As you guys know, I have been on a journey to growing blog traffic for several years now. 2019 has been an interesting one in this journey. I started the year recovering from my deadly illness, then, just as I was finally recovered, my personal life kind of exploded in March. Also, I’m still off of all arthritis medications except for steroids, as my doctors don’t want me to become as ill as I was (understandably), so they’re trying to be very intentional with my medications. But this means that I still haven’t recovered to be where I was in November 2018, pre-illness.
As such, April was pretty hit-and-miss blog traffic-wise. I didn’t post as much as I planned. And I hope to get back to normal (or close to normal) in May – just in time for my blog traffic to decrease for the summer. Fun! Anyway, let’s get into it.
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My Journey to Growing Blog Traffic: April 2019 Blog Traffic Report
Statistics
Google Analytics Statistics
Pageviews: 10205 (-26% from March, -42% from last year)
Bounce Rate: 30.82% (+2.8% from March, +147% from last year)
Sessions: 4913 (-19% from March, -39% from last year)
Users: 4356 (-17% from March, -38% from last year)
Bloglovin: 1791 (-4.2% from March, -2% from last year)
Email subscribers: 670 (-0.8% from March, +54.7% from last year)
How I keep my bounce rate so low
Webhostinghub.com Statistics
Pageviews: 41373 (-24% from March)
Sessions: 21236 (-12% from March)
Users: 855 (-25% from March)
Social Media
Facebook: 1061 (+0.7% from March, +5% from last year)
Twitter: 3379 (+1.3% from March, from +3% last year)
Instagram: 2610 (+0.6% from March, -1.4% from last year)
Pinterest: 8118 (+1.9% from March, +36% from last year)
Tumblr: 3920 (+0.02% from March, +1.5% from last year)
How I manage social media for my blog
Top Posts
What I Wish I Knew When I Received My Rheumatoid Arthritis Diagnosis
Loving Someone with Chronic Pain
What Does Endometriosis Feel Like?
Most Popular Books of the 21st Century
Fun Things To Do in Boston: A 3-Day Guide
Beginner’s Guide: Seronegative Rheumatoid Arthritis
Accepting Your Body with Chronic Illness
The 8 Things a Millennial with Arthritis Wants You To Know
Top Sources of Traffic
- Pinterest (61.67%) – As I’ve mentioned in previous reports, I work really hard on Pinterest specifically, so I’m always glad to see how big this number can be. It’s not just about having pinnable images, which I mention in a post linked below. It’s also about treating Pinterest like a search engine, which I highly recommend.
- Facebook (7.9%) – I am a member of many Facebook groups for bloggers, which is the main source of this percentage. Would I like it to be higher? Of course.
- Search engines (6.26%) – I would also like this percentage to be higher! I try to have at least half of my posts be SEO-friendly
This does not include direct traffic
How to use Pinterest for blogging | How to use SEO to stand out
Traffic Analysis
What I Did
- How I promote my blog posts
- I spent a lot of time offline (my grandpa’s funeral, Easter, etc.) – This month was the month in which I posted the least on the blog without being hospitalized. Yikes! My personal life was a bit of a mess, which happens some times, and I can’t fight it and have to roll with it. So I had to take some time off here, including off of promoting posts.
- Went to HealtheVoices – This was super fun, and I also got a lot of new Twitter and Instagram followers from it.
April Goals
- 4 posts – Thank goodness I set the bar so low this month! I published 4 posts exactly.
- Improve pageviews – Fail, sadly
May Goals
- 4 goals – I don’t trust my body, so I’m going to keep this low.
- Improve pageviews
What have you tried for growing blog traffic?
Like this post? Check out:
How To Get Followers on Pinterest, Are You Plagiarizing on Your Blog? How You Might Be + Why It’s Bad, 8 Ways To Blog Better, My Proven Method for Blogging with Limited Time
Kate Mitchell is a blogger, chronic illness patient, and advocate who helps people understand chronic illness and helps chronic illness patients live their best lives.
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