Life of a blogger : two year blog anniversary

Today is Go Healthy With Bea two year anniversary! So what did happen in 2021 in the life of a (still pretty new) blogger?

If you have read my Food blog income report of a new blogger I wrote on the day of my blog six months anniversary, you know that I knew absolutely nothing about blogging when I first started 2 years ago.

I've been learning about blogging as I went. At the end of the year 2020, I started to dig deeper into the techy things about blogging. And the more I learnt, the more I realized I had made all the worst possible mistakes.

For starters, I had created my blog on wordpress.com but I found out that I should have created it on wordpress.org (NOT .com) It's a technical thing about the blog needing to be self hosted or something. I still haven't really quite understood but bottom line was I got it wrong. Anyway, the mistake was done and I had to repair it.

What happened in my second year of blogging

Blog migration to a new host

Like I've said before life as a blogger is quite challenging! Well I had no idea to what extent it could get challenging when I wrote that.

In January 2021, I decided to migrate my blog from wordpress.com to wordpress.org

Doesn't sound very complicated right? Well, except the migration went totally wrong. I had a first attempt at doing it by myself. It ended with my blog being completely down for a few hours. I was so stressed out!!

Then I asked my new host's team to do it. Well, it was not far better than what I had done. They also struggled a lot. And I ended up losing all the pictures on my blog!!

All the pictures I took the time to take, upload and implement on each blog posts were gone. I had to redo everything, twice (don't forget that my blog is both in English and French). So yes, when this happened, I cried my eyes out and I was on the verge of throwing in the towel.

Getting incredible support from my readers

But then something incredible happened. Some might even say a miracle.

Right when I needed support the most, out of nowhere, I started receiving tons of incredible messages from my readers (I'm crying of happy tears just thinking about it again). So yes. It might sound cheesy but I didn't give up thanks to my incredible readers.

I'm so very grateful to have such an amazing supportive audience. Even if, of course, I do also receive some nasty comments from time to time and they are not easy to deal with (I'm only human after all). Let's not forget that when you are on the Internet, you are exposed to the whole world (good and bad). At least now, when I get a hurtful comment I can get some support from my bloggers support group (yes, such a thing does exist!!).

But let's get back to the point. Right when I thought I would shut down my blog, I received many wonderful comments. People telling me that my recipes had been helping them on their own natural healing journey. Thanks to those recipes they were able to stay compliant and consequently feel better.

So how could I stop blogging after that? I started my blog for this exact reason!! Well, it had not been the first time I had heard this from my readers. But you know the drill. When you're exhausted and you just lost a huge part of an entire year worth of work you kind of forget all the good things that happened along the way. especially when your blog is still costing you money every month because your earnings do not cover your expenses.

Upgrading my blog

So I kept at it. I painstakingly added back all the pictures one by one after resizing and renaming them.

And while I was in the tech side of things, I decided to change my theme (the way my blog looks) for a faster one. And also changed my recipe card (for other technical reasons).

It took me months to migrate every single recipe from one recipe card to another. Adding an introduction before each recipe and all the nutrition facts. I lost all my recipe ratings in the process (another downfall to take in my life as a blogger). There was no possibility to get them back so I had to let go of that.

Then I started reshooting most of my pictures as, let's be honest, they were pretty ugly. I also started adding process pictures to some of my old recipes.

So yes, even though I haven't published many new recipes on my blog during the year 2021, I have kept working at it like a maniac!

I also started learning about Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O): all the rules you have to follow in order to get a (small) chance to be found by search engines. There are millions of blogs out there so in order to appear in search results, you have to work at it super hard.

Creating digital products

I also created a few digital products (Health Journal, Self-care bingo...) that I'm now selling on my Etsy shop. Another way to monetize my blog.

Wait stop! Isn't this against my own wishes?

If you have read my Food blog income report of a new blogger post you know that even though I want to be able to earn a living from my blog, if possible, I wish to keep access to my recipes and other content free for my readers. 

So why, have I created digital products that I'm selling? Well, I decided that those products are little extras that would, for sure, be very useful but that you could also make them yourself with a notebook and a pen. So it was OK to sell them.

Current mindset

My current mindset is "keep learning, move forward and eventually you will reach your goals".

Now that I've already gone through the biggest investments (buying a camera and camera lens, new computer, invest in an SEO course, photography set up, props and many other tools) I do believe that my blog should finally generate enough income to at least cover my blog expenses (domain name, hosting, theme, language switcher and other plugins or tools...).

Goals for the year 2022

My main goal concerning my blog is to try to reach 50 000 sessions a month so I can get approved by Mediavine (a better paying ad agency than my current one). I'm currently a little over 30 000 sessions a month. For that I will keep working on my SEO.

I also plan to create more recipes and publish new articles on wellness / natural healing.

I've decided to go one step further and become an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. I'm happy to announce that I'm already halfway through the intensive program and should receive my certificate in April 2022.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this little glance at the life of a blogger.

Whatever happens in the future, I am very grateful for this life changing experience. I want to thank my readers for their continued support. Thanks for sticking with me on this journey! This blog would be nothing without you guys.

Not surprisingly, engaging with my blog's readers is still my favorite part of this life as a blogger. So do not hesitate to leave me a comment. That's what keeps me motivated!

If you are an aspiring blogger yourself, do not hesitate to check my Blogger gift guide to find out about all the great tools I use for my blog.

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