Happy Friday!! This week marks 3 months since my first blog post. So, I’ve decided to do a little quarterly report…sounds really exciting right…well too bad, it’s my blog and I do what I want 🙂 No, just kidding, please don’t leave. Honestly, I’m still trying to figure it all out. So far it has been fun, and I’ve connected with some great bloggers. I love all the feedback and comments and I’m so appreciative of everyone who has taken time to read my posts. I still have a lot to learn and do, but I feel so motivated to keep it up and I hope you will continue this journey with me.

I got this idea when writing an email to a fellow blogger about page visits, but the thing is I have no idea what a good benchmark should be. I’m excited by every new visitor and really excited about every new follow or comment. I think some of the best advice when starting a blog is: 1. just start it 2. don’t compare yourself to other bloggers. This is a way for me to keep track of my progress.

Technology

• Moved from wordpress.com to a self-hosted wordpress.org (hosted on BlueHost)
• I lost all subscribers and likes in the move process, but not the comments. When I decided to move I had only done a few posts and didn’t feel it was worth it to pay for the move. I wish I had researched my platform better.
• There has been a number of glitches figuring out the whole WordPress thing, but I’ve been learning and that is important to me.
• There are a number of things I still want to do, but it is a process and the tech side is not a priority right now.
• These blogs have some great tips:
  • Studio 404  (honestly I found tons of other good sites through Angel’s roundups)
  • XO Sarah
  • Lovely Indeed 
  • Chasing Happy

Social

• I met some great bloggers!
• I’m so thankful for all the support, both from new online friends and my at home family and friends. I’m particularly thankful for connecting with Shannon from Brass Honey so early on – she has been amazing!
• January was the first month that I really focused on putting myself out there and trying to be more social, and it has been great both for me and the blog.
• I started Twitter just for the blog and I’m glad I did it…and I think you should too 🙂
• I participated in several link-ups in January. Link-ups are  good opportunities to put yourself out there and helps in finding your blog “tribe” 🙂 Doing these have definitely helped increase blog traffic and comments.
• The Liebster Award (thanks again Brass Honey) was a great opportunity and really allowed me to connect to some new bloggers (The Fit Knitter  and Damn Ten Pounds– I’m calling you out on this one)
• I’m currently following through Feedly, but thinking about going back to Bloglovin (this will be a future post). In the meantime, don’t think I don’t follow you just because I don’t show up on Bloglovin. I worry about this.

Blogging

• My favorite post is “Life without Mile Markers” – especially the comments it received
• The comments from the above lead me to start the “Childfree Are We” page, and I’m so excited when I get to add new bloggers to it
• I wrote this post on why I started this blog
• I’m never going to be a food blogger but I’m going to continue with my Sunday food posts because: I like to share our recipes, I think eating cleaner is important, and I felt for a long time in the dark about how to figure out meals and what people eat. If I can do it, anyone can.
• I’m going to keep using the blog as practice for my design lessons in Illustrator and Photoshop (this and this are examples)…brace yourselves for more.
• I struggle to keep up with the 3 posts a week schedule but I’m committed. It’s my dream to get a month of posts together in advance.

Numbers

This may be really stupid and/or weird but I’m just diving right in. We will have to blame this on the ENTJ personality. While I don’t think you should run your blog for numbers, and it is really not the most important aspect of blogging for me, it is undeniably part of blogging. I want to know how I’m doing, and I think this and comments are the feedback for that. The thing is, I have no idea if these numbers are considered decent or dismissal. So here goes:

November 6, 2013 to February 5, 2014 

Unique Visitors: 583
Visits: 1,087
Pageviews: 2,428
Bloglovin: 12
Facebook: 12
Twitter: 42
Email Subscribers: 9
Blog posts: 41