I hope this is the only Blog Progress Report I will ever have to do because once I start earning income from this blog, I will change it into Income Reports.
Wait, I did earn $22 worth of Airbnb credit for my this month, technically my first month of blogging, but I don’t think I’ll be including that as “real” income.
Ok, so where am I now with my blog? I published my first blog post on March 23, 2017 (my mother’s birthday), and since then, I’ve published 7 others.
My blog is live, but I’m hesitant to say that I’ve finally “launched” my blog. I consider April to be my “trial” month because I was working too much on the technical aspects of the blog more than the writing.
Basically, my blog has not “launched” yet, and here’s why:
- Lack of Promotion. Since I feel that my blog is lacking a lot of things, I am still uncertain about promoting my blog on any social media platform. So basically, no one reads my blog because no one knows about it yet. I’ve only ever announced the existence of my blog to 2-3 facebook groups where most people don’t even know who I am. Strangers do not care If I have a blog or not, and I am just scared to death to tell anyone I know. Which brings us to my #2…
- I’m not confident enough to tell my family & friends about my blog. I feel that blogging is not considered a “real” job yet, and the idea of explaining to them how a blog can earn me a decent living is just exhausting in itself. Even I have doubts about my abilities on being able to monetize my content, how can I even begin to convince them?
- Lack of Quality Content. I only have 8 posts published. I have put up several categories that I wanted to write about on my menu, and I am seriously lacking content in all of them. I haven’t even populated my resource library yet.
- No Pinterest-worthy Images. I have used stock images in all 7 of my published blog posts. I found some of the same images I’ve used on other people’s blog. Not good. From what I’ve been reading, you can’t have a successful blog without Pinterest-worthy images that you’ve taken yourself. Stock photos can only do so much; I don’t want my blog looking generic with too many stock photos.
- Not active in social media. I’m only active in a few facebook groups, and when I say active, I mean asking technical questions like how to put a link on an image or how to put downloadable stuff on a page. I’m seriously a dinosaur when it comes to social media, and learning them all is really blowing my brain fuse more than I can count. For instance, I was invited to join a Pinterest group board, but I don’t even have one image pinned on my non-existent boards! I have no tweets, and not one photo on Instagram. Diving into them all, or even starting on one is really overwhelming for me.
- No gameplan for monetization. I know you can launch a blog without monetization, but I do want to see its earning potential. I did put up Google Adsense for 3 days, but took it down again because it was making my site ugly and I was only making pennies. It wasn’t worth it. I am thinking of focusing my energy on affiliate marketing in the future.
- Disorganized blogging schedule or no working system. I have no system; I blog and write content whenever I want, publish them as soon as I’m done, and my blogging notes and documents are all over the place. I have a list of ebooks I have yet to read, my to-do list is as long as Santa’s naughty list, and I have severe back pain from working on a laptop while breastfeeding ( I had to put it out there).
- No good workspace. I have too many distractions; my workspace is a mess, my papers are a mess, everything is a mess, and so my brain is also cluttered. I cannot think properly in this environment, and it doesn’t help that we are moving house soon, so our stuff are in a complete disarray.
- No way for visitors to subscribe. In the beginning, I thought I did a good job with this. I created a workbook as my opt-in freebie and used Convertkit to distribute and gather subscribers. But then I realized as I kept reviewing my opt-in freebie, it’s not good enough to make people want to give up their emails to me. And Converkit is an excellent service to get, but one that I cannot afford just yet, so I’ve cut my ties with them for the meantime and looked for other means of getting the job done without having to add to my expenses.
- No goal deadlines. I have written down my goals for the blog, but I have not created deadlines for them, which means that I always find myself dillydallying and undecided on a lot of things. When you have a deadline, you power through what you must do just to get it done. Without it, I feel like a soldier without a superior to answer to; I have nothing to accomplish and no reason to raise the bar.
I could go on and on and I will still find reasons on why I’m not ready to launch yet. This is what people do when they are scared of jumping into things and just getting it over with. I’m scared, ok? But I don’t want to be for long.
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Here is my game plan on how I can address the problems above so I can feel good about launching my blog this month.
- I’ll create a good work space for myself. My blog is my only job right now. I will follow my own advice and create a calm space for my work so I can be more efficient and productive. The courses in this Productivity Bundle are really helpful.
- I will not read other blogs anymore. At least for now. Reading other blogs makes me want to compare my own blog to theirs, which is totally a big blow to my confidence. I found that on days that I haven’t read another blog, I’m able to write content continuously.
- I will try and post content in every category every week. My goal is to fill each of my categories with useful content every week. I’m not sure if I’m keeping all my categories, but eventually, I hope to be more laser-focused with my niches.
- I will learn how to take good pictures with my phone. I do have a DSLR camera and I do know how to use it in manual mode. I worked with Kodak before, and we had to take basic photography classes for the job. However, being a mom, clutching a bulky professional camera everywhere I go is not always a good idea. I can maybe schedule photo ops for certain posts, but eventually, I’ll need to learn how to use my phone to take good pictures.
- I will focus on one social media for the moment. I wanted to work on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram, but I know this is a bad idea. I have post-preggo mommy brain, so dealing with one social media is all I can take right now. I decided to concentrate on Pinterest for now.
- I will refrain from “studying” anymore about monetization. I feel that this subject is so vast, that I would lose myself and not accomplish anything if I delve into it deeper. Sure, I would want to monetize my blog soon, and there are a lot of people already earning income on their 1st or 2nd month of blogging. But knowing myself, I would only be doing it half-right, or worse, I’d get paralyzed into doing anything at all.
- I will create a system and a blogging schedule. Because I am crazy dazed right now. I don’t even know what I’m accomplishing, or what I’m failing at because I’m just doing things whenever I feel compelled to. And too many things are happening behind the scenes too, so my priorities are just a mess now. I’ve just finished this book so hopefully, things will get better after applying the principles I’ve learned.
- I will create another Opt-In freebie. If I am not seeing a good conversion of subscribers after promoting my first opt-in freebie, I will need a back up so I can continue with building my list of like-minded people. Oh friends, where art thou?
- I’ll work with Mailerlite. I’m still in love with Convertkit, but I have heard good things about Mailerlite. I just need to learn a few more technicalities on this and I think I’d be fine.
- I’ll write deadlines for my mini goals. My goals are too big and vague so I want to narrow them into actionable steps with deadlines. Hopefully, I’ll be more laser focused iongrowing my blog by doing these mini action steps.
I think that is all for now. I found this post so easy to write; my thoughts flowed smoothly… which is really mind-opening. I’m more certain now that I’ll be doing income reports for A Calming Home once I’m done with blog progress reports. If you feel this is in any way helpful for you, please leave a comment below and let me know what you liked and how I can improve reports like this. What would you have me write about?
