December 2016 income Report: Fixing Pinterest Traffic!

Guys.

Things are totally improving.

Things are getting better, and they started getting better in November.  Stay tuned, because I am going to cover what I did after I give my income report.  You won’t want to miss it:

As a reminder this income report is made possible through my Blogging Income Spreadsheet — it calculates all my percentages and makes blog tracking SO easy!  Grab it today to make 2017 your best year yet!

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Sessions: 134,000 (up 33%)

Wait, who’s not on their feet standing up and clapping?  BECAUSE I AM. 🙂

Ad Revenue: $2100 (up 67%)

Thank you very much end of third quarter, plus I ran an ad campaign for my church that adds a little to the bottom line

Own Product Sales: $700 (up 30%)

Ok people.  I had pretty much given up hope on my prenatal class.  I’d ran ads, I’ve tweaked the page endlessly.  And then a friend said she was making the foray into trying marketing and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse to work on my FB ads for a month.

And they. are. working.  We only started them on December 26th, but it made my conversion rates are probably triple what they were before!  Stay tuned for what we’re doing and what’s working.  Some thoughts early on:

• I changed the header of the page to state the real reason people need to buy it
• I turned the video on auto play.  Which I absolutely hate, but ultimate bundles says it helps sales, and I think they’re right
• I’ve been running small sales and putting my timer up there, always helps!
• Pricing has ZERO to do with it.  I ran a HUGE 50% off sale on Black Friday with NO better results than regular sales.  So weird.

I sold 5 classes on Dec 31st and that trend of 2-5 classes selling/ day has continued.  And I am SO. FREKAING. JAZZED.  Stay tuned for next month where I really dive into this one!

OH, and I had a total drop off of sales from about the 15th to the 17th or so.  I think people just weren’t thinking prenatal class (and I’m very grateful they picked up).

Affiliate Income: $1800

I love my affiliate income, but one that I made a good amount with for a long time has just zeroed out.  I even wrote a new post about it — nada.

Just a reminder that my OWN products are where it’s at.

Sponsored Posts: $2800

You’ve gotta take ’em while you have ’em — but they’re not my favorite to write, for the most part.  I appreciate the companies willing to work with me, though.

Note:  I have raised my sponsored post rate, and I really only take ones that are a good fit, or will pay a HUGE premium to be on my blog.  I price each post separately.  Based on their fit, how much I want to write it and how I think my readers will identify with it.  Anyway, price yourself what you’re worth!

Total Income: $6800

THA-RILLED with this!  Yes, a good amount goes to taxes, but I am happy to see income up.

I’m not going to lie, as I saw my sessions dropping it really hurt my heart to see my income going with it.  BUT, income fluctuates, grateful for what we got in December.  My goal is to hit 100k in January, though quality, honest blogging.  We’ll see if I make it

Some of you might think this includes my new product launch (which I am accepting affiliates for) — but that did not launch until January 2nd.

It, FYI, was a mess, for the first morning people couldn’t buy unless they were logged in (which most people couldn’t, since they didn’t have an account). Anyway.  Lame — so grateful for Benjamin at Spark Logix — he’s been really helpful with my WooCommerce questions. 🙂  But, that class is converting really well.  The best of any of my launches.  Super proud and happy. 🙂

I have also bought Rachels’ Moolah class for upping my FB game.  I am really liking it so far.  Like all good classes it’s changing my entire blogging game.  Good stuff!  You can tell that I’ve changed my FB profile and cover page on my FB page.  All changes for the good.

Also, I am using Mass Planner to automatically invite people to like my page that have had any reaction to my FB page.  It has also helped raise my Instagram and Twitter numbers.  Now, I just need FB to follow. 🙂

OK, back to Pinterest

How I resurrected my Pinterest Traffic:

Be sure to get my most RECENT tips right here:

Back story:

I had great traffic in early 2016.  Right up until mid-June, when things just DROPPED.  I had been getting 6-7k/day and suddenly I was getting 4, and then down to 3, and I was starting to see more 2k days than 3k… and I was starting to get sick inside.  I had talked to Kate Ahl at Simple Pin a few times, and she recommended I switch to Tailwind.

I pooh-poohed it.  I hadn’t had great luck with Tailwind   I had done the free trial, and hadn’t noticed those pins had done any better.  I was pinning with Board Booster for so long and had done just fine.  I was just sure that wasn’t it.

I even had a back and forth with Dennis from Board Booster (who I love).  My repin rates vs the average were HORRIBLE.  It wasn’t just me.  He was stumped!

But, it was November 11th.  I had gotten a message from someone on Pinterest about a Tailwind study she had done where she had seen better click throughs on Tailwind.  Plus, I talked to someone else who said that I really needed to work on key-wording my pins.

And finally, I signed up for Tailwind.  I was ready to invest to see if it would work.

And it WAS an investment.  I turned off all Board Booster’ing, except for looping, and a few other boards (I still think looping works, it’s made my pregnancy one be a great traffic driver for me).  And I sat down and started scheduling Tailwind.

At the same time, I started keywording pins like crazy.  Descriptions went from “Here’s a great way to meal plan for your family, it’s stress-free and super healthy”

“Here’s a great way to meal plan for your family, it’s stress-free and super healthy”

to

Meal Plan | menu | tips | budget | healthy | family

Yup, total sterile, and sad.  My pins had always been VERY conversational so this was a big change.

And a super annoying one, that is still taking quite a lot of time.  But it is what it is.

To start-up scheduling on Tailwind, I mainly watched their videos and a few YouTube ones.  I have a very weird system in my head how I want pins going out.

My Weird Tailwind Plan:

You may or may not follow me here, but I have pins set into 5 basic groups:

Most popular pins:  These pins get the most traffic for me from Pinterest — these pins go out to my 4 best boards once a month.

Best of pins:  These pins get the most repins from Pinterest (and no, these aren’t the same) — these pins go out every 5 days to the boards that they best fit on.  Plus, it might include a few popular and I just have to hope they don’t overlap.

Mediocre Pins:  These are pins that don’t do so hot, but I am willing to worth with them, and maybe try again. — I schedule these pins out every 15 days to the boards they fit on

Niche:  These pins only do well on niche boards — when I schedule them, I space them each 10 days apart, ONLY on Niche boards.

Deleted:  These pins are dead.  {sound of taps in the distance}  I do not pin them at all.

Anyway, that’s how my system goes.  I’m keywording every pin that goes out before I schedule it.  I use the interval scheduling option, and I am sure to change up the boards I am starting with so that pins aren’t going to the same boards every day.

I pin everything but popular or new content on my open time slots (I pin popular and new content as “optimized” via Tailwind)

I pin about 15-20 pins/day through TW.

I still also loop, and I pin some things with Ahalogy (my user name there is Pulling Curls)…

I ALSO have started deleting pins.  It does a couple of things for me:

1. I am REALLY seeing the ones that I do well with, and the boards/pins that don’t do well.
2. I think it gives me better credit on Pinterest.

I don’t delete until at least 10-20 days after the pin went out.  And only zero’s, so take that as you will.  I don’t think pin deleting will solve your problem (I had tried it previously with little help).

I also don’t delete them on my own boards (I move them to a board that holds extras of those pins).

And I know some of you are thinking this is a cyclical fix, and I guess it COULD be — but I slowly saw traffic go up after the change, and then about 1 month after the full change over — it was like a switch flipped.  Whamo — traffic is doing well!

Also, a lot of my traffic is pregnancy related, which isn’t particularly seasonal…

So grateful, so thankful for everyone who pushed me to make a change.  It wasn’t fun — but worth while. 🙂

The 4 fixes, I’d say (to summarize) is to:

• Pin using Tailwind (especially if you feel like Board Booster isn’t working anymore)
• Pin less (I swear the less I pin the better things do — to a point, definitely use your best-performing boards)
• Loop your own boards (I also created boards that loop that contain ONLY my content)
• Keyword pins

I have no idea if it will work for you, and — frankly — I can only cross my fingers and hope that it keeps working for me.

Either way, I am sure to remember that traffic has ups and downs and I REALLY should not to take the day to day (or instant) numbers too hard!

I hope you found this income report helpful!  I do them monthly and I’d LOVE to have you join along!  I’d also really appreciate it if you shared this in your blogging groups.  I don’t write this stuff to keep it in a bubble — sign up! And, you can see my other income reports below that!

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