Welcome to our first traffic report on the road to 1 million monthly pageviews! In these reports, I'll be sharing everything I'm learning to grow and maintain two successful food blogs. You'll see all the things I'm trying, and I'll share all the results (good and bad) along the way. You can read more about the 1 million pageview project here.
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Just as a quick note- I knew this quarter was going to be extremely intense and I was probably going to end up very close to burnout. This was a conscious decision I made to really help to start the year off strong. My work load for this quarter is unsustainable for the long-term, but in the short term can be very beneficial for moving the needle forward and creating a strong foundation in your business.
💡What I focused on for Q1
What goals did I set and how did (or didn't) I achieve them.
- Post updates! Updating existing posts is the easiest and fastest way to increase traffic and, therefore, revenue.
- Implement a Pinterest strategy: I could never really grasp this, but I was determined to figure it out. For many bloggers, Pinterest drives thousands of page views a month, so I knew I had to crack the code!
- Increase website traffic by 30%—an aggressive goal.
- Prepare for future content diversification- Short form video mainly.
The outcomes
- Post updates: My main focus for Q1 was to update as many featured images and blog posts for Salted Mint as possible. I gave the website a much-needed overhaul in April of last year but hadn't done much more with it. It hadn't seen much activity since 2019 and was losing ground rapidly. For reference in April of 2023 when I updated the theme and invested money on plugins and core web vitals, Salted Mint received 15,386 page views and made $271.21
- Another reason to focus on Salted Mint is that most of the traffic is US-based, meaning the RPMs are much higher than on Savvy Bites, which has mainly UK-based traffic. My goal here was to increase revenue as quickly as possible so that I could hire some help.
The grand total of posts updated was 60!!! I was incredibly proud of this, and it was definitely a feat to achieve!
- Pinterest strategy: I spent a few weeks reviewing Heather Farris's course Pin Profit Academy. It is the first Pinterest training that really brought it all together for me and within a couple of weeks of implementing my strategy I was seeing results.
- Looking at the numbers in the images below, you can see that Salted Mint pin impressions more than doubled in 4 months! Savvy Bites also grew, but not nearly as quickly.
- Increase traffic: While you can see that traffic has increased for Salted Mint, it decreased by almost as much for Savvy Bites. This is where the rub happens. Focusing on one blog pulls my attention from the other, and giving them both equal attention has felt impossible.
- I decided to keep updating Salted Mint posts because of the increased revenue. I also didn't want another Google update to wipe out my remaining content. I was very fortunate in that I didn't get hit by the HCU; rather, my traffic decline was due to regular content decay.
- Future content diversification: Mainly, this has meant video. I have spent a long time on YouTube figuring out editing, shooting styles and lighting.
- Video was a Q2 goal, but I felt it was important to start early. I found the learning curve overwhelming, so I gave myself as much learning time as possible. That being said, nothing is actually learned until it is successfully implemented. Video will be coming in Q2.
📈Traffic and income numbers
How I came up with the monthly pageview targets.
I used ChatGPT to reverse engineer my goal and come up with some traffic targets that would have me reaching my goal by the end of December.
These monthly targets aren't fixed; if I don't hit them, I don't freak out. They are a helpful guide for me. With Savvy Bites being nowhere near the monthly targets, I'm not worried because I know exactly why. I haven't been focusing on it as much. Momentum builds, and as long as I don't stop, then the results will come. Taking the time in Q1 to review Pinterest strategy and pin templates, to watch Tophat rank webinars, these are all things that slowed down my rate of publishing, but will make my content more impactful going forward.
A note on numbers: It's taken me writing this post to realise that I don't have a good enough handle on the financial side of this business. I have an amazing accountant and bookkeeper, but I don't have as tight a handle on the day-to-day that I want or need to. So, next month I will start breaking down my expenses as well.
⏱️Hiring help
I hired Adrian late last year (October 2023) to work on social media graphics and scheduling. It was such a relief to have someone take this off my plate. He has been brilliant!
The fact of the matter is that I am the bottleneck in business growth. I'm trying to do too much, preventing both businesses from getting the attention they need or maximizing their potential. It's also killing my creativity and leaving me mentally and emotionally burnt out.
I have previously hired Pinterest managers, and I didn't get sufficient results for the money I was paying. It's more than likely that this was partly my fault, as well. But I'm reluctant to go that route again. But I do know for sure that I need to get help if I want to grow.
So, to sum up Q1, it's been busy, and I've seen growth in the places I was able to focus my attention. But that attention has been limited, and other parts of the business have suffered. I have some ideas for fixing this and will report on the progress in the April traffic report, so stay tuned.
🧠The mindset shifts required
To really move the needle in this business I have had to (and continue to) make some pretty significant mindset shifts. And this quarter here are the ones that I have focused on-
- Believe that it's possible: This one sounds obvious. Why would you start a business if you didn't think you could make it work? I think many of us still subconsciously believe that true success is always just out of reach. But, truly, it's possible. It will take a tremendous amount of focus and effort. But it is absolutely possible.
- Patience: A mantra I repeat to myself daily is Chop, wood, carry water. Throughout most of January and February, I was working at full speed updating posts, watching webinars, and taking courses. I would question almost daily whether this was working and if it was worth it. You won't see results day by day, but you will notice them month to month and patience is an absolute necessity on this journey. When I get overwhelmed or discouraged I repeat my mantra. Just do the simple tasks right in front of you and know that all of your actions will add up and you will see results in time.
- Future self-thinking: This has been one of the biggest helps in enabling me to push through discomfort. Future self thinking is when I envision where I want this business to be in the future, guiding me through the discomfort and impatience of daily tasks. By focusing on my future self, I find the motivation to push through tedious or challenging work, knowing that each step is crucial for reaching long-term goals. Whenever I feel like quitting, I think of my future self and get right back to it! It can even be as immediate as imaging yourself at the end of the day and thinking about what that future version of you would be proud to have accomplished.
I hope you may have found some of these ideas useful or can relate to them. Thank you for reading this far. See you for next month's report!
Meet the Chef!
Hi, I'm Debs. Cordon Bleu trained chef and recipe developer. I help you get incredible dinners on the table fast with fool-proof recipes and step-by-step instructions along with tips and tricks that I've learned over a 10-year career in professional kitchens.
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