Starting from Scratch, Again: My First Blogging, Goals, and Income Report

Hey there, my creative friends! It's been a while since I've last posted an update on my blogging journey. So, let me give you a quick recap. I started blogging a few years ago, but due to personal reasons, I had to stop for a while. But now, I'm back! And I'm starting from scratch, again.

In this post, I'll be sharing with you my first blogging, goals, and income report. I'll be discussing my progress on my blog, online shop, Pinterest, and YouTube. Let's get started!

Website and Blog Overhaul

Google Search Console

First things first, let's talk about my blog's SEO performance on Google. According to Google Search Console, the last 3 months my site has had 30.8k Total impressions, average CTR is 1.2% but is rising significantly since February when I started to overhaul my site. It seems I have 195 pages indexed for my site as well. Not bad for essentially starting fresh, right?

Google Analytics

As for my blog's traffic, Google Analytics tells me that I have a total of 2,664 sessions, 2,331 users with 3969 page views since January 1st, 2023. My bounce rate is at 80.59%, which has improved 4.5% since the previous period, in fact my sessions per user, pageviews, pages per session and average session duration have all seen massive improvements. Really promising results for effectively one month of work and having deleted 98% of my old content. Painful but I feel it is necessary to move forward and share what I am really passionate and knowledgeable about.

Blog Posts Published

I've published a total of 20 blog posts since I started my blog again from scratch. This time around I am focusing on sharing my graphic design, Adobe Illustrator knowledge and sharing ideas on digital products to create using these skills. I am also documenting my journey and all that I am learning while building and growing a creative content business. 

Tools and Software Used

I have been utilizing new and old, free and paid for tools to restart this website. I have purchased a website theme to help give the blog a fresh clean and organized appearance which I am absolutely loving. I am of course using the Adobe Creative Cloud suite of programs to do all the creative elements of this project from, blog post images, product design, Pinterest pins and YouTube videos.

Current List of Gear and Software

Adobe Creative Cloud - Illustrator, Fresco, Photoshop, InDesign and Premiere Pro

Fontself

Astropad - replacing my 16 year old Wacom Intuos

Google Drive, Docs and Sheets

Notion to help me organise and keep on track of all the tasks

iPad Air & Apple Pencil

Computer

GoPro, iPhone and OBS for video recording

Yeti Blue Mic - recording video audio and voice over audio

Goals for the Next 3 Months

Publish 50 more blog posts

Increase my blog's traffic by 10% per month

Digital Products and Shop

Products Created and Listed

Aside from my blog, I also have an online shop where I sell printable and digital products. I have just started over with these as well, I wanted to create new and improved designs that are more in-line with my current skill set and aesthetics. I have created about 10 products so far, which is far less than I wanted to have done by this stage but it’s what I can fit in during someone’s nap time.

Goals for the Next 3 Months

Create at least 10 more products

Get my first sale

Reopen my Etsy shop for additional visibility and income streams

Pinterest

Current Stats

I've been using Pinterest to promote my blog and shop. As of now, I have 664 followers, and I was getting roughly 40k views per month, but I also cleared out my old messy Pinterest boards. I know you are probably thinking she really shouldn’t have deleted her old blogs and Pinterest boards/pins - and to be completely honest you are probably right! I just really wanted a fresh start and a more organized approach to it all this time round. Did I make things harder for myself? More than likely, but will I be happier in the long run? I hope so.

Goals for the Next 3 Months

Increase my Pinterest followers by 100

Create and curate 10 new boards and 100 new Pins

YouTube Channel

Videos Uploaded so far

Lastly, I have just started with YouTube and have uploaded 6 videos so far. I want to be able to add video to my blog posts, especially the ones where I am sharing how to create graphics and illustrations in Adobe Illustrator.

Goals for the Next 3 Months

Upload 10 more videos

Improve the overall quality of my videos

Creative Content Creator Income Report

Well currently less than zero. I have as I mentioned above purchased a new site theme and retired my old Wacom Intuos. So I am going to estimate this income report to about -$500 AUD.

And that's it for my first blogging, goals, and income report! It's not much, but I'm excited to see what the next few months will bring. I’ll link to the next report once it goes live. I really have a lot of work ahead of me so I need to get a move on, stay creative my friends.