A Few Eventful Days

Hi, WAers,

These last few days have been quite eventful. I'd been meaning to write this update for days but hadn't had the time to do so.

Anyway, I'd like to share a little about what's been going on.

First Anniversary

Last week (or the week before last, not sure) marked my first anniversary as a Premium member. It has been a long journey, I must say.

I started with one website, but due to the pandemic, I had to change niches as the traffic was negligible. So, I opened a second website. I've been working on both websites ever since. If managing one site is demanding, you can imagine what managing two is like.

What have I learned? For starters, I learned about SEO, which was something completely new to me. I also learned about affiliate marketing, best blogging practices, guest posts, ads, analytics, social media for business, email marketing (well, to be honest, I'm still trying to figure this one out), and whatnot. I've even become obsessed with alt text lol.

I've also met a few people whom I consider my friends now. The community in here is helpful for the most part, which is greatly appreciated.

Any money? Not yet. We've been told thousands of times it starts coming in after months or years of consistent, hard work. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong or what. But I've learned a lot and am not ready to give up just yet.

Facebook

I know many of you hate Facebook. I hate it at times too, but we can't deny its usefulness. If it weren't useful, big companies wouldn't advertise there. Don't you think?

Anyway, I always post my articles to Facebook. Even though my domain was blocked back in April of this year due to unknown reasons, I've managed to post my tweets to Facebook. My posts always get only a few impressions since I don't have too many followers.

I try to post consistently on Facebook to keep engagement up. Well, last week I posted something trivial, nothing out of the ordinary, and it turns out my post had around 600 impressions! I'd never had that many since I started. It was being shared and liked, and I even got a few followers.

I'd like to run a campaign and see how many followers I can get, but unfortunately, I can't direct any traffic to my site. I'm trying to get the ban lifted, but I can't rely on that.

Pinterest

Before joining WA, I'd already had a Pinterest account, but I never used it. Well, it's a different story now. I use it for all my posts. Creating pins on Canva and uploading them to Pinterest has become second nature.

I still don't completely understand Pinterest. I know it's more of an image search engine than social media. If I were to compare it to Facebook or Twitter, this is the one platform I've been most successful in.

For example, two weeks ago I published a pin as usual, and what was my surprise? Well, when I checked the analytics the following day, I noticed that that single pin had reached 1,200 impressions in just one day. Those impressions did not translate into lots of visits to my site, but I had never seen this happen. It was somewhat encouraging, I must confess.

Twitter

I also use Twitter constantly. My tweets have a good reach for the most part. I can't really complain here. My tweets are liked and retweeted, and I've gained a few followers by participating in writers' lifts and targeting certain hashtags.

Well, last week I received a DM from Triptipedia. It's basically a free travel encyclopedia (my niche is in travel), and they asked me if I would like to collaborate with them. I can write about anything travel-related and get a link back to my site. I can't include my links in my posts, but any readers interested can check my bio and visit my site or social media from there.

I'd been thinking of writing a guest post but never got around it. I don't know if this counts as one, but I think it does in some way. After all, there's a link back to my site. Well, I don't know, but it felt great to get recognized even though I'm not getting paid.

By the way, I just posted my first article there and am waiting for approval. Fingers crossed!

What's Next?

Good question. For starters, work on my sites to drive more traffic. I've had more luck with Bing and Yahoo, but Google remains a mystery to me.

Second, improve the speed of my sites. Honestly, I don't know what else to do. I always optimize my images, try not to abuse plugins, etc., but still, my speeds are not good.

Third, sit down and get started with email marketing. I've been delaying this, but it has to be done.

Fourth, sign up to affiliate marketing programs once I reach 50 posts on my second site.

Fifth, open a YouTube channel? I think it would be too much work at this point, but I don't discard the possibility.

Well, folks, that all for today. I'll do my best to keep you posted.

Enrique