving your audience and benefiting both them and yourself!
If you are like me, and want to start doing it anyway, I believe you can! My biggest advice is to take a course. Sometimes investing money into something really helps motivate you to go all in, and really work at it. Of course, I recommend the Create Your Dream Blog courses since it has served me so well!
Let me know in the comments if you are a blogger or plan to become one!
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.
Ecclesiastes 9:10
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