Shoot For The Stars As A Blogger

“It is better to aim for the stars and miss than to aim for the gutter and hit”. Have you heard this saying before? It happens to be one of my favourite quotes from childhood and it’s something I live by. Not only do I remind myself of this saying in life but also as a blogger.

I began my blogging Journey in January 2015 and the blogging world has seriously changed from when I first started to now. Social Media has gone crazy and there are more courses on “how to blog”, more people claiming to have the secret formula and more people starting out “to earn money” rather than writing for the love of it. I guess that’s the advantage I have is that I love to write and whether The Inspiration Edit earns money or not, I would still write.

So every month and every year I set new goals. I make plans and have dreams which I hope will help me progress my blogging to another level. Some people say they don’t care about stats but I like stats. Statistics and numbers help me to see how far I have come in terms of readership and followers and it’s a great measuring stick for myself. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not great to compare against others. That can either make you green eyed with envy or make you feel like crap. Seriously I am sure every one has done it at some point and seen how well another blog is and wish they were in that league, doing that campaign or getting the same success.

The thing that is important is to measure your own blog and measure it against stats of earlier times. That’s what I do. I monitor my own growth and progress and it helps give me a boost when I feel overwhelmed or stressed out about the workload I have to complete.

So I rebranded from my old blog Days In Bed to The Inspiration Edit back in October 2016. It’s been 10 months and in that time I have made great progress. I had to rebuild my Domain Authority and that has been tough but I am slowly getting there.

Today marks my 1000 blog post anniversary! That is right! This is blog post one thousand on The Inspiration Edit and so I am writing my thoughts about the journey so far. I have been slowly growing my blog and each month or every few months I focus on new things. From January to June I focussed on growing my Pinterest following and worked hard to create pins for my blog posts and to try and get these repinned. It has been a labour of love and I have gone from 1000 followers to 7,500.  It’s been great progress and I am hoping to reach 1o,000 by the end of the year.

I chose to work on Pinterest because this was my second biggest source of traffic. I figured if I doubled my efforts on Pinterest then I could potentially double my traffic. I am now getting twice the traffic I was getting in January via Pinterest and it is really great for the blog.

In July I turned to Instagram. I started working hard and have seen slow and steady growth. I have gone from 1,500 followers on Instagram last year to over 5600. Why do these figures matter to me? Well I guess the more people who follow and like and engage the more traffic I get and the more traffic the more I can Inspire and share my life and experiences with others. I do enjoy sharing lovely pictures on Instagram and unlike the everyday parent who goes out and does a lot, I do spend a lot of time at home so when we do go places, we take photos in batches which I can then share over a whole month. It’s the only way it can work for me but it works and works well.

So this month just gone, July, I had my most blog post views ever. I was getting between 60-80,000 views a month but last month I got over 115,000 page views and that is great growth! My page views started at zero back in October when I rebranded and I have set a goal to have 1 million views by the end of the year. I know I can do it. I am over three quarters of the way there. Again I want to have success and get lots of readers so I can share my story and raise awareness of important issues in my life. I also hope to one day earn a full time living from my blog – that is a goal for the future. For some it happens fast and for others it is a slower process. I am happy to keep plodding away at my blog until that day comes.

I love writing and sharing ideas. I love telling my stories and experiences and I love being able to do something worthwhile all at the same time. I will follow my childhood phrase and shoot for the stars. I will aim high and one day reach my dreams as a blogger. It’s not an easy path. This takes dedication and really hard work. Some people think bloggers just write and get freebies. There is so much more to it. There are blog posts, linkies, emails, PR correspondence, contracts, social media engagement, planning and promotion, more planning and more promotion. The list never ends and it’s harder work than it was for me as a teacher. It’s harder and more time consuming than when I was studying at University for my degree.

Bloggers work hard to get where they are and it’s not an easy cash cow. It’s can be a full time professional job that often does not pay a full time wage, well at least not at the start. Some of my friends do earn a full time living bogging but some don’t.

That is my goal. For my blog work to provide a full time stable income. I want to achieve this eventually but as in any business, you have to build it and work at it to become a success. Blogging can be fun but it also means hours and hours of unpaid work before you do earn cash and it also means sacrifice and more hard work.

I will keep on aiming high. I will work towards my goals and I will one day reach my goals. I am sure of it.

Angela x