Another year has gone by, its February 15th again, marking our fourth anniversary. Last year was full of changes – Getting our own domain, monetizing, blog redesign, new segments and it was both challenging as well as interesting. This year I will not bore you with statistics or my achievement and failures but will talk about a few things that dictated the way I blogged last year.
Its Blogoversary – four years of blogging
Monetizing: I saw people write posts of their fantastic monthly blog earnings ($2000-3000) and have been in total awe which led me to monetize my blog. I joined groups like Sverve, markerly and affiliate programs like shareasale to boost up my blog income. Sverve is really great not just for monetary reasons but you also get to meet like minded people, you are exposed to a great range of blogs and learn so much from them. But I soon realized that as a niche blog based in India whose focus is on jewelry and accessories I am not going to earn much unless I compromise and write about every topic under the sun.There is nothing wrong with lifestyle blogging but I like to stick to a niche.
Yes sometimes I do write on topics that are not strictly Jewelry or accessories but within my domain like fashion, classes, retail but I stay away from sewing, coupons or kitchen appliances even though I might actually use them. Also most revenue generating sites prefer US based sites or sites where US traffic is more than 50% and chances are that you wont get approved if you dont fall in that category. My monthly blog alone earnings – sponsored shares, posts, ads (not including indirect income like workshop signups or jewelry sales or projects or orders) is in 2 figures ($) and hopefully will be atleast 3 figures in this coming year
Blog Impact – In my attempt to monetizing I came across a great number of articles on Sverve with respect to blogging, social media and I realised that variety content (that is useful) along with a great blog design and active social media presence is what makes a impactful blog and it is that impact which in turn makes money. So I started to work on creating that impact. I am more active on social media now with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+, I visit more linky parties and started guest blogging too. Yes it is time consuming and tires me out but no pain – no gain right?
Content – We did have some fabulous columns – Bridal series II, Gemstones in color, Every color has a story (color palettes) along with the usual list of tutorials, product reviews, inspirations and my work. Which ones did you really like?
Redesign – Last year I spent a lot of time in redesigning my blog – In fact I did it twice – why? I wanted to convert my blog into a responsive template – meaning that it can be seen the same way from all devices and browsers irrespective of the screen size. I picked max mag first – a fantastic template if you know your way around HTML. I did my best with it – initial setup took 4 days but something or the other kept going wrong and I didnt know how to fix the bugs.
So I changed to this Fabric template which is much simpler but it took me only 3.5 hrs to set it up and I am happy with the way it looks. I also setup my about page like a story – just the way I would like it to be. Even though that’s not the most flattering picture (of me) it atleast matches with my about me pick on the side bar. What do you think of the new design?
So that a wrap for now, I am so glad that I finally finished writing this post ( I have been trying to for a week being stuck with a bad case of writers block) 😀 As of now, I don’t have many plans for this blog – just one – Continous improvement!!
So here’s to another great year that went by and thanks a lot dropping in to read my posts, commenting and occasionally clicking on my affiliate links 😀 It means a lot to me!!
Celebrating four years of blogging
Thanks & Cheers
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