My Blog Anniversary Came and Went During Covid-19
Wow! It has actually been over a year since my blog has been live on the internet. My Blog, Teacher Buddy Helps had its one year anniversary on June 18, 2020. So basically, it came and went during Covid-19; no parties, no celebrations, no fanfare – just keep going!
What should We Look At on this Blog Anniversary?
As I look back over the past year, there are so many things to take a look at when I think about the blog and all I have learned over the year. There are statistics for the blog, successes, lessons learned and where I am heading in the future.
The Stats on my blog anniversary
My blog has had a slow start, as many successful bloggers wrote would probably happen. It just takes a while to build up a site, to format it so that Google can find the articles (called SEO which means Search Engine Optimization) and note that you are a legitimate site.
There is a whole other “language” in the online world. Just as with any career that has a unique vocabulary, the online blogging and e-commerce world is the same way. Teachers quickly learn the acronyms and lingo for the education world. So, in this realm I had to learn the acronyms and lingo of the digital world.
This was a big learning curve for me, a member of the baby boom generation who is not a “digital native” as the lingo states (meaning born during the time of computers). My children and grandchildren are, but I’m not.
So, here are some “stats.” As of today, I have (during a 30 day cycle) 1,135 sessions, with 1,613 page views. I have written 78 articles (also called posts); this post is number 79.
My goal has always been to write one post per week. I know you are thinking; “but there are 52 weeks in the year.” Well, following the advice of some bloggers I was learning from (by taking their courses), I waited until I had 10 articles (posts) written and loaded onto the site before I hit the “LIVE” button. And then some weeks I had two articles ready to publish, so I just added them too.
This is probably a good spot to link to my two favorite articles on the site. Values and integrity are important to me, so these articles speak to that which is why they are my favorite.
Are You Following the Four Agreements? You Should Be!
Some Blog Successes
While the main goal of the blog is to “Help teachers thrive and learning grow,” I do have a goal down the road to try to earn a small income from the blog and business.
My path on this goal has been that I set up a FaceBook Page for the blog called “Teacher Buddy Helps Page.” I hope you will go there and “like” the page so that you will get updates when I’ve posted new information. The second thing I did was to join some teacher groups on Facebook to find out what things teachers have questions about. If it was a topic I knew about or had experience in, I responded and offered advice. I also got some ideas of items to write about on the blog.
During this year’s time I have published two items for sale; they are an “Ultimate Parent Letter Packet” and an eBook called “Tackling Student Discipline with Confidence.”
Along with these items, I have created four other digital products for teachers that I offer to readers for FREE when they send their email address. I will post one here so you can see what they look like. There are also two others that are on the site permanently.
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In order to grow an audience (or readership) I have been making Pinterest Pins that either lead to one of my posts (articles) here on the blog OR that lead to one of these FREE digital products (called “freebies” or lead magnets or opt-ins. This has also been a slow audience but it is S L O W L Y increasing.
Now for Some Lessons Learned
One “lesson learned” while creating an online business is that there is a TON to learn AND that things are always adapting and changing. What bloggers were doing 10 years ago will not be successful in today’s world.
Online consumers are more adaptable and peoples’ attention span is shorter and it is more challenging to retain readers on your blog page. Knowing this, bloggers are changing how they write and what they do to find fans, an audience, subscribers, and customers.
With all this previous information in mind, one thing in particular that I learned is that TEACHING/ TEACHER BLOGS do not monetize well. While earning an income from this blog was never my greatest reason for creating it, I definately wanted to try to earn enough to pay for the costs entailed with running a website. I’m not there yet.
Teachers are very busy people, and many don’t have much disposable income to spend. Knowing this, teacher bloggers have kept their products very inexpensive. So, to build a “living wage” income stream, you have to sell A LOT of products because they are priced in the “inexpensive” range.
And this won’t happen until you build a larger audience. IT JUST TAKES TIME! MORE THAN A YEAR!!!
Moving Forward and “Coming Soon”
Now I’m going to look to the future. Where will this blog and my business go moving into my second year?
I’m going to continue to add content to both this blog and the Facebook page connected to it. And I also have two other large projects that I am working on to support teachers.
The first is a membership site that I am naming the “Teacher Growth Pathway.” This membership is taking quite a bit of background work to prepare it to be “launched” into the teaching marketplace. I have been busily working on this and I’m close to being ready. But one important determining factor of when I will launch is Covid-19 and teaching. Another factor is that I need to have a larger audience built up…so I will continue to work on the audience building strategies.
With many teachers already being overwhelmed with the new year that is rolling out for many with online teaching, now is not the right time to laugh this membership. I will continue to work on the content and wait for the right time.
Another item I am busily working on is a “mini-course” for teachers. This course is only about half way finished, so stay tuned since I still have more work to do on this.
That’s about it for now. As I am proofreading this article, I am actually pleased with how much I have been able to accomplish over a year’s time. Especially since I am still working full time at our local Community College. So, stay tuned for more growth to come.
Until Next Time,
