The tool that helped me grow my blog by 200,000 views a month!

This blog has seen some crazy growth in the past year. CRAZY! I went from 8,000 views a month to 280,000 views last month. 

Let me repeat that: My blog had 280,000 views last month. How insane is that? This growth has been the result of a LOT of hard work, but it's also been the result of strategy. 

I started this blog one cold, yet sunny afternoon. Ryals, who is now four, was only a few weeks old at the time and while I LOVED being a mama and being at home with him, I wanted something to do that was just for me. 

It was a fun hobby and I thought I could use it as a way to showcase to my virtual assisting clients some of the skills I had. And the biggest reason, I could help people save money and find their way to a more peaceful life. But I did not know blogging would actually become my business. I did not realize I could turn it into a business, that I could grow my traffic and develop a loyal readership. 

Last year I was bringing in about 4,000 to 8,000 viewers a month. It was awesome. People were actually reading this thing? Responding? Leaving comments and sending me emails? It took years to get this point and I was thrilled. 

And when I started making money off my blog I was even more excited. It was just a few dollars here and there, but this blog had the potential to become a real source of income for my family.

I just needed a road map. 

That’s when I picked up a copy of the book How to Blog For Profit without Selling Your Soul by the blogger Ruth Soukup. That book was a game changer for me, I realized that there was real money to be made from this blog. And while that has never been my sole pursuit for this blog, if I can help support my family with it, I want to. 

Reading the book inspired me to take a more intentional approach to my blogging, to develop a blog schedule and stick to it and to develop a brand people would recognize and trust. Then last spring I learned about Ruth’s course Elite Blogging Academy and that’s when everything fell into place. 

Ruth is a pretty big blogger, with millions of readers every month and she is gracious enough to share her expert advice with others. But I was leery, the class was pricey at $399 and I felt guilty about using that money for something that, at the time, was little more than a hobby. 

Luckily my husband saw the potential in my blog and told me to go for it. Plus, Ruth offers a money back guarantee. If you go through the entire course and implement her advice and you don’t earn your money back Ruth will refund your money. For me, that was the only way I was able to press the purchase button, know if her advice didn’t work I could get a refund. 

However, if $399 is a stretch for your budget right now and you don’t have the money, please don’t spend it right now. The course only opens once a year and it will be worth saving the money to take it. 

Above are my stats from April when started the course. I had 20,000 views by June I had tripled my views and my monthly ad revenue.  By January of this year I had reached my goal of more than 250,000 page views and again increased my ad revenue and my sponsored posts. In fact, I emailed Ruth herself to tell of my success. 

Above are my stats from January. You can see I grew. I grew LOT. 

But it didn’t stop at page views. My email list grew by over 1,000 subscribers, my Pinterest followers increased by 2,500. And thanks to Ruth’s advice, I had a few posts go viral giving me a big traffic boost. 

Seriously, Ruth’s Pinterest advice alone is worth the entire course cost. 

This is a video based course and if you go through it you can turn around and go through it again. It offers lifetime access.  However, you should know that enrollment for Elite Blog Academy is extremely limited, and will only be open for five days, beginning on February 22nd.

The good news is that before the doors open, Elite Blog Academy is offering a FREE training series called Blogging Made Simple. It includes three powerful video lessons intended to help you eliminate the overwhelm and instead focus on the tasks that will help you make the biggest impact. If you are a blogger or have even just thought about blogging, you will NOT want to miss it!

You can sign up to join the EBA waiting list and get the free training HERE.

There aren’t a lot of blogging resources I can recommend wholeheartedly, but I can say without a doubt that Elite Blog Academy was one of the best investments I have ever made into my blog. 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Meaning, if you make a purchase I will get a small percentage of that purchase at NO extra cost to you.