Wednesday, November 22, 2017

How My Blog Got 1 Million Page Views in 9 Months ♥

This week my little blog reached over 3 million page views - THREE MILLION! I'm actually gobsmacked, delighted too of course, but I still find it amazing that people want to read about my life, my thoughts and look at my photography, it's a strange yet comforting feeling all at once.

If you had told me back in March 2013 when I began on this blogging adventure of mine, that I would one day have a blog that many people would read on a daily basis, follow on social media and support whenever they could, then I would have called you a liar. I could never have believed that so many people would want to read about mine and my family's life, would follow our adventures, take an interest in my photography and gain inspiration from the things I post.

So, to those of you who take the time to read, comment, like and share anything I post here on my blog or social media channels, please accept a very heartfelt thank you ♥

On February 7th 2017 my blog reached 2 million page views and on November 20th 2017 it reached 3 million page views. The blog's page views have been steadily increasing as the months go on, but just how do I get these page views?

I use SocialOomph and promote the hell out of my posts
Yep, that's right, I promote my posts - even the old ones, over and over again on an hourly basis over on Twitter. At first I was worried about annoying people with my hourly, repetitive tweets, but then I realised, if I'm not sharing my posts and reminding people of the older ones as well as the new ones then who will? I see it as being your own cheerleader and honestly, I haven't had one negative comment since I began using SocialOomph to schedule my tweets back in December 2016.

It can be quite a costly scheduler to invest in but it's so worth the money for the traffic it offers and for the convenience of having posts on a loop and being able to schedule everything at once. I make sure that the posts I'm tweeting are seasonal and a good mix of lifestyle, baking, parenting and photography.

Since I began using SocialOomph I have gained over 670,000 click throughs from the links I'm posting on Twitter, my older posts are still getting a ton of traffic (as well as the newer ones) and the best thing is that the people clicking on these links are doing so because they want to and are interested in the content I'm sharing.

I share my post links wherever I can
Twitter isn't the only place I share my post links. Anytime I publish a new post I share my links to my blog Facebook page, various Facebook sharing groups, update my Instagram profile to add my newest post link and then share in my Instastories about my newest post - I don't have a business profile for Instagram so I'm not yet able to add links to my Instastories - this hasn't stopped me getting traffic from Instagram though. If I think a post is worthy I also add it to StumbleUpon - food and photography posts do really well on there traffic wise.

I add an image to every link post I share
Lets be honest, you can write the best content ever, but ultimately, it'll be the image that makes people to click on your link. I've found that having good quality photography and a relevant image to go with the theme of your post really helps too. I'm constantly getting good feedback on my photography and it's a really great feeling.

Making Pinterest-worthy images
Like with StumbleUpon, I only add posts to Pinterest that I think are 'Pinterest-worthy' - such as food/baking and DIY posts. I find these do really well and it's all about enticing people to re-pin your pins by using good, clear imagery. Pinterest is now one of my top referrals for traffic. I'm trying harder with my food styling, to make clear, bright and good pictures for Pinterest and it seems to be working as my newest baking posts have done really well traffic-wise, especially my Christmas Tree Cupcake posts - it's all about staying seasonal!

I shared lots of personal posts
I find that the personal posts always do far better than the sponsored or branded ones as people can just resonate with them more. I've been sharing my weight loss journey for the past eleven weeks and all the posts have done really well. People love to read about people's personal experience with things and relate to them.

There are other ways to grow your blog traffic - hosting giveaways and participating in reciprocation threads with other bloggers, but in the past nine months I think I've only hosted one or two giveaways so this was not a method for me to gain traffic and I also gave up participating in the reciprocation threads as I just simply don't have the time.

So this is how my blog got 1 million page views in 9 months. Hopefully this post has been helpful to others wanting to grow their blogs and increase their page views. It can be done and quite easily too.

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13 comments

  1. Well done that’s amazing .... I might start back on the twitter posting I haven’t been doing it as much but reading your post it’s a good idea... well done on the weight loss to xx

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    1. Thank you! I definitely recommend Twitter posting, it's really boosted my traffic x

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  2. Thanks for sharing your valuable tips

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  3. Well done that’s a massive achievement and thanks for sharing your tips they are very inspiring for me as a new blogger

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  4. Congratulations! That's such a big achievement and I hope you get a million more! Thank you for the tips - I'm definitely checking out socialoomph and promote my posts consistently.

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  5. That's amazing hunny congrats a lot do all of these and don't get half that so you are doing something right, you are working hard and your followers must really love you and support you which is so amazing. Keep it up beautiful. What an achievement. You should reward yourself for this.

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  6. Thats an awesome feat!I've just begun implementing Pinterest and Twitter and so far twitter is way better! Congrats, I hope one day I get close to the amount of pageviews you get. :O

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  7. congrats!!! Keep up the amazing work and keep shining for greatness!!
    www.mssparkleandglow.com

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  8. Congratulations! Thanks for sharing your tips.

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