April was my third month traveling blogging, and as expected it was a really crazy month work wise so I couldn’t dedicate as much time to my blog as I would have liked to in my free time. But, there is good news! I had a few wins in April and despite not getting around to some of the goals I set for myself in March, I feel pretty good about the performance last month.
Although I was pretty busy in April, it was a good month for me in terms of travel. At the beginning of the month I spent a girls’ weekend in The Hague and Rotterdam (Rotterdam tips to come!), and spent Easter Weekend in Normandy exploring the cliffs and indulging in mussels, cheese and white wine. For work I traveled to Albufeira in Portugal for a meeting and Barcelona, Spain for a photo shoot – although I was crazy busy the whole time, it’s still great to have an opportunity to travel!
So, how did the blog perform in April compared to March… let’s see…
Win! My Monthly Blog Traffic Nearly Doubled!
In my March blog round up I mentioned that I caved in and invested in Tailwind to post to Pinterest on my behalf. I wasn’t really sure how much it would impact my traffic, but in April I had steady visitors thanks to a stream of visits from Pinterest. I didn’t have much time to dedicate to driving traffic to my blog in other ways, so I was really happy that when I was working and traveling for work this month not to worry about constantly posting to Pinterest!
In April I had 1,259 visitors compared to March’s 664, so I nearly doubled my visitors! As I mentioned above, Pinterest is largely drove this traffic – it accounts for 64% of my sessions!
I’m a bit worried that my traffic will stop growing from Pinterest at a certain point, though. I get about 35 visitors to my blog per day on average, but will this continue to increase with Pinterest traffic, or will it stay at this level? I won’t be sure for a few more months, so the jury is still out.
Most popular posts
In April I only got around to publishing 5 blog posts, but I’m not too disappointed about it. I want having a blog to stay fun for me next to my full-time job, so I try not to stress too much about my blog when I’m already stressed from work.
Interestingly, not publishing a lot of blog posts didn’t seem to really impact my traffic. Only one of the posts I created this month didn’t top the list of my most popular posts… instead, my old posts topped the list – again, thanks to Pinterest!
My top 3 posts this month were:
- 5 Things to do in the Hague Netherlands
- The no-BS guide to Uluwatu
- Visit Sardinia: Why this Italian island should be your summer destination
I’m really positively surprised that my pin about 5 Things to do in The Hague gets so much traffic. Honestly, I didn’t think that blog post would get much traffic – I thought of it more as filler content to keep my blog fresh. One of my pins on The Hague appears in the top 15 or so pins when you search “The Hague” on Pinterest, so I’m guessing my success comes from its relative search relevance on Pinterest. After all, Pinterest is just one big search engine!
Updates in April
In April I was approved by Commission Junction to be an affiliate marketer for Trip Advisor – woohoo! But… so far clicks are pretty slow! So let’s see how this goes – I’m using affiliate links for both TripAdvisor and Booking.com now so I’d like to see how each perform, but that won’t be possible til I have more traffic and people start clicking! Any tips on this are welcome.
I’m still using Google Adsense, but I wonder if it’s worth it. This month I only added $1.27 to my earnings… and I have to reach $100 to be paid out… so it’s gonna be a long wait! I’m not sure I’ll keep the google adense ads but am not really sure what the alternative is yet.
Coming up in May
This month I am really excited to visit my family in California for a few days before heading to NYC for another work trip, where I’ll stick around for the weekend with a special guest joining me. Can’t wait to be in NYC again and welcome any tips you might have! We only have a weekend in NYC after my business meeting, and have both visited a few times before (most recently in November for the New York Marathon), so I’m looking for tips like neighborhoods to explore, best donuts, good comedy clubs, etc. Feel free to leave any tips in the comments!
This is also the first month I’ll be testing out being featured on other bloggers’ pages by contributing to their articles. Most blogs I read about how to be a successful blogger recommend doing guest posts, so I’m quite curious to see if this really helps drive traffic – at the very least it helps build my blog network!
Calling my fellow Amsterdammers!
In May I’m looking for other Amsterdam based bloggers to share their favorite things to do in Amsterdam! I’m looking for each contributor to share their #1 tip of what to do in Amsterdam. If you’re interested in contributing, please comment below and I’ll get in touch. I’m looking for each contribution to be between 150-200 words + a photo of your favorite tip and a link to your own blog so I can link to you.
Gabby is a native (Northern) Californian who spent the majority of her 20’s living the expat life in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, exploring Europe and beyond. 27 countries later, she’s relocated back to her home base in California where she explores her passions for the travel and the outdoors.
