Getting Smart with Generating Blog Traffic: February Blog Traffic Report

Happy March! If it’s the beginning of the month, then it’s time to talk the blog traffic from last month. (Okay, I acknowledge that it might not be the beginning of the month, but we’re still int he first half of it.) I’m happy to say that I grew my blog traffic in February, and today I’m going to share how I did that. I don’t want to give you the secret this early in the post, but if you’re working on generating blog traffic, you’ll want to stick around.

If you’re new to my blog traffic reports, I share the data (aka the traffic report) that includes page views and bounce rate, my 10 top performing posts, and the 3 top sources of traffic. Then I share what I did that might affect my blog traffic, from things I did intentionally to what happened in my personal life that might inadvertently affect it. Finally, I share how I did on last month’s goals and my goals for this month. I do this to give my readers the fullest picture possible of what affects my blog traffic.

All blog traffic reports

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February 2020 Blog Traffic Report

Google Analytics Statistics

Page views: 14890 (+1.65% from January, +51.07% from last year)

Bounce Rate: 17.64% (-15.6% from January, -43% from last year)

Sessions: 6611 (+0.16% from January, +41.47% from last year)

Users: 5684 (-0.9% from January, +35.88% from last year)

Bloglovin: 1859 (+1.3% from January, -0.3% from last year)

Email subscribers: 701 (+0.86% from January, +8.68% from last year)

How I keep my bounce rate so low

Webhostinghub.com Statistics

Page views: 108,598 (-12% from January, +66.57% from last year)

Sessions: 5,211 (-14.1% from January, +87.31% from last year)

Users: 2,359 (-6.1% from January, +74.22% from last year)

Social Media

Facebook: 1083 (-0.01 from January, +3.24% from last year)

Twitter: 3697 (+0.13% from January, +10.98% from last year)

Instagram: 2948 (+0.2% from January, +13.99% from last year)

Pinterest: 9316 (+1.04% from January, +138.07% from last year)

Tumblr: 3985 (+0.1% from January, +1.84% from last year)

How I manage social media for my blog | How to get followers on Pinterest

Top Posts

1. 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Received My Rheumatoid Arthritis Diagnosis
2. What Does Endometriosis Feel Like?
3. POTS and Heat Intolerance
4. Fun Things To Do in Boston: A 3-Day Guide
5. The Products I Loved (And Wanted) in Grad School
6. 31 Historical Fiction Novels To Take You Back in Time
7. Accepting Your Body with Chronic Illness
8. What Is the Difference Between Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis?
9. Loving Someone with Chronic Pain
10. My Biggest Fear Realized

Top Sources of Traffic

• Pinterest (74.28%) – I think that this is the highest percentage I’ve ever seen! Which makes me really happy because … my “big thing” I did in February was try a Pinterest course! More about that down below. But Needless to say, that course and the things I learned from it definitely helped boost my blog traffic.
• Search engines (5.97%) – I try to use SEO, aka search engine optimization, in every blog post, so I love to see it worked. You might not believe it’s working because this is a low number. But when one source of traffic brings nearly 75% of your blog traffic, the other sources are going to be low. Also, something I’ve talked about a lot over the years is that you need to treat Pinterest as the search engine it is; using SEO also contributed to the nearly 75% of my traffic coming from Pinterest.
• Facebook (3.53%) – This is a big drop from last month! But I’m going to assume that’s because of Pinterest bringing more traffic. While I’m sure some blog traffic from Facebook comes from people sharing and/or clicking on links on Facebook in general, more of it comes from my Facebook page, as well as from participation in Facebook groups for bloggers. If you want to know what Facebook groups I’m a member of and active in, I include them in this post on how I promote my blog posts.

This does not include direct traffic.

How to use Pinterest for blog traffic | How to use SEO to stand out

Getting Smart with Generating Blog Traffic

What I did

• How I promote my blog posts
• Big thing: the Pinterest with Ell course
  • The reason why I’ve included “getting smart” in this post is that I made the choice to finally purchase Ell’s Pinterest course. I’ve seen a lot of Pinterest courses over the years, and I don’t think that I ever purchased one. (Or at least, I don’t remember ever purchasing one.) I’ve been a member of Ell’s Facebook group for at least a year, and I’ve seen a lot of people say how helpful Ell’s course is. I thought that I was pretty good at Pinterest already (and, not to brag, I was definitely better than the average user), but this course showed me more ways to use Pinterest that have clearly brought me more traffic. In January, I had 3,861 page views from Pinterest, which was 66.16% of my traffic. In February, I had 4,345 page views from Pinterest. which was 74.28% of my traffic. That’s 484 more page views from Pinterest over the course of a month. Even though I thought I already knew basically everything about Pinterest!
  • I’m not going to share what exactly I learned from Ell’s course because that’s not fair to her. But I will say that I implemented what I learned over the course of the month and have continued to do so. The reason that I chose Ell’s course is that I’ve heard so much about it over the last year that I’ve been in her Facebook group, and it wasn’t just from people who were new to blogging and using Pinterest for blogging. It was also from bloggers like me, who already used Pinterest and already thought that they were experts. The course itself is $39, which is a pretty good price, especially if you’re new to Pinterest and using it for blogging. Coincidentally, I had $40 allocated for continuing my blogging education this year, so I decided to spend that amount on the course. To me, it’s worth it. Especially because Ell regularly updates the course, so you can get up-to-date Pinterest information without paying again.
• Left one of my Tailwind Tribes because I didn’t submit many pins to it
• Changed the link in my Twitter bio
• Bought and started using PixiStock’s 2020 content calendar for Instagram
• Made a page for my POTS exercise protocol diaries posts
• Changed my Tailwind Instagram schedule
• Started having a jaw arthritis flare, which made me be less active online (including fewer blog posts than I intended)

How to get the most out of Tailwind for Pinterest

I haven’t seen results from

• The page for my exercise protocol diaries – This isn’t a surprise, but it’s worth noting because I want to make something clear: when you make a page for a series, you won’t automatically get lots of page views or lower your bounce rate, which is my real goal. I expect that this will change at some point, but it’s not the end of the world if it takes a while. This page took maybe 10 minutes to build, and it’s something that might help lower my bounce rate more than anything, so it’s fine if it takes a little while to make a difference. However, I’m glad that I made a full page for these posts because it’s better for my blog than sharing a page for the tag.
• Changing my Tailwind Instagram schedule – This is a bit disappointing, but I will have to see what happens over the next month or so before I can make a real decision of it this is something I need to fix. Like many bloggers, I find Instagram frustrating, which is why I have Tailwind for Instagram and why I bought the PixiStock content calendar. I hoped that my lack of engagement could be fixed by changing the schedule, but I didn’t really notice any improvements. Unfortunately, a lot of it comes down to the fact that my content isn’t as good as Instagram requires to get large amounts of engagement. (You can only blame the algorithm so much!) That’s not shocking because images have always been my weakness, but it is annoying.
• Changing the link in my Twitter bio – This isn’t a big deal, as I really changed it because the link went to my MailChimp account and I’ve switched to MailerLite. I can easily transfer MailChimp subscribers to my MailerLite account, but it’s one more thing to do, and I’d rather not have to deal with it.

Why I switched to MailerLite for my email newsletter

What I can learn this month

• While you don’t need to pay for tons and tons of courses and resources, Ell’s Pinterest course is worth the price. – Over the years, I’ve spent a fair amount of money on blogging courses and things that you can only access if you pay. By and large, I’ve stopped doing that because I was finding that various courses and such didn’t have new-to-me information. Which is why I was so hesitant to shell out my hard-earned blogging money on Ell’s course, but I was considering it for a while. I’m so glad that I purchased this course; it’s exactly what Ell said it was. If you aren’t super comfortable with using Pinterest to get blog traffic, you absolutely should get this course. If you think you know everything there is to know about Pinterest, there is a good chance you’re wrong. I know that because that’s what I felt. But Ell is so good at Pinterest in general and for bloggers specifically. Nearly 75% of my blog traffic was from Pinterest in February! That’s so much! You should absolutely buy this course.

February Goals

• 4 blog posts – Success! But barely. I published 4 blog post exactly. My jaw flare definitely had a role in that; it started in the middle of February and really knocked me out for at least a week before I gave in and increased my steroids to tackle it.
• 13,000 page views – Success! I really wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out due to publishing fewer blog posts than I intended. The fact that I not only met this goal and maintained my page views from January but also increased my page views is an indicator of how helpful Ell’s Pinterest course is. I can’t recommend it enough!

March Goals

• 4 blog posts – I’m keeping through goal here because my infusion is running out, making regular life difficult, so I’m aiming for one blog post a week.
• Maintaining page views – Same reasoning above applies here! I hope that I can keep my page views where they are, and it would be awesome if I could grow my page views, but it’s more likely that they will stay where they are.

Have you done any blogging courses that have been worth the money?

Like this post? Check out:

9 Reasons Why Tailwind Is Worth the Money, The Dos and Don’ts of How To Get Your Blog Noticed, 11 Tools To Grow Blog Traffic, Why Isn’t My Blog Getting Traffic?