How I Got 1,185 Views My First Week Blogging
To some, this number is nothing – I’ve read articles of people who have had over 5,000 views their first week. Crazy! However, I was proud of getting this many views in my first week with absolutely zero experience with blogging. If this seems like an exciting number to you too, let me explain how I did it.
Pastime to Profit went live on Feburary 15th 2021. This means my first week would have ended on the 21st. See below for evidence that I did get 1,185 views in my first week! Side note… you may also be interested in my article on how I got 125 email subscribers my first week blogging.
How I Got 1,185 Views My First Week Blogging: Content
How I Got Readers to Pastime to Profit
1. Social Media
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Other
2. I Made Irresistible Freebies
How I kept Readers on Pastime to Profit
1. Had Enough Content on The Website So People Could Look Around
2. Linked blog posts with internal links to one another
3. Technical Aspects of The Website
4. Used Headings and Spacers to Structure My Articles
How I Got 1,185 Views My First Week Blogging: Final Thoughts
How I Got Readers to Pastime to Profit
1. Social Media
When launching my blog, I knew all my traffic at the start would come from social media. As it was my first day, no articles were going to be ranked on Google and I didn’t have any backlinks.
Did I just post once on my social medias and be done with it? Heck no. Particularly the first day, I really wanted to push it to see how many readers and email subscribers I could get. I don’t really know why… I understood blogging is a long-term game and not this immediate result endeavour, but you only start a blog once and I wanted to have fun looking at my stats!
I focused on two main social media platforms the first day, Facebook and Instagram.
Instagram (Reaching out to others)
On the build-up to when my website was going live, I reached out to some smaller Instagram users to see If they would be willing to promote my launch. A significant number of my posts are Etsy based, so I reached out to Instagram users who specifically promote Etsy seller’s work.
Whilst a few didn’t see my message or did not response (to be expected), a number of them were happy to help. As many articles are Etsy based, I felt they may be of interest to their followers. So, this was the first thing I did in preparation on Instagram.
Instagram (using my own accounts)
Luckily, being an Etsy seller myself, I have an Etsy Instagram profile. I also have an Etsy promotion account where I promote others work for free called @promote.your.Etsy, as well as a personal account. With these three accounts, I promoted my blog launch.
• I added the link to the website in my bio.
• I engaged with other people’s Instagram content throughout the day as this drives people to your profile and increases the number of link clicks.
• I posted 3 posts throughout the first day on each account.
• I posted stories onto my accounts.
• I had a backlog of requests for shoutouts on my @promote.your.Etsy account and replied to these – in doing so I also added a link to some of the articles I felt they may find useful.
• Having a promotion Etsy account means people often message you asking for advice on their Etsy store – I messaged all these people from the past and present to explain I now had a website with lots of information if they wanted it for their Etsy store.
• I did an Instagram live showing some of the articles on Pastime to Profit.
As you can see, I was active on Instagram. I did not just make a post and hope for the best. From reaching out to other influencers in the niches I write about, to messaging those who have shown interest in the past and doing an Instagram live, I was busy.
When it came to Facebook, I did my research. I knew I also wanted to write a resource blog post for the best Facebook groups for Etsy sellers. So, finding these, looking around and joining them was like getting two birds with one stone.
After I had found 30 groups that were great in supporting Etsy sellers and allowing them to promote their content, I wrote an article (prior to launch). This resource article is simply a list giving readers the links to these groups too.
Now that I had written an article, I too could also benefit from using these groups. On launch day, I had put together a few posts explaining what Pastime to Profit was about and some links to useful resources for the Etsy sellers. This got me steady clicks throughout the day, and the remainder of the week.
As you can see, the majority of my views came in the first day, and believe it or not, this is because I only promoted it the first day. After this, I got straight back to writing content – IncomeSchool really make clear how important actually writing the content is over everything else. But I was still getting on the whole over 100 views a day without promoting!
Pinterest is a search engine. I knew on the first day I wasn’t going to be ranking – but it was worth getting the ball rolling… especially with group boards.
Whilst people argue the era of Pinterest group boards is dead, I personally still find them very useful. There was also a lot of preparation work for Pinterest. (Check out this article I put together on 29 tips to be successful on Pinterest).
I again wanted to write resource articles for Pinterest. I looked for the best Pinterest Etsy group boards, as well as the best ‘request to join’ blogging group boards. After a long (looong) time, I had found 115 Etsy group boards to promote your products and 50 ‘request to join’ blogging group boards.
I wrote an article, as mentioned earlier, titled ‘Etsy Group Boards: 50 Amazing Boards To Make More Money’, but also ‘Blogging: 25 ‘Request to Join’ Boards For Bloggers’. You may have noticed those numbers don’t add up to how many boards I actually found. If you’ve read my article on how I grew my email list to 125 subscribers my first week blogging, you’ll know I used the other boards as sign-up freebies!
Similarly with Facebook, this endeavour was getting two birds with one stone once again. Not only did I now have these resource articles which are popular, I also had access to these group boards myself. On launch day, in the boards that allowed this, I promoted my blog articles.
Others
Just for completeness, I also did a story on Snapchat which got me 1 view and 1 email sign-up. Win!
2. I Made Irresistible Freebies
Some of you may be wondering: ‘great… so you did all that on social media but why did as many people click through as they did?’. You could say they were just being supportive. But I also think offering them useful content or a freebie really changes the game.
Throughout my posts, stories, lives and messaging, I always also talked about the freebies. What were they?
• The BIGGEST one was offering a free shoutout on Instagram to Etsy sellers to promote their work.
• The second was offering an Etsy store review. I offered for an email sign up to review Etsy sellers store for SEO, photography, general feel like logo and banner, among other things.
• Next was access to a further 25 ‘request to join’ blogging group boards because what blogger doesn’t want to promote their content to more people? Hey… if this also interests you, you can get them below too!
As you can see, the Etsy freebies were my best two options that drove traffic to my website. However, the blogging group boards also performed quite well throughout the week from Facebook.
You may be thinking that you can’t offer a free shoutout or review because you’re not in the right niche. The take-home message is… try to think of something that is irresistible that will pull people to your site.
Side note: I really hope you’re enjoying or finding how I got 1,185 views my first week blogging useful!
How I kept Readers on Pastime to Profit
Research, preparation and organisation is a key thread running throughout this section. Firstly, using Pinterest, I researched what other successful bloggers had done and tried to implement similar strategies – some of which I found very useful and touch upon below.
It’s safe to say I wanted to be prepared and organised in the run up to launching my blog. So, how did I prepare and get organised?
1. I Had Enough Content on The Website So People Could Look Around
In my research for how to start a blog, this always came up as the most important. I read loads of articles and watched a lot of YouTube. This was time consuming, but I found a channel that I think is the best one out there! Check out IncomeSchool when it comes to blogging… I truly believe they are the best source of information.
Having more content meant there were more articles on my site so when someone did visit, they had more options and articles to read. Having more articles also means that long-term, I have a far better chance at drawing in more readers and ranking more articles higher on Google.
I made sure I had written a variety of articles that filled out my 4 key topics of interest: Etsy, social media tips, making and saving money and blogging. Within each of these categories, I had written a staple post offering some advice to the reader, as well as resource articles.
An example includes my Etsy page. I had written an article called ‘Sell on Etsy: 5 Underused Tips That Guarantee More Money.’ This was an information post that people spent longer reading. I also wrote two smaller, list-like resource articles: ’30 Amazing Facebook Groups to Get More Sales on Etsy’ and ‘Etsy Group Boards: 50 Amazing Boards to Make More Money’.
This meant there were a mix of longer, informative posts and shorter, resource posts giving people a variety to choose from. They were also all along the same topic and had relevant parts in each to one another. This leads us to the next point.
2. Link blog posts with internal links to one another
I ensured that the articles I wrote at the start for each niche had interlinking information. If we look back at my Etsy advice articles, I wrote those articles knowing I would be able to link effectively between them. But why?
I knew that If readers were looking at the 5 underused Etsy tips that guarantee more money, it meant they wanted more sales on Etsy. They were actively looking for ways to improve their store or promote their products. By writing the 2 resource articles giving them access to Facebook groups and Pinterest Boards that would allow them to promote their products, I knew it was likely people would click through.
Not only did I interlink within a niche such as my Etsy articles, wherever appropriate I also interlinked between niches. For example, in my making and saving money page, I had written an article titled: ’10 Creative Hobby Ideas to Make Money in 2021.’ People looking at creative hobbies to make money will need somewhere to sell their items. This is where I also linked back to my Etsy articles. See how my first load of articles weren’t simply to get my number of articles up? I planned which articles I thought could be linked to one another before writing.
3. Technical Aspects of The Website
Some of you may be thinking how could this help me get 1185 views my first week blogging. Well… the speed of Pastime to Profit meant meant I had lower bounce rates.
I wanted to make sure my website run as fast as possible from the off. Irrespective of where and when people load the website, I wanted to have, at least, under a 3 second load time. This meant people were more likely to actually reach the website and not give up because of load time. It also meant people were more likely to quickly click around for what they were interested in.
In order to ensure I didn’t slow down my website unnecessarily, I:
• Used a lightweight, fast theme called Kadence.
• Limited the number of plugins I used and only kept ones that were active.
• Got the WP-Optimize plugin for cleaning, compressing and cache.
• Used Canva and downloaded my images as JPG not PNG.
• Use the ShortPixel plugin to reduce all my images.
• Researched and got the Lazy Load plugin for images.
• Tested my website using tools like Pingdom and GTMetrix.
I also ensured you could navigate to every single article from the home page.
4. Used Headings and Spacers to Structure My Articles
This one is short and sweet to end the article. I have been on websites where there is massive paragraphs of text and found it quite difficult to read. I wanted the text to be easily readable to improve reader experience.
Therefore, I try to make my paragraphs quite small so it isn’t just a wall of text per heading. I personally also use the Elementor plugin to help build my pages and articles. I use the spacer tool to ensure there’s a larger gap between the end text of a section and the heading of the next section.
Finally, I also ensure I have adequate line spacing so that the text is well spread. I felt this was all important for user experience and, long-term, will hopefully result in return readers.
How I Got 1,185 Views My First Week Blogging: Final Thoughts
When I think about how I got 1,185 views my first week blogging, I think about my two main approaches. Not only did I want to get people to Pastime to Profit, I also wanted them to stay and click around.
Using social media and the incentive of freebies, I got people to click onto the website. I made sure I had enough content, I linked between the articles, the website wasn’t too slow and that the articles were easily readable. This meant readers also stayed around longer.
I really hope you enjoyed this article on how I got views my first week blogging or got some use from it! If you’re a blogger, as I’ve piped on in this article, you may find some benefit from joining these 25 ‘request to join’ blogging group boards. You may also like to read about 37 types of articles you can write to keep your content fresh, or even my article titled: ‘is alt text important for image SEO: Useful Guide.’ Hint… it is!
Consider subscribing below for more blogging hints and tips in future. I’d love to know how you’re all getting on and what brilliant tips you’ve found out along the way!