You know that things are hectic when I’m posting my blog traffic report halfway through the month! This is for a couple of reasons. One, it’s gift guide season, so all of my Friday posts this month are dedicated to those. Two, work-wise things have been hectic. But I’m pretty sure the only time I’ve missed writing a blog traffic report since I started writing them was when The Fiasco happened. So I wasn’t going to miss writing this post all together! That being said, let’s talk about my blog traffic report and the sneaky things you can do, too, to grow your blog traffic.
This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Kate the (Almost) Great!
Grow Your Blog Traffic: November Traffic Report
Google Analytics Statistics
Page views: 8212 (+4.37% from October, -21.9% from last year)
Bounce Rate: 3.81% (-89% from October, -82% from last year)
Sessions: 7873 (+19.27% from October, +68.4% from last year)
Users: 5892 (+8.78% from October, +46.31% from last year)
Email subscribers: 709 (-1.2% from October, +1.28% from last year)
How I keep my bounce rate so low | How to track blog traffic in Google Analytics
Webhostinghub.com Statistics
Page views: 245,696 (+13.35% from October, +631.41% from last year)
Sessions: 26,993 (+30.65% from October, +531.11% from last year)
Users: 13,015 (+38.84% from October, +644.13% from last year)
Social Media
Facebook: 1160 (+1.22% from October, +6.61% from last year)
Twitter: 3670 (-0.2% from October, -0.5% from last year)
Instagram: 3131 (+0.77% from October, +8.5% from last year)
Pinterest: 10984 (+2.12% from October, +20.9% from last year)
Tumblr: 3988 (+0.05% from October, +0.4% from last year)
How I manage social media for my blog | How to get followers on Pinterest
Top Posts
- What Does Endometriosis Feel Like?
- What To Do When Chronic Pain Becomes Too Much
- The Products I Loved (And Wanted) in Grad School
- The Lifestyle Changes I Made for My Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Beginner’s Guide: Rheumatoid Arthritis Flare Up
- POTS and Heat Intolerance
- Chronic Illness and the Holidays: 10 Rules for a Great Season
- Loving Someone with Chronic Pain
- Why You Must Track Symptoms of Your Chronic Illness + Freebie To Help
- Describing Pain Levels to a Doctor
Top Sources of Traffic
- Pinterest (73.35%) – Without a doubt, Pinterest with Ell is the best Pinterest course out there. And one of the values of the course is that Ell updates it regularly as Pinterest changes. (She recently updated it and I really need to go through the new parts …) If you’re on the fence because you don’t know if it’s worth the price, you should go for it because it is. If you’re on the fence because you don’t know if it’s worth it because Pinterest, like all social networks, it’s constantly changing, don’t let that stop you given how frequently Ell updates it. You really need to buy this course already!
- Search engines (9.07%) – I was a bit surprised to see this number over 9%! This is the most traffic I’ve gotten from traditional search engines in a while. (I phrase it that way because Pinterest is basically a search engine.)
- Facebook (1.61%) – I’m never surprised to see Facebook make the top 3 considering how much time I spend on it!
This does not include direct traffic.
How to use Pinterest for blog traffic | How to use SEO to stand out
Sneaky Ways To Grow Your Blog Traffic: November Traffic Analysis
What I did
- How I promote my blog posts
- Big thing: working through courses and such from the Genius Blogger’s Toolkit, a bundle I bought at the end of September
- Ramp up your visibility by getting your blog posts in front of waaaay more people – perfect for health bloggers (Leesa is a health blogger)
- This led to me trying Missinglettr. Missinglettr lets you set up an automated set of social media posts. The free plan gives you 1 social media network and 50 scheduled posts. The posts look like this.
- Pin Practical Primer (all about Pinterest ads + Canva templates)
- The Hot List – for email list
- Ramp up your visibility by getting your blog posts in front of waaaay more people – perfect for health bloggers (Leesa is a health blogger)
- Made more Pinterest boards for only my content; repinned my pins to these boards as applicable, which brought them in front of other users, which brought them to my site
- Asked for contributions from other bloggers in on a post about chronic pain and winter, and many of those bloggers shared the post once it was up.
- Updated my blog pages with health blog keywords and image descriptions
- Ubersuggest went to being paid for; trying wordtracker.com
- WEGO featured me/my blog at their HealtheVoices panel
How to get the most out of Tailwind for Pinterest
I haven’t seen results from
- Updating blog pages – In all honesty, I don’t know if I can include this note in this section! I say this because the percentage and actual number of users coming from search engines was up in November. Now, my pages (updated and not) weren’t my top 20 most-viewed posts/pages. But overall search engine results are helped by high-ranking posts/pages, which then brings other posts/pages higher on the search results. Does that make sense?
What I can learn this month
- No matter how much you think you know about blogging, you can always keep learning – In reality, I think I figured this out years ago. After all, I’ve been sharing my blog traffic reports since 2015. In April, it will have been 6 years! But the truth is that anything on the Internet is constantly changing, and an industry like blogging is just one example. As things change, there will always be more to learn. Maybe this is why I like blogging so much. Maybe I’m just getting philosophical now 😉
- There are creative (aka sneaky) ways you can grow blog traffic, so always keep your eyes open for an opportunity! – This is one (of many) reason I think it’s so worth buying good-quality courses; even if you know most of what the instructor is talking about, you always learn something. For example, I never knew about Missinglettr before I took Leesa’s course, and Missinglettr brought me over 140 page views in November alone. I also really suggest making Pinterest boards for specific aspects of your niche. At the end of the day, this is a health blog, so making more boards for specific conditions I write about made a lot of sense. And that is such a random strategy that I’m honestly shocked it worked!
Why isn’t my blog getting traffic?
November Goals
- 4 blog posts – Success!
- Grow traffic – Success!
December Goals
- 6 blog posts – This post in particular is my 5th of the month already, so it’s definitely doable!
- 10,000 monthly page views – This won’t be easy, but it is possible.
What are some sneaky ways you’ve used to grow your blog?
Like this post? Check out:
50+ Incredible Free Blog Resources, What Blogging Platform Should I Use?, The Dos and Dont’s of How To Get Your Blog Noticed, Why I Switched to MailerLite from MailChimp for My Email Newsletter
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.
I love reading posts like this! I can’t believe you’ve been sharing these since 2015. One thing I wish was that I just went for it sooner.
I love the behind-the-scenes look into your blog traffic! I feel like I’m doing everything, but sometimes I still struggle. I have seen some major increases this year from Pinterest, though. What a total game-changer when you use it right.
There is always more to learn and grow. I wish I had started blogging sooner. I am so glad that there are bloggers like you that aren’t afraid to share your secrets so that the rest of us can learn.
These are great tips. Pinterest is HUGE for traffic… congrats on hitting your goals!!
Thanks for sharing all of these great in-depth tips!
Very informative post. I did not know that there is plugin (reduce bounce rate) which can help in reducing the bounce rate in your google analytics. Getting traffic is a bit of luck and patience, you will not know if it will become viral. Nice tips for Pinterest.