2 Years With a Blog: My Annual Review

This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you buy or book through one of these links, I may earn a small commission .

Another whole entire year of blogging has just passed for me, and of course has not come without its lessons, successes, and failures.  My general feeling going into this post is that I still don’t really know what I’m doing with blogging at all.  However, I still feel the same passion that drove me to start Fueled By Wanderlust in the first place, which is why I’m still here one year after my first blogging reflections post.

This past year, I’ve been stressed out, excited, disappointed, motivated, hopeful, and proud.  It can be quite a roller coaster putting your heart and soul into something that could possibly never pan out the way you want it to.  I can definitely see why everyone says you have to truly have passion – it can be the only thing moving you through your hardest moments.

With that, here is everything I’ve accomplished and how I’ve started to hit my stride in blogging this year:

Continued to post all throughout 2019

More than in 2018 actually.  My goal was to post once a week every single week this year.  I’ve mostly done that, although there were a few months of the year when I missed a week. 

All in all though, I’m pretty happy that I was able to publish at least three posts a month this year.  Last year, even though I let my blog go live in January with, like, one post that wasn’t even about travel, it took me until May to post anything more.  Clearly this year has been a huge improvement.

Increased my organic search traffic

Here’s my chunkiest section and for good reason – it’s where I saw the most change happen.  In 2018, if I was lucky, I’d get one to two Google views some months, but they were few and far between.  I felt like there was nothing I could do to get Google to notice me, and wondered if I’d ever figure it out. 

Lucy Lucraft’s SEO course helped me start taking some small steps to get where I needed to be, but it wasn’t until 2019 that I saw any progress.  My super small goal was to get 10 Google views in one month.  In January I managed to get 9, and was honestly pretty excited.

Things continued moving in the right direction with my search engine views, especially after joining Nomadic Matt’s Business of Blogging Course.  I made small tweaks to my site, as instructed by the course, which I believe improved it in the eyes of Google.  Joining the course’s Facebook group has also proved invaluable for getting assistance from other bloggers who’ve already figured a lot of this stuff out.

Thanks to all this, I raised my search engine views goals from 10 to 100, then from 100 to 200, then 300, etc.  This past November I ended just over 700 – a number I couldn’t even fathom reaching last year.  I’m still no SEO expert, and can never really predict what Google will and won’t like, but I figure if I keep posting, Google is bound to give at least some of my articles a chance.  Sometimes it’s a numbers game!

Got better at Pinterest

I still have so much room for improvement on this platform, and I haven’t always been as consistent as I’d like to be.  However, my views from Pinterest are way better than last year, and it accounts for the majority of my traffic. 

This past Cyber Monday I decided to give Tailwind a try to automate my pinning.  I’ve used the free version in the past without much noticeable improvement.  However, I had almost no Pinterest knowledge back then, and very little strategy.

I think Tailwind deserves a second full on effort before I decide it won’t work for me.  Especially, since so many other bloggers find success with it.  If Tailwind can make my life a little easier, while helping me build my Pinterest traffic, I am all in!

Made my first couple dollars

Making money is something I have merely began to dabble in during 2019, and I am nowhere near full on monetization.  I only just joined Amazon Affiliates around the holidays for a little experimentation. 

I plan to make further efforts during 2020 as far as affiliates go, but am overall proceeding with caution in this area.  I just don’t want to seem all “salesy” all of a sudden, and only want to add affiliates where it makes sense.  Perhaps I am being overly cautious, but my blog is my baby and I am an overprotective blog mom.

So what kind of pocket change did I make during 2019?  This year I received $50 for one of my guest posts, and later received $1.48 from an Amazon Affiliates link.  It ain’t much but progress is progress, and it’s nice to know that making a few bucks is even possible.

Was on a Podcast

It’s true!  Another Cleveland blogger, Worldwide Honeymooon, had me on her Podcast to talk about budgeting for travel and vacation days.  I never thought I’d be on a Podcast, but it was a cool thing to do, and maybe something I’d do again if the opportunity arose.

Bought a new theme

One year and four months in, and I was already over my first theme and wanted a little upgrade.  I hope to not do this again for a while, as redesigning a blog is a pain, but so far I am quite happy with this most recent change.

• • •

If you’re still reading, thank you so much for following my journey!  That officially covers the highlights of my blogging moves for 2019.  For 2020, the plan is to keep traveling, posting, and learning.  I’m truly very happy with how things went this past year, and I really hope to continue my momentum onward!