<<< If you are new to blogging, you might be wondering what the process is like for other people who are trying blogging for the first time. This blogging report will give you a little bit of insight into what this beginner’s seventh month of blogging looks like.>>>

When you read about blogging journeys, most people will only really share the good stuff.

But the truth is, every blogging journey has its ups and downs.

When I started blogging, I knew nothing about it. My journey has been messy and difficult, and I have no real success to show you. But I still think it’s important to share this journey with full honesty. I just finished my seventh month of blogging as a beginner blogger and I plan to stick with this challenge for an entire year before deciding what to do from there. This article is all about my seventh month of blogging, but if you’re curious about how my previous months went or want to know how I got started, you can check out my other posts here:

• What My First Month Blogging Looks Like
• Blogging Secrets: Know What the Second Month Looks Like
• Secrets of the Third Month Blogging: Encouragement to Beginner Bloggers
• The Authentic Journey of my Fourth Month Blogging
• Surprising Secrets of a Beginner’s Blog: Month Five
• The Unique Journey of a Beginner’s Blog: Month Six

Who I am and why I started a blog

My name is Genesis, and I consider myself a lifelong learner. I love to learn new things and develop new skills constantly. I also like to share the things I learn with others.

For four years, I had been a teacher in elementary schools around the world. I loved so much about my life, but something always felt a little off about it. I couldn’t convince myself that this was who I was meant to be. It was almost as if I was ignoring a part of myself, and I couldn’t understand why. It became clear to me that my passion for writing was getting ignored due to the demanding nature of my teaching career. I decided that if I continued teaching it would mean completely letting go of my identity as a writer. I knew I couldn’t give up that part of myself and decided that I had to find a job that would allow me to use both my love of teaching and my love of writing.

And that’s where blogging comes in!

This beginner’s blog has become a way for me to teach others about things I value while having the opportunity to write every single day. It is something that I have loved doing since day one, and I am determined to make this into something real and sustainable. I’m now seven months in, and I am happy to say that I am still absolutely loving it!

Why am I sharing my progress? 

Though I occasionally put stuff up about blogging, I don’t typically blog about blogging. So why go through the effort of sharing all of this with you? I have three main reasons why I choose to share my beginner blogging experience with others each month: 

I want to be an example of the life I encourage others to have.

Here at In Its Season, I talk a lot about the importance of being true to who you are and creating a life that reflects that. Everything that I write about on this blog has been something that I’ve tried or experienced myself at some point or another. I believe that I need to openly show my struggles to others so that they can feel better about the struggles they have in their own lives.

I want people to know that I’m not just spewing opinions without believing in them. It is important to be an example of someone who is comfortable with failure and who can show how to have patience in the midst of a chaotic journey. This particular blogging venture has been a difficult one and I don’t want to cover that up with pretty words. Instead, I want to encourage people to be open about their difficulties and keep working hard in spite of them.

I want to encourage people who are in a difficult season of life.

Just like me, people around the world are trying to make their own path in life and are experiencing daily struggles of their own. Instead of hiding my failures and mistakes, I want to announce them to the world in the hopes that someone out there will read them and be encouraged that they’re not alone. Failure is a part of life, but it’s no reason to give up!

I want to show people how to notice progress, even when it’s small.

So many things feel impossible to achieve when you first start out, but that rarely ends up being true. Every day brings you one tiny step closer to your aim, but it can be hard to notice those steps, even in hindsight. I want to use these monthly blog reports as one possible way that you can reflect on your learning to make note of the small improvements you might be missing in the day-to-day routine.

My Setbacks and Successes This Month

My seventh month was, overall, pretty successful, but my setbacks have been more on the personal side, which is often harder for me to handle. Let me share them with you now!

Success: Any progress I lost in December jumped up again in January

It was pretty interesting to see the numbers change the moment January hit. It was as if everyone finished their holidays all at once and immediately returned to the same routine. I was encouraged to see that the slump in December didn’t last long.

In every way, my numbers started climbing. I had more visitors to the site, more followers on Pinterest, and even more email subscribers! Seeing these things improving made me so happy and it gave me lots of motivation for this month.

Setback: My Amazon affiliation expired

Amazon is a very forgiving site and gives beginners lots of time to figure out their site when they become affiliates. However, I could only keep my affiliation if I made a set amount of sales within three months. Unfortunately, I failed to do this and lost my affiliation.

There is both good and bad to this. It felt a little sad to have to let go of my affiliation and I was disappointed that I couldn’t meet the standard. However, I learned a lot about how affiliates work and strategies that can help me for next time. Additionally, Amazon will still let me try again, so I plan to improve my traffic first and then return to the program for round two!

Success: I have been making lots of freebies

I’ve been feeling really good lately about the freebies I’ve been able to offer. I make about one per week and they’ve all been things I’m excited to share. This has been a pleasing thing to know because that means I’m very close to being ready to make paid products. I’m going to continue practicing with freebies for now, but I think soon I will feel ready to make bigger products that I can monetize.

setback: I’ve been losing confidence in myself

This has by far been the biggest setback I’ve experienced yet. Before the six month period, I felt like the slow progress was expected and easy to cope with because that was the experience for most bloggers. Now that I’m entering the second half of my first year, though, I keep thinking I should be further along than I am. My pageviews still fluctuate so much, my SEO isn’t great, and I’m still no closer to monetizing the blog. There is still so much that I don’t know, and that can feel a little overwhelming.

I am not even remotely close to feeling like I should quit, which I am thankful about, but I have lately been feeling like I need to do something to move past the rut. I still haven’t mastered Pinterest, so I’m starting to thinking that I should invest some time and money into that by taking another course and possibly trying Tailwind. At times, I tend to be hesitant to spend money, but I am also aware that investing in the blog is the best way to get results. I won’t lie, though- this month has not been easy on my confidence. Hopefully, I can do something about that soon, but I am prepared to deal with it as long as I continue to feel this way. I will learn from my mistakes and keep trying!

The results

Traffic Report

As expected, my traffic slowed quite a bit this month, but the session duration and bounce rate remained consistent. It was not a surprise, considering most bloggers seem to experience this drop in December.

Top Referrals

My referrals were really predictable this month, so there hasn’t really been anything new there.

Top 5 Posts

My most popular pages have stayed almost exactly the same, which was no surprise. However, this month was the first time that my homepage was a popular page, which is exciting! I think it is about time for me to review how that page looks so that it’s friendly to newcomers.

Here are the links to the most popular pages:

• Morning Pages: How to Clear Your Mind for a Better Day
• How to Prepare for Next Month Like a Boss! 15 Monthly To-Do List Ideas
• How to Make Your Winter Mornings Easier and Cozier
• Morning Brainwash: How to Start Your Day Right
• The In Its Season Homepage

Income

I had nothing new to add to this during the month of January.

Expenses

This was another free month, but I expect I will have some expenses soon. I have spent a lot of time practicing and researching on my own. I’m at a level of understanding now that requires some guidance on the next steps to take to improve.

Total Expenses: $0

Where the blog is headed

My categories have finally become more defined and I think I’ve finally centred on what exactly my niche is. I will remain a lifestyle blog, but my main focus is going to be on routines. Morning routines, night routines, checklists, to-do lists, that kind of stuff. I love to make material for it and people love to read about it, so it feels like a really good fit. Of course, there are still times where I want to talk about other stuff, but those things all fit really nicely into the site’s personality, so I feel good about it!

My thoughts about my seventh month with a beginner’s blog

This month has felt pretty neutral to me as a whole. I feel like I’m finally starting to build some consistent habits and routines for my work and I am a lot more flexible than I used to be. Growth is slow but steady and I am still full of ideas for the future that I’m excited about.

On the other hand, I am getting increasingly discouraged that I haven’t been seeing staggering growth and that I’m not really any closer to any new developments. I feel like I’m at the risk of stagnating soon, so I’m looking into ways that I can improve myself and learn more.

As a whole, the seventh month of blogging has been relatively uneventful and has motivated me to take steps towards furthering my learning.

My Personal Goals

This month is mainly themed around learning and making improvements to the site.

Here’s what I’m aiming to achieve this month:

I want to take another Pinterest course.

The course that I had taken previously was great, but I am looking to deepen my understanding even further and thought that taking a course from a different teacher would be a good place to start.

I want to redesign my site (making small changes)

I want to keep most of the big things the same, but I am aiming to improve the quality of the site for visitors. Most notably, I want to make my site easier to navigate, so that is one big thing I will be working towards this month.

I want to develop a better understanding of SEO.

There is still so much to learn about SEO, so I want to continue studying this area of blogging.

I want to learn how to take more visually appealing photos.

I’ve started using photos that I have taken with my phone to add a more personal touch to the site. So far, I’m liking it, but I’m also aware that the quality is not as good as a stock photo. I’d like to research and practice how to take nicer pictures to improve the quality of my pictures.

Blogging resources I would recommend

You can see that I’m not a blogging expert, yet. I’m still in the baby stages of learning how to do it. But there are a few resources that I have tested out and found to be extremely helpful! I want to share the ones that have helped me a lot in my blogging journey so that you don’t have to waste time trying to find the best resources alone.

(Please note that I am an affiliate for these three programs, so I do make a small commission on purchases you make through these links. However, I want to make it clear that I would never recommend something that I don’t use and appreciate myself. I truly love these three resources and believe that you would benefit from using them, as well!)

Resource #1: ConvertKit

I would recommend ConvertKit to anyone looking to build a mailing list. Not only is it easier to use, but the support offered to you as a creator is just so helpful! They offer weekly workshops to help you grow as a creator, concerts and inspirational stories to watch, free templates, community networking, and one-on-one support. Honestly, I have nothing but good things to say about them!

If you’re looking to grow a mailing list, you should sign up for ConvertKit.

Resource #2: Legal Pages Bundle

After quite a bit of research, it was clear to me that Amira’s Legal Bundle was the most cost-effective way to protect myself fully on my blog. Within one day, I had purchased the bundle, customized it, and placed it on my site.

Amira’s bundle makes me feel so much safer about my blog, and I want you to have the same thing!

If you are a freelancer or a blogger, then don’t hesitate to buy Amira’s Legal Bundle. It is the best use of your money and time to get her help!

Related Post: Where to get the Best Legal Bundle for your Blog

Resource #3: Divi WordPress theme

I opted for Divi because it promised a lot of customization without having to know all of the coding lingo.

Now, I want to be candid with you and explain that, for me, the learning curve was still really tough. Additionally, a lot of the customization I wanted ended up slowing down my site enough that I had to sacrifice beauty for functionality.

I might not recommend this theme to everyone, but I would recommend it to beginner bloggers like me.

I really appreciate the personal support I get from them and that is the main reason why I would recommend their product for you. Though my more experienced future self might move on to a new theme eventually, I couldn’t have asked for a better beginner theme!

If you want to try Divi out for yourself, you can check out their products here!

Conclusion

I know that this blogging report has not been as positive as my other ones because I am feeling more discouraged than usual. However, I hope that this fact will actually help to motivate you even more than my positive posts. We will all go through seasons of discouragement in our lives and it’s important that we respond with determination. If you are going through a season of discouragement yourself, I want to encourage you to keep trying and not to give up! Take small steps towards progress each day and you will get where you need to be in time.