Blogging

Income & Traffic Report – February 2019

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February 2019 Traffic and income report with picture of graph

If you’re wondering what this post is about, check out my very first Income & Traffic Report. I give you all the nitty gritty details there.

If you’re too lazy to head over there (and I get it), here’s what this thing is in a nutshell. Every month I’m writing a post to report on how the previous month panned out. After writing this up the first month I felt like total crap. BUT I decided to keep writing them for the next six months, because maybe over time they will get easier. If I’m wrong, oh well, I’ll stop, but for now I’m gonna keep going.

blog work this month

February Blog Posts

What I Worked On This Month

  • For the most part February felt like a blur. I had trouble staying focused, and to be honest writing my January report kind of started February on a real slump. I felt a little discouraged and kept thinking to myself, “why the hell am I doing all this work?”. To pull myself out of that downward spiral I participated in a Creativity Challenge. I wrote all about it in this post. It was a week of thoughtful reflection, journaling and joy. I loved it so much that I joined Kira’s membership program.
  • I continued showing up on Instagram daily, although I wasn’t as good about engaging as I’d hoped. Sounds like a goal for March!
  • I worked through another module of Irresistible Email and made some changes to my newsletter format.

The Numbers

January 2019 Revenue Total: -$1.30

  • Income Breakdown
    • Amazon Affiliate Income: -$1.54
    • Awin Affiliate Income: $0.24

Monthly Blog Expenses Total: $57

**A note about the links below. Several of them are affiliate links. Which means I make a small commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

Well that was unexpected. I managed to lose money on Amazon. It’s a bummer, but I totally understand someone deciding to return a purchase…I do it all the time.

February Traffic Numbers

Google analytics graph showing traffic for Indoorsy Camper in February 2019

This month had some good news and some bad. My number of users and pageviews went up! Quite a bit for me, 918 views compared to 615 last month. While that’s good news the amount of time spent on those pages was a few seconds less, and my bounce rate went up. Something to think about for March.

Pinterest continues to be the biggest driver to my site. The one change I’m most excited about is I’m getting more organic search results through Google. This is great because it means I’m less reliant on social media. My goal is for that number to continue to rise over time.

Best performing blog post of February (same as last month!): Perfect 7 Day Road Trip Itinerary: Grand Canyon Plus Zion National Park to Bryce Canyon

January on Social Media

Most Popular Instagram Post:

woman with hiking sticks on Joshua Tree trail with snowy mountains in the background

This way by far the post with the most engagement in February. It was a carousel post with this as the first picture and a second second picture of me looking totally beat during this hike.

Once again the crowd has spoken. In the caption I talked about how hiking can look really idyllic on IG, but in reality you can quickly become a hot mess. People really responded to the fact that I posted both sides of the story, proving once again that what people want is a taste of reality. Thank you my people!

Conclusions and Going Forward

February was a short month, literally and figuratively. The time flew and I found myself falling short on several of my goals. I didn’t manage to go back and improve SEO on two posts, and there was one week where I didn’t even get a post published. Rather than dwell on that I decided to give myself some grace and keep moving forward.

I have lots of high hopes for Indoorsy Camper and while it’s easy to let one tough week set you way back, I’m doing my very best to fight those feelings.

One thing I’m very happy about was our first camping trip of the season sneaked in there at the end of the month. There was snow in Joshua Tree! It was cold. It was beautiful. It was fabulous. Don’t worry there will be a post about it soon!

Goals for February:

  • Publish 4 posts this month. (including one that’s out of my comfort zone)
  • Continue showing up on Instagram daily (specifically I’m planning to comment on 5 posts per day)
  • Participate in at least 1 collaborative posts this month.
  • Go back and update SEO on two old posts. (gonna happen this month!)

Income & Traffic Report -January 2019

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bar graph with text overlay January 2019 Traffic & Income Report

Remember how I got all corporate at the beginning of January? Well I just put on my linen suit again (yes linen…I’m not THAT corporate). I’ve been very grateful to some of my fellow bloggers for their transparency when it comes to this whole blogging thing. People think that you start a blog and it becomes an overnight success with hundreds of thousands of page views and tons of ad and affiliate sales revenue, but that’s SO now how it goes.

If I were to describe blogging in a nutshell it would be like this.

  1. You start a blog.
  2. You get SUPER excited.
  3. You blog.
  4. There are crickets.
  5. You decide to shake things up and try something new.
  6. That doesn’t work.
  7. You try something else.
  8. That works…a little.
  9. Repeat steps 4-8 over and over again.

That’s pretty much how things go over here at Indoorsy Camper. The thing about blogging for me is I think it’s fun. I truly enjoy doing it. And while I’m not out here to make tons of money and quit my day job (but if that happened I wouldn’t complain) it would be nice if this little hobby of mine paid for itself.

I’ve read lots of posts and articles about how to make a successful blog. The pool of knowledge out there is deep and dark and sometimes scary. But the one thing I’ve taken away from the bloggers out there I love and respect is that this blogging thing takes time and consistency. That’s what 2019 is about for me and this blog.

It’s why I’m going to post these income and traffic reports each month. If you’re totally bored and want to skip them I get it, suits are stuffy, even when they’re made of linen. My hope is that these reports will do a couple things:

  • Show slow growth over time, because that’s the reality. I know there’s some people out there who tell you they can get you 1,000 followers in a month or make your posts go viral. I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not gonna be one of those people.
  • Provide a certain amount of transparency when it comes to blogging and making money. I want you to see what my income looks like whether it’s big or tiny. Spoiler this month is gonna make you laugh, but honestly I’m pretty proud of where I am.
  • Accountability. I’m also using these posts to keep me honest, set goals and check in to see how those monthly goals worked out.

You can look forward to seeing these posts at the beginning of each month. I’ll always include the income and traffic numbers, but each month will also include some other information. It might be what I’m reading, what courses I’m taking, which Instagram post was the most popular or just a list of upcoming trips. So here we go, this is my review of January.

January Blog Posts

What I Worked On This Month

  • I’ve been trying to go through older blog posts to make them more SEO friendly. This month I managed to update my post about camping at Furnace Creek campground in Death Valley as well as my Leo Carrillo campground review.
  • I launched my How Outdoorsy Are You? quiz! Honestly, I was hoping this would gain traction and increase my number of email subscribers, but that has yet to happen. Since it’s so new I’m going to hold off judgement and try to figure out other ways to get it out into the world. I’ll be sure to report back on this one in future months.
  • I made a commitment to write one blog post per week (and I made it!).
  • I also decided to show up on Instagram once per day. This could be a post in the feed, a story, a like or even a comment. I just wanted to show up in that space more and engage with other outdoor lovers. It was so much more fun than just scrolling!
  • I met with my mastermind group for the first time and it was AMAZING! More on that later.
  • I started working on a course called Irresistible Email by Ruth Soukup

January 2019 Revenue Total: $2.13

  • Income Breakdown
    • Amazon Affiliate Income: $1.15
    • Awin Affiliate Income: $0.98

Monthly Blog Expenses Total: $57

**A note about the links below. Several of them are affiliate links. Which means I make a small commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

  • Expenses Breakdown
    • ConvertKit: $29
      • During the previous iterations of this blog I used a different email service called MadMimi. It’s free and fairly easy to use. When I decided to get a little more serious about this blog thing I signed up for a one month free trial of ConvertKit. It became clear very quickly that this was the way forward for me. If you have questions about why I like the service feel free to leave a comment or email me with your questions.
    • Canva: $13
    • Tailwind: $15
      • As you can see from my traffic report a LOT of people come to my website thanks to Pinterest. To make sure I’m pinning consistently (Pinterest likes that) I use Tailwind, it’s very user friendly and allows me to schedule out my pins a weeks in advance.

As you can see this hobby isn’t making me any money. AND THAT’S OK! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not particularly keen on losing $55 per month, but I’m hopeful that that’s not how it’s always going to be.

January Traffic Numbers

January Google Analytics graph showing website traffic

So what the hell does this graph mean? It’s hard to tell this first month since you don’t really have much perspective about my blog. The god honest truth is that my pageviews have been going down since September. I had a high point in September and since then it’s headed downward. Why is that happening? I think it’s because winter came…or at least that’s what I’m hoping happened.  The number of people who go hiking and camping in the winter is much lower so hopefully as we head into spring the numbers will start to go up again.

I could get really hung up on these numbers and freak out about them going downward month by month, but I’m choosing not to do that. This first year is all about information gathering. I don’t know what’s ‘normal’ around here yet, so I’m hoping to slowly figure that out.

Just to give you a little idea of how social media works for Indoorsy Camper, here’s the numbers broken down by platform:

  • Pinterest: 263
  • Facebook: 32
  • Twitter: 2 (no idea how that happened, because I don’t really do twitter)

Best performing blog post of January: Perfect 7 Day Road Trip Itinerary: Grand Canyon Plus Zion National Park to Bryce Canyon

January on Social Media

Most Popular Instagram Post:

Woman standing on hill under Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena, CA

This post had the most likes and comments in January. As you can see it’s not even the most beautiful post. My face is in shadow and one of my legs is cut off.

So why did this post do well? I think it was because of the caption. I made sure to be totally honest and talk about who I am and what I love to do.

I’ve noticed that the pictures I post in my feed that include me are often the best performing posts. That’s not necessary always true, but since I’ve been tracking this it’s often the case.

So I know that was a LOT of information in one post. Hopefully moving forward this post will be a little more manageable. It’s been really great for me to take the time to review the numbers and think about what I achieved in a month and what I’m planning on doing in February.

Goals for February:

  • Publish 4 posts this month.
  • Continue showing up on Instagram daily.
  • Participate in 3 collaborative posts this month.
  • Go back and update SEO on two old posts.

 

Blog Mission Statement & Core Values

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I’ve spent a lot of time during the last few months wondering what the hell Indoorsy Camper means.

If you were to go solely on the content I’ve created so far it just means I like to go camping…but I don’t like roughing it. Of course, this is completely true, but it’s not quite ALL I want Indoorsy Camper to be.

I started this blog to prove that you don’t need to be an expert outdoorswoman to go camping and hiking. You can be a city girl who hates bugs and still manage to be a little outdoorsy. So I’ve written a lot of posts about camping, hiking, gear, road trip ideas, and other outdoor posts.

But as I started spending more time outdoors I also realized that I also needed a creative outlet to give me balance.

Could I write about creative work on Indoorsy Camper? Is that confusing? Did I pick the wrong name for this blog?! All of this hemming and hawing led me to decide that Indoorsy Camper needed a blog mission statement and a set of core values.

Cheesy as it may seem a writing a blog mission statement will help remind me why I show up. It will help move me forward with one single vision and oddly enough it can spark creativity when I’m feeling lost or burned out.

Once I started to brainstorm where I wanted Indoorsy Camper to go in the next year it became clear to me.

I want Indoorsy Camper to help women find balance and happiness in their lives by cultivating their creativity and connecting with the outdoors.

I’ll admit when I read it out loud it seems nebulous, lofty and hard to fulfill. BUT I’ve decided that 2019 is about experimentation. I’m going to work towards this mission for a full year and see where it leads me. I’m going to keep an open mind and an open heart and let my path meander until I’m able to figure out where I’m going (or not, whatever).

There’s no need to put extra pressure on me to make sure this little speck of the internet succeeds because that’s not what this is about. It’s about figuring out how to create a space where women can rediscover their creativity. That might mean picking up a pencil and paper, trying a new recipe or learning to take better pictures of their kids.

I also want to help women figure out the best way for them to be outdoorsy. That might mean kicking it in their backyard with a can of cider (often my preference) or hefting a 30lb. backpack on their back and heading into the beyond. Quite frankly I don’t care how you do it, so long as there’s fresh air involved.

While I really love my new blog mission statement, I also decided I needed a set of core values to go along with it. These broaden the mission, give character to the site and quite frankly are the very same traits I am constantly trying to cultivate in myself.

In the interest of togetherness, I decided to list them in the we format. Hopefully, you consider yourself part of the tribe and are going to come along for the ride.

If there was a group of us indoorsy campers around a campfire…or a kitchen island filled with snacks here’s how I would describe our core values:

  • We define our own adventures.
  • We believe you should create something every day.
  • We are curious.
  • We are good stewards.
  • We practice gratitude.
  • We always seek balance.
  • We are kind.

That’s what an indoorsy camper is to me. So I’m going to do my best to make sure Indoorsy Camper the blog is a safe space to explore your creativity and choose your own adventure. A place where you can ask questions without fear. A place to practice gratitude and show kindness to yourself and others. And finally, a place to discuss advocacy and figure out ways to take part in the preservation of our public lands.

Have you ever written a mission statement? Was it to guide your life or your business? How did you get started? And where did you end up?

Best Blogging Tools for Beginners

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.beginner-outdoor-blogger

Starting a blog can be exciting and totally overwhelming at the same time. There is a LOT of information out there on how to do it. It’s easy to get stuck in information gathering mode; signing up for courses, joining Facebook groups, listening to podcasts and reading so much information your face turns blue.

I felt this way when I started Indoorsy Camper. To be perfectly honest I still fall into the information trap from time to time. Even though this blog is new, I’ve learned a couple things along the way and wanted to share a list of my favorite blogging tools for beginners.

Rather than bombard you with all the tools, this post going to hone in on plug-ins. There’s a lot of plug-ins out there and it can be tough to decide which ones are worth using. I use all of these on my own blog. I wouldn’t have found many of them without the help of other bloggers, podcasters and content creators who kindly shared their not so secret “secrets”. Which is why I am committed to transparency when it comes to Indoorsy Camper. I really believe that there’s an audience out there for everyone and that a scarcity mindset will only hinder my and others success. So here’s my current top 9 plug-ins. I hope they help other outdoor bloggers…or any beginner blogger for that matter.

Free Blogging Tools: Plug-ins

  • Custom Sidebars: This simple plug-in lets you create custom sidebar configurations to place in the widget area of your pages or posts. For example, look at the sidebar on this page, now click over to my Gift Guide page and see the difference between the two. On the gift guide page I’ve left off my bio and changed the top posts widget to only show my other gift guides.
  • Forget about Short Code Buttons: I’m no expert at HTML or any other coding languages, but I really wanted to add buttons to a post I wrote about lodging options at the Grand Canyon. One Google search and several reviews led me to the Forget about Short Code Buttons plug-in. I’ve been very happy with how easy it is to create customized buttons and add them to my posts.
  • MonsterInsights: If you have any interest in knowing how readers are interacting with your blog you’re gonna need to set up Google Analytics. There’s plenty of ways to do this, but I found MonsterInsights to be a quick and easy way to connect my Google Analytics account to my blog. No technical knowledge needed, just follow the setup prompts and you’re done!
  • Yoast SEO: While we’re talking about analytics, you may as well download Yoast SEO. It comes in a free or paid version (I haven’t bothered to spring for the paid version). It helps you optimize keywords, reviews your content for readability and is always updated for Google’s algorithm.
  • Instagram Feed: If you didn’t know I’m a BIG fan of Instagram! It’s where I feel I can be the most open (aside from my newsletter of course) and really engage with my people. The Instagram Feed plug-in is easy to install and lets your blog readers easily find you on the gram.
  • Social Warfare: This plug-in makes it easy for mobile users to pin and share your posts to Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and several other social sharing networks. I love this plug-in, it’s easy, the buttons load quickly and they look clean on my site.

Paid Plug-ins for Beginner Outdoor Bloggers

*This links to these plug-ins are affiliate links. Which means I make a small commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

  • EWWW Image Optimizer: We all want big beautiful images in on our blog pages and inside our blog posts. BUT those come with a price. They can slow down your website and lead to readers clicking away because they don’t want to wait. This can damage your conversion rates and lower your search engine rankings. EWWW Image Optimizer automatically optimizes new images. Plus it allows you to go back and convert your old images to the best file format with no visual loss.
  • MiloTree: You may not like pop-ups, but the truth is they work. You can get MiloTree up and running in two minutes flat. It can be integrated with Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or your email subscriber. You choose the accounts you want to feature, how often you want the pop-up to appear, how you want it to look and boom, you’re done.
  • Tasty Pins: Tasty Pins was created for food bloggers, but that doesn’t mean other types of blogs can’t benefit. It might seem surprising, but Pinterest is the number one driver of traffic to my blog. That means I need my images to be beautiful and include my keyword rich Pinterest description. Tasty Pins lets you add your image descriptions and alt text right inside your blog. It also allows you to have multiple hidden images that are force pinned. It’s probably my favorite plug-in on the entire list! It’s a game changer.

There you have it, my nine favorite plug-ins, for the moment anyway. Do you have any other plug-ins you love? Comment below and tell me about them.