The Journey to 1 Million Pageviews

Hello and welcome to my new project. It's a series where I will document my journey to getting to 1 million pageviews across both sites in 12 months. So, by the end of December 2024. There is a lot of work to do, but most of the work is very obvious. Updating posts, getting to grips with Pinterest and creating content that my readers will find outrageously helpful and love!

I acknowledge and appreciate that this is being published in May. However, it was written in January. I've been hesitating to hit publish because I have a very real concern that I may fail miserably. But I've switched my mindset from "success vs. failure" to "I wonder what could happen?". It has taken the pressure off and enabled me to hit the publish button. I have attempted this goal before. You can see my 2018 reports. You can see the introduction to the 1 million pageview project here.

But I am incapable of giving up. Sometimes, I have to take very long breaks and pivot, but I can't give up, even when it seems like the only logical thing to do. If you have a goal you can't stop thinking about, you owe it to yourself to never give up.

"What's measured improves. What's measured and reported improves exponentially." - Karl Pearson

We're going to see if I can prove the above quote true!

Jump to:

• What this project is:
• Some of the challenges
• Where we're at
• What you may be struggling with (because I am too)
• Meet the Chef!

What this project is:

So, how is this different from other income or traffic reports? Well, this project has a one year time line and the specific goal of reaching at least 1 million pageviews across both websites by the end of December 2024. This is a project born out of curiosity. I know the goal is achievable because I have seen countless people achieve it. What I don't know yet is my own route to get there.

Throughout these reports, I will share what I am doing and what has worked and not worked. You will see me succeed, stumble, and share all of my setbacks.

Some of the challenges

Technical challenges vs Adaptive challenges

• Technical challenges are usually obvious: the website is running too slowly, the site structure needs to be improved, and the blog posts need to be updated.
• Adaptive challenges: are usually complex, hard to identify, and have no concrete solution. My blogs and business have many more adaptive than technical challenges. *This will not be the case for every blogger.

My personal adaptive challenges:

I have been blogging for a long time (about 10 years!) and never achieved my desired success. I struggle with autism, ADHD and some mental health struggles. The autism and ADHD diagnoses are new and put a lot of my previous struggles into focus.

So, although these have presented major obstacles in the past, I have already learned so much about how to navigate them effectively. I'm looking forward to learning even more and no longer seeing them as a hurdle to success.

Mental health has long been a topic near and dear to my heart. I have seen and experienced first-hand the subtle and not-so-subtle ways it can affect lives.

I won't be delving much into mental health except to discuss the adaptive mindset shifts necessary to realise business success. As I think we all know, mindset is non-negotiable when it comes to growing and maintaining a thriving business.

Where we're at

December and January were about figuring out where I am and what I need to do to reach my goal.

For people who don't have a business degree (most of us) this can seem intimidating and unfamiliar territory. Here's how I'm breaking it down.

• Strategy= planning
• Tactic= doing

My strategy:

• Driving traffic to the websites is my number one priority. This may shift over time, but this is the goal for now. *It is currently the only way I monetise.
• Refine reader avatars. *Who am I serving, and what do they need/want?
• Robust helpful posts that serve my readers first and Google second. *Both are important. If you serve readers first it stands to reason that you will automatically be serving Google, but I'm still conscious of it when I write a post. *This is where a content calendar comes in!
• Google driven: Increase pageviews through keyword research (AHREFS), backlinks, internal linking, quality content in SERPS
• Social driven: consistent Pinterest activity: updating seasonal pins and creating a content calendar. I'm learning to think of Pinterest as a slower version of Google. It's a search engine that requires keyword research, consistency and knowing and understanding your reader. It just takes longer to index your posts and register changes in your patterns and behaviour.
• Consistency on FB and IG. *Use scheduling tools and create FB groups for both websites so that readers can interact more. And I can share more helpful resources like the weekly meal plans.
• TikTok: Have a presence on tiktok, but it's not a priority. I don't create the kinds of videos that go viral. But, I would still like the algorithm to know who I am. So, my social media manager uses still images to create reels which I then post to TikTok. It's far from perfect, but it's better than nothing, at this point.
  • May update: I wrote this strategy back in December, and while most of it still holds accurate, I have decided to put video in a prime position for growth. There is just too much opportunity for rapid growth to ignore it.
  • I find the idea of video overwhelming and the learning curve steep, but I'm approaching it from the perspective of curiosity and seeing what kind of growth is possible, which takes some of the pressure off.

Tactics:

• Keep refining reader avatars so that it's laser-like focus.
• Update 2-3 posts per week and 2 new posts per week. *Start to create web stories for Salted Mint. SB didn't get much traffic from them because it's a UK-based site. We'll experiment with them on SM. They will not be a top priority.
• Start doing weekly meal plans on Salted Mint. These have been a huge success on Savvy Bites.
• Watch updated Cooking with keywords
• Track keywords in AhRefs
• Pin Profit Academy for Pinterest.
• Use ChatGPT as a business assistant. *I absolutely love tech, and when you can leverage it for the end goal, it is a very useful tool to embrace, not an adversary to demonise.

What you may be struggling with (because I am too)

Learning about blogging can often feel like drinking from a fire hose. There is so much (mis)information out there. After the HCU, the blogging community has a lot of negativity and despair. So here are a few things that I am doing.

Pick your people and tune everything else out. Easier said than done, but you have to for your sanity and productivity.

• Here are the people I listen to. It all started with Casey Markee and Arsen Rabinovich. Watch every Tophat Rank webcast and take notes. Implement what you can, as fast as possible and gauge results regularly.
• Aleka Shunk- Cooking with keywords, Ahrefs and keyword tracking. *Amazing for learning "from scratch" keyword research so you don't have to rely on tools.
• I have an incredible host WPopt. He also takes care of my plugin updates. I was always breaking something when I did it myself. He is absolutely amazing, and I couldn't recommend him enough.
• Heather Farris for Pinterest—Pin Profit Academy. I binged all of her YouTube videos before I signed up for the courses.
• Allison Lancaster for Pinterest and webstories. *The private Facebook Group is very helpful.
• Yes, there are other great people, groups, and forums where you can pick up information, tips, and tricks, but there aren't enough hours in the day to listen to them all.

Hopefully, you found some useful information or helpful mindset shifts. The next report, a summary of Q1, will have the first sets of numbers and analytics, but then I'll do monthly reports.

Thank you so much for being here!