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This is a post I am very excited to write because it means I’ve completed another full year of blogging. It’s been interesting to say the least, as I’ve maintained (and grown) a travel blog in a year when the travel industry faced many challenges.
My blogging year, like that of so many other travel bloggers, started out really strong. In January, I doubled my blog views from 5,000 in December to 10,000 in January. I had a whole year lined up with trips, and even one solo trip to Montreal.
I was going to attend Travel Con, my first travel blogging conference. Aaron and I planned to visit Ireland for the first time, and had hoped to squeeze in a second trip to Europe around Christmas time.
Obviously, none of these plans came to fruition thanks to COVID. However, there were some other surprises that did still happen this year on the blog. Below is a recap of all the blogging moves I made in 2020, which have helped me to continue growing.
Recap of My Third Full Year of Blogging
Blog Redesign
In March, I decided to invest in hiring someone to design and code my blog for me. I had tried multiple times to do this myself, since it was so much cheaper. However, I eventually came to the realization that website design was simply not one of my strengths.
Instead, I hit up 99 Designs for what I thought would be simply a home page redesign. I found the absolute perfect designer for me. However, I loved what she did so much that I had her design the rest of my blog pages as well. Suddenly I was spending double what I planned!
I had the most perfect designs, but it then dawned on me that I’d need to hire someone to actually implement this on my blog. Waving even more of my money goodbye, I hired a developer.
About six weeks later, I had the most gorgeous blog. It was so expensive, but did make me feel more inspired to write, helped my website look more professional, and even helped inspire more people to sign up for my email list.
Joined the BMTM Female Travel Blogger Accelerator
In a year where so many people abandoned travel blogging, or drastically slowed their efforts, the Travel Blog Accelerator course fully leaned into growing a travel blog in one of the hardest times in the industry. The fact that Kristin Addis even started this group during the pandemic helped me to believe that 2020 was not the year to give up.
Honestly, this group has been so much fun and one of the best blogging moves I’ve ever made. It blows my mind that Be My Travel Muse was one of the earliest blogs I read for travel advice. Now I am actually acquainted with Kristin, the CEO, and she has greatly helped me with refining my brand and mission this year. You can read all about my experience with the course here.
Kristin and the rest of the awesome ladies, if you are reading this, THANK YOU.
Joined an Ad Network
My original big goal for 2020 was to qualify for the Mediavine ad network. Then they went and doubled their traffic requirements from 25,000 sessions to 50,000 sessions. Initially, I was crushed.
Then I looked at the positives. While they might have moved their goal posts, I did not. By October, I ended up getting the 25,000 sessions previously needed, and am still damn proud of that.
That doesn’t mean I wasn’t still agonizing over how to monetize, though. I now faced the issue of having to wait even longer for ads, or to consider a different network. Previously, applying to an ad network with a lower traffic threshold never seemed worth it.
However, now I was faced with bridging the gap between 10,000 and 60,000 views and decided that was a lot of potential income I’d miss out on. I ended up applying to the Monumetric ad network in July and finally getting my ads implemented in November. It was a long and stressful wait, but it has so far proven to be worthwhile.
Received Lots of Blog Engagement
This has been my biggest year yet for blog engagement, which I am so proud of! I hope it only continues to grow. I have truly appreciated everyone’s awesome feedback and love answering your questions. It’s amazing when I hear I’ve been able to help you plan your trip.
Just so you know everything isn’t always rosy, I did also receive my first nasty comment this year too. I’ll be honest – it didn’t feel good. However, I know this is something I have to accept when putting out work out on the internet for all to see.
I’ve definitely received MUCH more positive feedback that greatly overshadows that one comment, but for some reason it’s always easiest to focus on the negative. As they say in the blogging world though: getting the occasional negative comment means you are doing something right. You can’t please everyone!
Had My Highest Traffic Ever
My traffic by far exceeded what I thought was possible in a year like 2020. Back in January, this year initially felt so full of possibilities, especially after reaching 10k views. However, that feeling quickly disappeared when I plummeted to only 2k views during quarantine.
After that, I abandoned any sort of expectations. I decided, instead, to use 2020 as a year to catch up on my long backlog of posts that I hadn’t had a chance to write yet.
Apparently, these efforts paid off, because by June my traffic was back up to 14k views. By October, I reached 30k!
This summer was also when my search engine views started exceeding my Pinterest views. In fact, I’ve had no growth on Pinterest this year, and am as confused as anyone about what’s going on with that platform.
It’s crazy I could do this in such a bad year for travel. However, I attribute it to never giving up, as well as having written about destinations that were open to Americans in 2020.
Switched My Hosting Provider
With this increase in traffic, my basic plan on Bluehost could no longer handle my volume. My site went down about three times in a two week span in November. After that, I decided it was finally time to research some upgraded hosting plans.
After reading reviews and threads in Facebook groups, I decided to go with Lyrical Host’s Boss plan. This plan allows for infinite growth without any negative impacts on site speed and functionality. I’ve only committed for a year, but I’m hoping all goes well and I won’t need to change for a while.
Increased My Income (a tad)
Last year I received $50 for a guest post and a couple bucks from Amazon Affiliates. This year saw a little more action, although it was definitely inhibited by COVID.
I had a fun moment in April when I was able to get some affiliate income from a clothing brand, Atlas Drifts, after posting a picture in one of their sweatshirts on IG. Airbnb also began a new affiliate program, and I was able to get a little commission income from one of our favorite stays in St. John USVI.
In total, this has only amounted to about $170, and doesn’t factor in all the expenses I had this year, and I’ve spent a lot! 2020 ended up being a big investment year for me.
That said, I was excited even to see these limited bookings in 2020, and am interested to see what happens in 2021.
• • •
While I never expected any of it, 2020 actually ended up being a huge year for my blog. I honed in on my brand’s identity, continued to post new content, invested time and money, and saw amazing results.
It’s been a crazy year from a life and blog standpoint, and while I’m excited for 2021, for now I just want to sit back and have a moment or two of calm, while I drink tea and watch Christmas movies. Has anyone else ever noticed that it’s in these quiet moments that we get the itch to be creative again?
