How I increased my blog traffic from struggling to 1000+ views in under 3 weeks

Last Updated on October 15, 2020 by Latrice

My blog traffic used to struggle because I didn’t put in the work. Well, unless we can count research, taking notes, planning, and re-planning as work.

Implementing these four strategies not only improved my numbers, but they also helped me get focused enough to quit thinking I needed more research and a “better” plan.

If you’ve also found yourself trapped in the “need more research” trance, give these four strategies a try. They’re practical, to the point, and actionable. You can do research on the side.

Disclaimer: This post contains links where if you purchase via my links I receive a commission at no additional cost to you! It “keeps the lights on” around here 🙂 Allowing me to create content and tips for you. Thanks for supporting! I will always only recommend products and services I’m diggin’ (Love). Full disclosure can be read here.

How did I increase my blog traffic?

The short answer: “finally got my ass to work.”

Now, this might not seem like much traffic, but I’m hyped by how much and how quickly I’ve seen improvements.

After creating several blogs and allowing them to shrivel up from inactivity, GeekyTricee.com is the first one I’ve kept active for over 2 years. It’s my baby.

Honestly, it’s the first one out of six I’ve kept active for over 6 months. (Don’t judge.)

Even though I’ve spent a majority of those 2 years on GeekyTricee.com popping in occasionally to drop a post and barely sharing it when I did publish, I still showed up and did something. And for that, I give myself kudos.

Much of that pussy-footing around involved prioritizing research and hording freebies over taking meaningful action. I knew I had to share my blog to actually get views, but I used “I need to know more though” as my excuse to not share, grow, and monetize my blog.

Then the second year of my thirties hit and I realized I was the one playing myself. If I really wanted to make this blogging thing happened for me, it was time to start taking the type of actions that got traffic and made money. Instead of continuing to think I needed more information.

Which is sad considering I’ve been a social media manager, content manager, and blogger professionally, have done a gang of research on these topics to keep my skills tight, and I am up to my scalp in years of freebies and courses. (I have a pretty impressive collection.)

But I couldn’t get myself to do these things for my own blog to achieve my dreams.

Within a month of doing what I’m about to tell you, I took my blog from struggling with very little views to reaching hundreds of views in a day in a matter of weeks. Essentially, what I spent years planning to do took me a few weeks to accomplish once I quit planning and started doing. (I mean… I still plan, but now I force myself to take action.)

First, I’ve got to show you how quickly and how much my traffic grew in just the last few weeks.

My blog growth over the last three weeks

I’ve recently hit milestones that had me happy dancing all weekend.

I reached my first 100+ views in a day on Saturday and topped out at 300+ views on Sunday.

My blog goal for June 2018 was to reach 500 views for the month. I reached 573. One of my blog goals for July was to reach 1,000 views, I’ve reached 1,031 in the first 10 days. Yeeee!

Aaaannnndddd, I’ve had a blog post break my goal of 100 shares reaching 588 shares so far on Pinterest! When I first started taking action, I was happy with 22 pins, but 588?! That’s exciting.

As you can see below, my views before the burst this past weekend were low. My last ‘Best ever’ number was 56. Now it’s 309.

My post “10 Keto recipes that make awesome weight loss dinners” is what gave me the boost in traffic. Researching and IMPLEMENTING what popular recipe list posts and pins look like was, in my opinion, what also contributed to the increase.

I have another recipe list that’s struggling and perhaps you can see why: “10 Simple Paleo Breakfast Recipes for Weight Loss“. I’ve got a couple theories: the pin doesn’t have preview pics of the recipes in the list like the one above and Paleo is not as hot as keto right now. I’ll be experimenting and posting my results later.

Here’s Saturday, July 7th…

And here’s Sunday, July 8th…

My goal for June was to reach 500 view. I received 573.

My goal for July was to reach 1000. I did that and then some within the first 10 days. So far I’m at 1,031 views and the month isn’t even half way over yet.

I’m excited with my results thus far and looking forward to continued growth. I think I’ll see even more traffic growth once I start getting accepted to Pinterest group boards, refreshing my published-but-unshared posts with pins AND sharing them, and getting more active with Tailwind tribes.

I will be sharing my results.

My Pinterest growth over the last 3 weeks

I wish I started taking screen shots early on. I was not expecting this.

This is June 22nd…

June 27th…

July 4th…

And July 11th…

When I say my Pinterest growth snatched my edges?! Gurl!

I remember celebrating when I hit 3.6k monthly views. Then getting giddy over my 9.9k. Now I’m at 96.3k monthly viewers. My Pinterest is taking off and that’s without being accepted to any group boards… yet.

Have to admit I was a bit discouraged after I spent hours sending requests only to receive one invite that I’m still wondering if I was actually invited considering I can’t find the board after I’ve accepted the request. It’s been weeks and I still haven’t heard from the other 80+ requests I’ve sent.

I pushed forward on my Pinterest efforts anyway and put joining groups on the back burner for now. I started pinning using a scheduler, pinning manually, following boards, and following people every day. No days off. The results have been pretty sweet.

I’m still working on better analyzing these numbers. From my understanding, getting more monthly views improves the likeliness of my own pins showing up in search results and suggestions. That’s maybe another reason why my “10 keto recipes…” pin blew up like it did. It looks worthy to Pinterest because what I have been repinning has gotten lots of monthly views.

Below are my results since July 3rd. I’ve been officially working the method since mid June.

What. The. Hell?! Yeee! Still excited.

I’m the type of person that enjoys getting “cookies” in the form of results for my work and consistency. These “cookies” though? At one point I was getting up and checking my stats fresh out of a deep slumber to see what happened the night before.

Loving what I’m seeing.

Now on to the action steps that changed the game for me.

Published more consistently on a schedule I could handle

I work a full-time job. I had to admit to myself there was only so much I can handle if I wanted to create high quality content and go into depth to provide value. That meant cutting back my ambitious 3x a week schedule down to once a week.

Writing a post once a week, and being ok with that during this stage of my blog’s transformation, has helped me show up each week with fresh content. When I tasked myself with 3 posts a week, I made myself feel so overwhelmed I didn’t get any posts written.

Posting once a week also helps me get into the habit of showing up and hitting publish consistently. It’s less content, but its been consistent and high in quality. My blog is getting more traffic because of it.

If you find yourself struggling to post consistently, maybe you should cut back on your posting schedule. Instead of posting several times a week, try once a week. I read that one blogger posts every other week. I think that’s a little too spread out, personally, but if it gets you to publish consistently, do it.

Just share the hell out of that piece of content until you get up a new one.

When (and if) you get ready to share more posts, you can try publishing more posts.

Decided to focus on getting really good on ONE platform at a time

There are plenty of places to share a new blog post that can potentially bring traffic to your blog. Do I really have to name them all?

Between Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, just to name a few, I often times felt overwhelmed by making the decision of where was the best place to share and when to share for the quickest and best results. Which is why I hardly shared. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram did absolutely nothing for my traffic when I did share.

Then I made the decision to pour all of my efforts into getting good on Pinterest.

That focus took the pressure off of trying to be effective at too many things and feeling like I was wasting my time. It has saved me lots of time and has yield some great results.

Putting my energy into learning Pinterest, working with it, and improving my strategy is why I’ve seen that much growth in such a short period of time. Even with a full-time job.

If you’re struggling with sharing on multiple platforms, try focusing on Pinterest first. From what I’ve read, it’s honestly where most bloggers get a majority of their traffic. And from my experience, it’s where you can start bringing in more traffic relatively quickly.

That’s if you actually work Pinterest. Half-assing your efforts on Pinterest will give you half-assed results. You’ve been warned.

Invested in Pinterest strategies I could AFFORD

No shade, no tea, but I’ve come across Pinterest ecourses priced like I needed to take out lines of credit to purchase them. The creators are super successful on Pinterest and people buy their courses, but not something I could do on my little if-I-get-sick-and-need-to-pay-a-copay-I’m-screwed salary.

(Which did happen when I contracted MRSA of all things and HAD to pay for treatment and a doctor visit. No home remedies for that yucky stuff.)

I’ve invested in two Pinterest strategies that have been super helpful in my growth. They’re affordable, packed with plenty of valuable information, and give straight up actionable steps.

The first one I purchased was Pinterest Perfection Masterclass by Elna at Twins Mommy.

Elna breaks down her successful Pinterest strategy in an ecourse that includes her Pin Promoter Planner ebook.

What I really appreciated about Elna’s course was being able to create a step-by-step list of what I needed to do to prepare my blog, optimize my Pinterest profile, and work with my blog and posts for Pinterest success. It’s also quick to digest and implement the entire strategy in a week or in 30 days depending on where you’re at on your Pinterest endeavors.

The Pin Promoter Planner includes what to focus on each day of the week, what to focus on each month and a 30-day strategy for getting started.

Check out the Pinterest Perfection Masterclass.

The second Pinterest strategy I purchased was Pinterest Ninja by Megan at Love. Family. Health. This helpful bad boy right here goes into so much depth I’m still working through it and making sure I implement her strategies.

In 13 chapters, this ebook, also packed with plenty of extra, super valuable goodies, goes into not only how to rock it on Pinterest, but also other ways to use Pinterest.

Here are a few chapters that touch on other ways to use Pinterest:

• Chapter 7: Using Facebook Groups to Grow Your Following and How to Create Your Own Profitable Facebook Group
• Chapter 8: Using Pinterest to Grow Your Email List and The In’s and Out’s of Pinterest Analytics! (Video)
• Chapter 9: Creating Pins that market your affiliates and how to start a Pinterest group board!
• Chapter 11: How to Create a Mini Course with Teachable

What I like about Megan’s ebook is how she’s included in it what I’ve almost bought separately from other people. For instance, I almost purchased a course on how to market affiliate links on Pinterest before I found it in Pinterest Ninja.

Check out Pinterest Ninja.

Purchasing both of these strategies have been extremely helpful in getting me focused and learning all the new ways I can work with Pinterest to achieve my blogging goals.

Both of them have really valuable information, but are priced to be affordable. If you can’t afford the ebook (that also includes lessons on building an email list and affiliate marketing), go with the masterclass (still very helpful and quick to consume).

I highly suggest investing in learning the strategies of people that have already successfully done it. You’ll save time, you’ll save energy, and you’ll avoid plenty of confusion and overwhelm. Do yourself a favor and invest if you can. It’s totally worth it.

And if you’re not in the market to invest, take action on those freebies you’re gathering.

Started using Tailwind every day of the week

I hesitated purchasing a Tailwind membership, but boy oh boy has it been worth every penny. Even though I’m not making money yet with my blog, Tailwind has still been worth using it to build my profile up strategically. And it has hella worked!

And it was honestly hard for me to pass up purchasing a plan after using Tailwind’s free trial and seeing great results. The free trial allows you to dig in and see how Tailwind can work for you.

On using Tailwind…

I’ve read that some Tailwind users schedule their content for the week or for the month. I like to keep a closer eye on my actions by scheduling content by the day. At least for now. That way I can determine what actions yield which results.

Everyday, I start by checking my scheduled time slots. Some time slots are called the ‘Smart Schedule’ which is determined by when my audience is most engaged. I like using these slots to schedule when I do my manual pinning as well. I think it optimizes my manual pinning efforts if I pin around the times my audience is most likely to be engaged according to the stats collected by Tailwind.

Then there’s the ‘Add Recommended Time Slots’ for time slots even more tailored to my Pinterest account. These have also been super helpful in increasing my engagement and monthly viewers in such a short period of time.

I remember back in the day when we used to have to keep a close eye on our stats to determine when was the best time to post social media. Or we had to go by general rules based on when most people used particular platforms.

Tailwind does all of that for you with way better accuracy by monitoring how your pins and repins are performing and when people are engaged with your content. Saves a hell of a lot of time AND is more accurate.

The results have been worth the monthly membership. (There’s also a yearly membership that’ll save you some money.)

With how helpful Tailwind has been in growing my Pinterest and blog traffic, I definitely say don’t sleep on it. I was, but now I understand why so many bloggers put Tailwind to work for them.

Conclusion

Getting more traffic comes down to putting in more work and knowing where that work will better serve your blog and blogging goals.

What I did to improve my traffic in such a short period of time was:

• Followed a blogging schedule I could handle
• Decided to focus on improving my skills on one platform for sharing
• Invested in lerning Pinterest strategies I could afford to purchase – Pinterest Ninja & Pinterest Perfection Masterclass
• And used Tailwind every day

My traffic grew quickly and surpassed my goal of 1,000 monthly views in the first 10 days of July.