BloggingBlogging 101: Grow Your Blog October 14, 2015 Friends, welcome to week 2 of Blogging 101: Grow Your Blog. If you missed last week, you MUST start there! We each told our blog stories and gave advice for how we developed our brands. As I said last week, developing your brand is truly the foundation for any of this other stuff to work. So read last week’s posts if you haven’t yet. Onto today’s fun topic…I will say that of the four topics we chose to cover, I’ve gotten by far the most questions about how to grow your blog and how to make money. So I know some of you are excited about today’s post! Are y’all ready to get to work? This topic is really two-fold for me. On one hand, I have a ton of advice to share. On the other hand, I feel like I need to take a class in this myself! I consider myself always a student, but I have learned a lot in the last two years about this topic. I’ve spent many, many hours at my computer researching. I’ve connected with blogger friends and shared trade secrets. And most importantly, I’ve personally experimented and have seen what yields results and what doesn’t. Of course, as I said last week, this is my story. I know for a fact that what I’m about to say “doesn’t work,” others will say it’s what made their blog. Let’s start by taking a look at my “growth story.” I can really divide my blog growth into two sections. The first stage we’ll call INITIAL SURGE. When I started The White Buffalo, I’d been blogging for over two years, but not very well. Within two months after The White Buffalo launch, my monthly pageviews were 11x my highest month on Life of Splendor. What in the world could’ve caused that??? I asked myself that same question. I think the first thing was that I built a strong foundation, which I covered last week. Then… In all of my research about growing your blog, everything said to go to a conference. I signed up for the Haven conference and went with the idea of the buffalo in mind. I’ve said many times on this blog that Haven changed it all. You can read my detailed post about that here. What the conference really did was it put me in front of the right people. I went in excited to connect with anyone and everyone and I got some great partnerships and friendships out of that. I also got to bounce my new brand idea off a lot of knowledgeable people, which majorly helped. Within a month and a half of the conference, White Buffalo launched. A lot of the people I met helped me get the word out. Over the next couple of months, some new blog friends featured me. Some invited me to be a part of series they were hosting. A few invited me to be contributors on their blog. Getting in person time with other bloggers is huge. When someone meets you in person, they “buy into” your story in a way they don’t from a computer screen. But please don’t look at a conference as just a way to meet “useful” people. While it’s smart for your business, it’s also necessary for your soul and sanity to make friends in this blogging world. Go in and let people see you. Make lasting relationships. Trust me, I’ve made friendships that I treasure and the blog growth I’ve experienced as a result is a small side benefit. Right when I launched The White Buffalo, I also launched Blogger Stylin’ Home Tours. I had a vision to do an ongoing home tour series that would have editions for each season and different topics throughout the year. I asked all of my newfound friends to join in and they did, which made it a big success. Looking back, I’m shocked at how this series has taken off. BSHT weeks are consistently my biggest weeks throughout the year. This one I really need to talk about with “a grain of salt.” I have to mention it because it did play a huge role in that initial growth and so many of you have asked about this. At the time, I was looking for any and every way to grow the blog. I submitted projects to many sites. Nothing really came from any of it. A few of them worked out, but the growth wasn’t what I had hoped for. But one was crazy. Our home tour was featured on Young House Love. The pageviews I got on that day alone are STILL three times my biggest day since. I can’t even. But while that one feature was awesome and worth it, I spent countless hours applying to every feature and e-mailing every blogger I could possibly think of. Looking back, I would be more choosy about this. Maybe apply to some big ones, but I was so busy beating the streets to get featured, it compromised other aspects of my blog. And you never want to “use” people. I know this is a struggle, but seek to build lasting relationships with people and growth will stem from that. Look for sites that ask for submissions instead of just e-mailing people and asking to be featured. E-mailing people to make a genuine connection is different of course! Okay, so those three things were really a big part of my initial growth. I’d say that “boom” took six months, tops. Then, I really plateaued. I got really discouraged that the growth pattern wasn’t continuing, which now makes me laugh! Ofcourse it wasn’t going to. Now, I’ve moved much more into what I’m going call CONTENT AND STEADY GROWTH (content as in fulfilled, not blog content). This phase is really where I’ve learned more. I’ve learned about how to use the day in and day out to grow your blog, not big events. I have to say this one up front. You must find balance. Growing and promoting a blog can literally be a full-time job. Oh yeah, and then you actually need to create content and write the blog! I spent a lot of time trying to implement every single thing I learned and I was exhausted. And here’s the kicker: it didn’t work. Only you know where this point is for you, but I’ve learned that doing less actually has better results. If you research what you need to do to promote your blog, you’ll create an unending list. You need to create the best content you possibly can. Then, write an awesomely compelling post that’s inspiring, funny, and brings a tear. Then, promote said post on all social media: Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, Instagram…now add Periscope, Snapchat…OMG. Then, go in and respond to every single comment on your blog and all social accounts. Then, do follow up social promotion posts at night. Then, submit things to be featured. Then, read and leave thoughtful comments on your 150 closest friends’ blogs. Then, then then then then…I am exhausted. I tried to do all of that, y’all, and there is no way a human who has a life can do that. Let me change that, if this was your life, I still don’t think you could keep up that rat race long-term. So what’s a blogger who wants to grow to do? FOCUS. DO LESS. I narrowed my blog growth strategy to four main categories and forgot about the rest. There are days where these don’t all happen, but it’s more manageable. I know we talked about content last week, but it can’t be said enough. You cannot grow your blog without strong and consistent content. You should focus here before anything else. If you only have an hour a day, spend it here. While social promotion is awesome, if you don’t have great, original content you have nothing to promote. As Ana White said at that first Haven Conference, get up each day and create the best piece of content you can. Hit publish. Lay that brick. And lay a brick every day…that’s how a blog grows: Brick by Brick. Instagram is my largest social audience and there is a reason for that: it’s the one I’ve fed. I like Instagram. I do not like Facebook or Twitter. In fact, I would never visit those sites personally if I didn’t have to sometimes for the blog (and that’s rare). I don’t understand Google Plus, so I go there on the days I remember and link to my post…that’s it and that doesn’t happen often. In addition to Instagram being my platform of choice personally, it’s where brands and users are focusing. It’s where the future is…at least for now. My Instagram plan is pretty straightforward and I only do a good job of this half the time. But when I do, it works. POST A FEW TIMES A DAY You have to be active to grow on Instagram. I try to post at least twice a day, but that definitely doesn’t happen every day. POST QUALITY PHOTOS Your Instagram page is an extension of your blog, so make it fit your brand. Many will tell you that if you’re a design blogger, you only post design shots. I will never tell you that. Will that get you the maximum number of followers? Probably. But would I love doing that? No. I always post things that I like and want to share. I post sneak peeks of projects in our home, some personal style tidbits, and I’m working more pictures of my family in (I too bought into the only-design lie). I like photos and accounts with life in them, so that’s what I want to create. The Instagram accounts I check religiously are people who share the stylish life of their family not just style. Think about the accounts you love and emulate that in a way that’s right for you. PROMOTE YOUR POSTS Every post you write needs to be promoted on Instagram. The goal here is to direct traffic to your blog. I did a little test and on days I didn’t promote my post on Instagram, I had about 1,000 less pageviews! That was the only thing I changed and I’ve tested it with multiple types of posts to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. To direct the traffic, you’ve got to change the blog link in your profile to your post-specific link or people can’t get to it easily. Make it easy for them to click over. CREATE TEASER POSTS Don’t be mean and leave your readers hanging, but from time to time, a teaser post can be a good thing. Post something on Instagram that you know your readers will be interested in, but they have to go to the blog to get the whole story. For example, when we chose Rosie’s name, I posted an ultrasound photo on Instagram that said, “I have a name…” but you had to go to the blog to find out what it was. I had a huge pageview day. I didn’t do that to get pageviews, though that was an awesome benefit. I did it because I wanted people to read the story behind her name, not just get the name. This was the first time I’d done that and it really showed me the power of this technique. This could be as simple as sharing a tiny detail in a room reveal as a sneak peek and they have to click to your blog to see the whole room. USE HASHTAGS Relevant hashtags will really help new followers find you. I learned the trick from a blogger friend to put them all in the first comment, so that as soon as you get a few comments, they’re buried. They can really annoy and distract readers in the caption. Do a little research to find out what hashtags are popular and have a ton of posts. See what other bloggers are using and then search for some and check the number of posts in it. Y’all, Pinterest is my new best friend. I’ve always loved it. I love getting inspiration from it and it’s always been my biggest traffic referrer. But about six months or so ago, it lost its’ luster. I had bought into the group board game and was pinning all kinds of things to all kinds of group boards. I was creating Pinterest images with big, tacky text that wasn’t me just so it would do well on Pinterest. I had some results traffic-wise, but not a ton and was losing Pinterest followers. They didn’t seem to like that I was pinning my own stuff over and over again! Imagine that. And it no longer was inspiring. When I went to my feed, it was flooded with things I’d never pin because of all of the massive group boards I was a part of. I was over it. Around the same time, Pinterest changed its’ algorithm for how it chooses what you see in your feed and that changed everything. I’m sure many of you have heard about the algorithm change, so I won’t go into that, but it basically meant that what had worked before no longer worked. I was ready to change my game anyway, so this was the motivation I needed. I went through an initial purge to get rid of all that I’d started hating about Pinterest. I got rid of the umpteen group boards I was a part of except for a few key ones: Better Homes and Gardens and Home Depot. Those boards consistently give great traffic and I more align with the content being posted there than some other boards. Then, I started having fun with Pinterest again. I started pinning things I loved just because and didn’t worry about anything else. I went on to do a little research and then started running some experiments like I do best, haha. The results are still blowing my mind. I’ve been doing my new Pinterest campaign for the last month and in that time, I’ve gained 2,000 new followers and am averaging 5,000 repins a week. I never had results anywhere close to that with what I was doing before and now I actually like Pinterest again. And the craziest part? I’m spending a fraction of time on this compared to what I used to do. DELETE OLD PINS The goal is for you to have the best pins and the best boards possible. Now, when someone searches “kitchen,” Pinterest searches for the best kitchen boards. They’re looking for the board with the most average repins to share. Go through and delete pins that have only 1 repin. Within a week, you’ll see that board’s repins have gone up. The next week, delete anything with 2 or less…and so on. You have to delete periodically for the system to really recognize the progress and not label your account as spam. Don’t go crazy and delete every pin with less than 100 repins at first. This part will be a little time consuming, but it’s had major results for me. PIN OFTEN, BUT NOT TOO OFTEN I don’t even want to think about how much I was pinning with my old campaign! Now, I pin somewhere in the 30 pins a day range, but I’ve heard 10-30 is optimal. Less is apparently better and I’m trying to work down to that. PIN GREAT CONTENT I still don’t pin anything I don’t want to pin. I am inspired by everything I pin and what I pin of my own stuff is stuff and images I’m super proud of. I think a huge key to Pinterest working for you is for followers to know what they can expect from you just like with your blog. Then continually give them that. Now, I know what you’re thinking. 30 pins a day?! Always great content?! This sounds like so much work! It took a little to get set up, but now, it is so easy friends. USE BOARD BOOSTER This new tool has changed everything. It’s cheaper than what I used before, but it has so many features. While it may seem a little confusing to set up at first, it took me an afternoon and now I don’t even have to do anything with it hardly. These two resources really helped me get started: here and here. I specifically use Scheduler to schedule pins periodically to different boards. I use Looping to repin old pins from boards to the top and it automatically deletes the one with less pins after five days. These two features help with pinning inspiring content and pinning a certain amount every day. I only pin when I’m inspired and feel like it (usually once a week) and then board booster does the rest. The campaign feature has changed everything for me. For example, I just set up a Campaign feature for “Home Decor.” You set up the campaign details one time and then all you have to do to enter a post into that campaign is pin it to that campaign’s secret board. You set up the campaign in the beginning to pin when and where you want. For example, I told my home decor campaign to pin to one big group board on day 1, another big group board on day 2, my own personal board on day 7. Then, it repeats the pins at 30 days, 90 days, 180 days. So with one pin on the day the post goes live, I send a post into that drawn-out promotion! You can check board booster out here. I’m only scratching the surface of what to do with Pinterest these days! If you google “How to grow Pinterest followers” so many resources pop up! Ever heard that comparison is the thief of joy? Well it couldn’t be truer. While I know it’s hard, don’t let yourself fall into this. While it may seem that she has everything going for her, you have no clue what her numbers actually are. And beyond the numbers, you have no clue if she’s even happy with what she’s doing. What is she sacrificing to have that success? How many nights has she spent away from her child to get there? I’m not saying it’s bad to work hard, I’m just saying there’s a cost. We often don’t see that part. Feel great about what you’re putting out there. Find a growth plan that isn’t hard and that you can easily manage with your family and life. Then, go after it and don’t look back! And last, but certainly not least… I ended last week’s post with this and must again. I realize this novel above gives a lot of advice that’s worked for me, but at the heart of it all, you have to be yourself. Only share things on Instagram you feel great about and you love regardless of what you think will get more likes. Only pin things that you’re inspired by, not what you think will get more repins. While I do see that some blogs have grown by just following the trends or compromising to what they think readers and followers want, I don’t think that’s typical or long-lasting. I think readers can tell when you aren’t being genuine or when something is done just for the hope of traffic. But even if they can’t, blogs are such personal things. You have to be yourself and enjoy the journey. While I do blog for business, promote my posts, and hope for growth, all of that is second to me being true to myself with what I share. There is no question that I work hard at this, but I try my best to keep things in balance. And at the end of the day, I’m so humbled and grateful to have adream job that lets me do my ultimate dream job: be a mama to Rosie. Now, make sure you check out the tips from the other talented ladies! withHEART Emily A. Clark Bliss at Home Sarah M. Dorsey *** And just in case you missed it, you can catch up on Week 1: Developing your brand posts below: Yours truly withHEART Emily A. Clark Bliss at Home Sarah M. Dorsey
Kristin says October 14, 2015 at 8:11 am Love this friend! I am so glad you went more into how you use your social. I scratched the surface on it in my post, but focused on other topics more. I hope to have some time soon to check out board booster…still using VR, but you are making me want to switch! xo Reply
Lindsay says October 14, 2015 at 12:50 pm Thanks, Kristin! I love seeing how ours are different despite us having the same topic. I’m learning so much from y’all! And BB is better!!!! Reply
Jen @ RamblingRenovators says October 14, 2015 at 9:25 am Such thoughtful and helpful tips! Thanks for sharing. Reply
Lindsay says October 14, 2015 at 12:49 pm Thanks, Jen! It’s long, but it’s what worked for me. I feel like I could write individual posts about each topic, but I tried to hit my high points π Reply
Jessica @ Dear Emmeline says October 14, 2015 at 10:30 am Yes yes yes to all you said! I’m planning to get back into blogging more regularly soon and your motto “do less with more focus “is exactly it. Honestly, it’s key. The quote “work smarter, not harder” comes to mind too. For me focusing on content and scheduling the content is going to be a must. Reply
Lindsay says October 14, 2015 at 12:49 pm Yes, that has to come first, Jessica! There are plenty of days where I don’t do that well, but it shows π Good luck with all you have coming! Reply
Marci @ Rainbow Nest says October 14, 2015 at 2:03 pm Lindsay, thank you so much. Your detailed advise on how you tackle social media is exactly what I needed. Reading it was like we were having a cup of coffee together and you were answering all of my many, many, many questions. Reply
Lindsay says October 14, 2015 at 2:10 pm Oh Marci, I am so happy to hear that! As I was writing it, I kept thinking, “This is too much information! No one needs to hear all of this!” But then I kept reminding myself how much I wish I had found a post like that back when I was doing all of my research! So glad it helped π Reply
Gretchen@BoxyColonial says October 14, 2015 at 4:49 pm I love what you said about Instagram….I’ve noticed a trend wherein people I follow are getting away from posting pictures of family and everyday life in favor of just design, design, design. I know that’s the conventional wisdom, but if I’m following someone on Instagram, it’s because I WANT to see what they’re doing day to day–I can go to their blogs to see a million pictures of their houses. And I’m not willing to stop posting like that myself on Instagram, either. I’m trying to focus on posting BETTER pictures, photography-wise, but not on changing the kinds of things I take pictures of. If that means my Instagram following stays….cozy and intimate, then so be it π Reply
Erin Deric says October 14, 2015 at 9:47 pm Thank you so much for all of this info. I am just beginning the blogger journey. I have to admit the more I learn the more I feel I don’t know! Thank you for taking the time to help other bloggers. Reply
kathryn says October 14, 2015 at 11:00 pm I love this series! This was really informative and helpful, especially the part about using Instagram. I’m a teacher by day and just haven’t had time to investigate some of this yet. This answered a lot of my questions. π Reply
kathryn says October 14, 2015 at 11:11 pm I am really enjoying this series! This was so informative. I’m a teacher by day and haven’t really had time to research growing a blog. I really appreciated the part about Instagram. Thanks for all the specific details. π Reply
Meg @ Green With Decor says October 15, 2015 at 4:32 pm Thank you for such a great post! Love your insights on Pinterest and Instagram. I’m just working on setting up BB now and can’t wait to get rid of some of the time-suck that is Pinterest! I know there’s a lot of discussion around if deleting old pins works – I’ve done it a few times and see more repins following each time. And love your advice to do less with more focus – working on that one! This is such a great blogging series, can’t wait for next week’s posts! Reply
Corinna - A Designer At Home says October 15, 2015 at 7:34 pm Thank you for being so open about this topic! Reply
Whitney Shortt says October 16, 2015 at 9:13 am HI Lindsay, Thanks so much for this post! I have been trying to do allll the things and been totally overwhelmed, especially when it comes to managing all the social accounts. Your information and advice couldn’t have been more timely or helpful. When you say your pinning 10-30 images a day, is that strictly your content that you’ve created or is it just pins in general that you find inspiring? I was also wondering the same when it comes to deleting. Are you deleting just your pins that get low traffic or other pins that you’ve pinned? Reply
Christine says October 19, 2015 at 9:01 am This is so helpful! I love that you are doing this series and love that you are you. I agree that is a big part! Thanks for sharing. Reply
Cecilia C. Cannon says October 21, 2015 at 8:48 am Thank so much for sharing your tips. I loved all of them especially about Pinterest. I took the time to delete and clean up my boards and if anything, just simply felt liberating. lol. Thanks so much! Reply
Jill Levenhagen says October 22, 2015 at 9:27 pm I’m so happy you are loving BoardBooster! Thank you for linking to my post! Reply
Nicki says November 5, 2015 at 2:25 pm Lindsay, I just wanted to say how much I am enjoying this series you are doing! I am a little behind on my blog reading, as I am sure you can understand, I try to focus more of my time actually creating content for my own blog, and then I get behind with reading other blogs that I love, but I always catch up eventually. You seem like such a genuine person who I would actually like if I ever met you in person. I have been using Board Booster for a while now, and I really like it. I also use Ahology as well, have you ever used it? Karianne from Thistlewood Farms is the person who introduced me to it during a blog consultation. I applied, and it took me awhile to become approved, so in the meantime I started using Board Booster. so right now, I am going back and forth between the two experimenting. I can’t pin anything from work (I am a middle school counselor) because Pinterest is blocked. So I use Ahology to pin things if I am at work, because I am able to do so that way (only on a break or lunch, of course! π I have been blogging for three years now, and my blog is growing slowly and steadily, but I still feel like a newbie. I have been strongly considering writing some kind of post or series about all that I have learned since I started my blog, but it is overwhelming to even think about. so what I have decided to do is start a notebook, and just write down things I would like to include, and hopefully from seeing it all down on paper, I will come up with some clear direction on how to proceed. Sorry for writing you a short story! Ha! Have a good one! Reply
Michelle says November 14, 2015 at 7:16 pm I have to admit there is so much good stuff here I keep coming back to your post to check in with my continued efforts. Thanks so much for your candor and detail, everything you’re writing offers so much food for thought and is very very helpful! Reply