Now that I am a stay at home mom, I am pursuing blogging as a full-time career! I want to share the steps I am taking to go from blogging part-time (after my day job) to blogging full-time in between my duties as a homemaker. These steps will help you increase your blog traffic when you’re a stay at home mom!
I started out in the corporate world after I graduated college. I was doing customer service at a large shipping supply company in hopes of moving ranks to their corporate office. My degree was in business management but I still wasn’t sure exactly what career I wanted to pursue.
In the back of my head, I knew I always wanted to be a stay at home mom and raise my children. However, I was single for a few years and it was hard not knowing when or if I would each my future husband.
I started this blog only a few months after college because I wanted to pursue a side hustle that could eventually turn into a full-time job that I could maintain while being a stay at home mom.
Two years after college graduation I met my husband. And only a few months after our first anniversary, we had our first daughter, Harmony Sage!
I was thrilled that I could now become a stay at home mom. My daughter is currently one month old, and even though I still only make a small income from my blog, I am no longer working on it part-time, but full-time.
Here are the exact steps I am taking, and the steps that you can take to increase your blog traffic when you’re a stay at home mom!
Consistency
I learned this early on in blogging. Being consistent with your content is vital to your success as a blogger. Not only for your readers, but because of the algorithms in Wordpress and Google.
When you consistently produce content on your blog, you are telling Google that you are reliable. You are letting search engines know that you have information to share and you will be sharing it regularly.
Consistency also builds trust with your audience. They know they can keep coming back for more. That is turn leads to more traffic coming to your website.
To boost my traffic on my blog I am posting two new blog posts each week. By being consistent with uploading two new blog posts weekly, I should see an increase in blog traffic.
More Content That Ranks
Writing blog posts consistently each week is not enough on its own. It has to be search-worthy content that can rank on the first page of Google.
Writing about random things with no goal in mind will do me no value in bringing traffic to my blog. I need to be writing about things that people are searching for and want to know more about.
Pinterest and Google are great places to start when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization). Because I still have a small blog and audience I try to rank for long-tail keywords. This means longer phrases.
For example, instead of trying to rank on the first page of search engines for a blog called “How To Increase Your Blog Traffic,” I would instead try to rank for “How To Increase Your Blog Traffic When You’re A Stay At Home Mom.”
This is a much more niche search. Since I don’t have a likely chance of making the first page of Google with “How To Work From Home” I aim to rank when someone searches something longer. When you are on the first page of Google or a top result in Pinterest, you are sure to bring traffic to your blog!
To increase your blog traffic when you’re a stay at home mom be sure to not only be consistent but also make sure your posts offer tremendous value and have a high chance of ranking in Google.
I ask myself with each blog post: Does this offer tremendous value? If not, then I don’t write about it. It’s important to write about what others want to read, not just what I want to write about necessarily.
More Social Media Promotion
Another thing I am focusing on to increase my blog traffic now that I am a stay at home mom, is promoting my blog posts on social media.
With a small audience it can be hard to gain traffic because no one even knows you wrote anything! To take my blog form part-time work to full-time work, I am going to use Facebook groups as a main form of social media promotion.
I love being a part of these groups particularly on Facebook: Blog Passion Project, The Real Creative Mamas, Blog Support Group, and Blogging With Heart. Feel free to pop on over and join these for yourself!
How do these Facebook groups work? There are threads posted daily with instructions. You leave links to your blog post for comments or other social media links. Then you comment, like, react to, etc. other peoples links and they do the same for you!
It’s an amazing way to support other bloggers and increase traffic to your own blog when others help support you. Consider this social media promotion option to increase your blog traffic when you’re a stay at home mom.
More Freebies
I am working on creating more freebies for my blog to help increase traffic. In my free subscriber library there is currently only one ebook for free access when you sign-up for my email list.
I have a goal to add a few more ebooks and printables to the library to make more incentives for people to click around and stay on my blog longer. Also, if someone finds something they like for free they are more likely to share it with others. This is turn drives more traffic to my blog.
Emailing these freebies out to my email subscribers will also be another great way to drive traffic to my blog.
Avoiding Things That Are Not Priorities
Lastly, I want to only focus on IPA’s or Income Producing Activities. For example, the items listed above are all income producing because they drive traffic to my blog. When there is more traffic on my blog, I gain more revenue because of the ads and affiliate links. The reader may even purchase one of my products!
However, it’s so tempting to work on the items that are not income producing. They are usually much more fun and less boring. Sometimes it is good to work on these but only if I have extra time to do so.
Here are examples of some things that are not IPA’s: shooting photos, emails, connecting on Instagram, editing video clips, applying for sponsorships, writing guest posts, editing my website, and more.
While these are important to my blogging career, they do not generate revenue in and of themselves. Instead, I am going to be focusing on being consistent, promoting my content, and offering more things for free to help drive traffic to my website.
Well, there you have it! I’m writing two blog posts each week to go from part-time blogger to full-time stay at home mom blogger, promoting my blog posts on social media, and creating more freebies.
What are you doing to increase your blog traffic when you’re a stay at home mom? I’d love to know in the comments below!
Guest Post by Kelsey Harmony at www.goodpointgrandma.com