It's My Monthiversary Here!

Hi, WA! After exactly one month, I wanted to check in with you on how I'm doing (especially since the last post was such a downer!), but more importantly, give myself more tangible successes to inspire myself to continue to succeed. I hope that I can inspire newbies and oldbies alike to be more motivated!

In One Month, I've:

- Created a website

- Bought my own domain

- Finished the Certification Courses

- Collected an unbelievable amount of images that I can use

- Gotten over 400 pageviews

- Signed up as an affiliate and been approved by over 15 actual clothing companies (plus Amazon)

- Started getting organic traffic (as in, people searched Google and clicked on me)

- Played around with my website design for hours

- Attended two Webinars on WA

- Written 13 posts and 4 pages (plus 2 unfinished pages and one post draft)

- Have over 100 comments

- Gone from rank 30k or something to 522

- Made friends

- Learned about a number of different niches

- Been invited to a Fashion, Beauty & Lifestyle master directory

- Commissioned a couple graphics from my artsy coworker

I haven't yet earned any money, but I'm well on my way to an established site. In my next month, I would like to:

- Make an informational and fun product review skeleton. Right now I'm looking at highlighting relevant reviews from different websites, rating the trendiness of the item (the lower = the longer it will be a wearable piece), including what body shapes it would work on AND what body shapes should avoid it, and make 2-3 examples of different ways to wear it. I'd be happy to hear any additional information that people could recommend!

- Change my background image. It's summer now, and while I wanted to evoke a sense of security and warmth, a sweater texture is starting to turn me off while I'm sweating in the humidity. I want something fresh and sweet, but my searches have basically turned up tablecloths.

- Start reviewing items. That's where my niche will get the most hits. I'm currently exploring what my approved affiliates are offering, but I need to start churning those out. I was making a post every 1-3 days there until this week (which was admittedly busy), but I do want to continue to grow.

- Actually make an effort on Google+. I've been really lacking in my social media involvement, and Google Analytics say I've gotten about 20% of my traffic from Google+ alone! My traffic could seriously increase if I remember to post my new posts. I'm not yet ready to get involved in G+, especially since it has such a reputation as the lame social media wannabe, but a little couldn't hurt.

- Register and start fleshing out a Pinterest account. Pinterest targets exactly the people that are my target audience -- middle-class women who dream of living a better life. They spend HOURS on there, searching and pinning and searching and sharing. Getting really involved in Pinterest and marketing towards that crowd will be FANTASTIC for traffic, ranking, and (hopefully) sales.

(Yes, I know Kyle told us to do that in the Social Media part of the courses, but I was really focusing on getting content on there. Social Media has been something that I've purposely cut out of my life, and I wasn't quite ready to start using it, especially in a marketing manner.)

- Rework how my website flows. Right now, there's the relevant information that I thought I would write at the top, but I've really written a lot of how-tos and basics... much more than I thought I would! I have to rework the way my website is designed. I'm starting to like the idea of a static homepage, though it's not quite as interesting. Perhaps highlighting recent posts and directing them to where you can start? I'll have to think about it and play with it.

- Go back and add images to posts that don't have any. I have a couple posts that i wrote in the spur of the moment, and published them before I found the vast resource of free domain pictures (Wikimedia Commons has so little for me) that I now know about. There are also a couple of pages that I have (I'm looking at you, Wardrobe Basics pages) that have images that I was lazy and just got off of Google Images. I can make my own images, apparently, from Polyvore, I just have to get off my butt and do it.

Thanks for reading, you've all been absolutely lovely this entire time!! Here's to a great month together, and working towards the next great month. Let me know if you have any constructive criticism, but, more importantly!

What are your goals for this month?