Interested in starting a mommy blog?
I started Twins Mommy in 2017 as a way to share my struggles as a work from home mom with twins.
Over the years, this amazing blog has helped thousands of moms start blogs so they can work from home and take care of their little ones!
I’m humbled thinking that I helped them navigate this new journey as a mom blogger.
One thing I shared early on Twins Mommy was my blog traffic growth.
I shared the first 10 months of growing my blog.
And after? I haven’t done a proper traffic report, so I thought I would try today!
2020 was a crazy year for the world, my life and for my twins.
My father passed away this year and because of the pandemic, I couldn’t travel to the states to attend his funeral.
I’m still grappling with this, but fortunate that my family taped the service and took pictures.
We also recently purchased a home, but have yet to move in.
The house is covered in mold! So now we are getting it cleaned and ready to move in.
So, like I said, crazy year (aside from the pandemic).
I am now watching the Latina Next Door’s reno playlist as she had some similar issues with her new house (and well, I also LOVE LOVE LOVE her design style).
My twins are distance learning and while I think they are doing well, I know when they do back to school they are going to have a very hard time re-adjusting.
Through all of this, my business has been flourishing and I’m forever grateful for what I have created over the years.
Blogging is truly helping me and hubby stay home for good and you know what? It can change your life too!
I know that sounds cliche, but it really is true.
So, let’s look at the successes my blog had for 2020.
Successes in 2020
One thing that improved was my organic traffic.
1. SEO Gains
This is Google traffic and within a year I went from having 766 monthly search traffic to 1,345 monthly search traffic!
Here is my Google traffic according to Ahrefs – a paid SEO tool.
As my search traffic grew, my domain rating improved slightly. Your domain rating is a score to show how popular your blog is. It is directly tied to how many other blogs linked to your site (backlinks).
For Twins Mommy, I was at a 43 in the beginning of the year and by the end, a 46. Not bad! This number isn’t that important for ranking (Google doesn’t use DA to determine rank), but it does help overall for establishing your blog as trustworthy.
If you want to learn more about SEO, check out my guide on what SEO is.
And if you are struggling to find keywords for your mom blog, grab my guide of 260 Easy Keywords for Ranking.
2. Learned Facebook Ads
Over the summer me and hubby took a Facebook Ads course. It was very good, but in the end it did not help us one bit. My product is more B2B and the course favored B2C products that were cheaper (under $47). My product is $200.
So, I will have to revisit this next year for Twins Mommy or for other projects.
Why did I put this as a success? It’s because I did learn things like better sales page writing and Ad copy.
Ad copy can be a new service I could offer and I’m excited to explore this.
3. Launched Two New Products
Another thing this Facebook Ads course did was help me create two new products. Both are for writers, but I’m so happy that I was pushed to do this. Although I never thought I would create these types of products, I’m glad that I did.
What’s great is that if I wanted to, I could add more to these courses and make them more valuable!
If you are creating your first product and need help writing a sales page, check out my tips here.
4. Kept Growing My Facebook Group
My Facebook group, Mom to Mompreneur has 14,000 members!
I don’t remember how many members I had in the beginning of the year, but this group continues to grow every month!
Throughout the year I’ve had thoughts about archiving this group.
Why?
Well, it’s a lot of policing. This is a promo-free group, yet I get people promoting their products or dropping links to their profiles or videos.
None of this is allowed.
I have a VA that helps police, but it’s getting harder. Overall, most people are respectful of the rules, but it does become time consuming.
While my group does help grow my income, it’s not always consistent and the effort to turn this into a converting strategy is more than I’d like to do.
So, not sure for 2021!
5. I Monetized My Youtube Channel
One cool thing that happened in 2020 was that my Youtube channel has passed the threshold to monetize!
So, I will start monetizing in 2021 or wait until I have a bit more subscribers to make it worthwhile to monetize on Youtube!
6. Email Growth
I started the year with around 14,000 subscribers.
For the end of 2020? I have around 25,000 subscribers.
I’m happy with the growth, but know that I could have grown more if I created more lead magnets.
If you want to grow your email list, make sure to take my FREE list building challenge!
7. My Pageviews Grew
Since my Google traffic grew, it only makes sense that my pageviews have grown as well!
In September 2019, my pageviews were around 69,000. And now? They improved 48% to 103,000!
I’m really happy about this. I enjoy growing my pageviews for all my sites and it’s especially nice that my Twins Mommy blog is growing – even though this is a demographic lifestyle blog!
Yes, it’s not really a niche. I blog about productivity tips, email tips, blogging tips and work at home tips!
And this site continues to rank and grow!
If you want the same for your blog, make sure to check out Ready Set Blog for Traffic!
8. Getting Featured on Big Sites
One thing I’m happy to have happened is that other sites are finding my blogs and linking to my sites or featuring me!
Sites like the Penny Hoarder, The Freelancer by Contently, Leadpages and more linked to my sites!
These are backlinks and when bigger sites link to your smaller site, Google looks at those links as more trusting and authoritative. Basically, bigger sites are vouching for your site as a good site and Google “listens” to big sites.
So, how do you get backlinks from these sites? While I talk about that a lot in Ready Set Blog for Traffic, one thing I can mention here is to write highly valuable content.
You will get noticed quickly if you write valuable content that is unique as well!
Okay, those were the big successes that happened in 2020.
So, what are the failures of 2020?
Failures
There are a few things that didn’t turn out the way I had expected and I want to be truthful to you! Being transparent is important to me and blogging isn’t all roses!
1. Failed at Updating My Products
I had big hopes this year to update most of my courses. I failed miserably.
In July I actually recorded many lessons for my writer website course.
Well, I realized that what I was teaching wasn’t fluid and it looked like I was learning it too (and I was learning how to use Elementor).
So I scraped that and realize I will just use WordPress and Gutenberg to create a website. But I haven’t had time to record the lessons because my twins started distance learning.
And now? I have very little motivation to get it done, but I have to push myself as I really NEED to update this course before the end of the year.
2. We Were Suppose to Move
And we were suppose to move this month.
But, can’t because of the mold issue. When we move we will have no carpet and no dining room flooring. We will need a new roof next year because we were told it was done wrong.
So, I’m praying that once we move in, it’s safe, dry and livable until we can reno it little by little.
3. Did Not Double My Monthly Income
A goal of mine was to double the passive monthly income. The blogs make good income ($20-30k/month) but it does fluctuate depending on ranking and if I wrote a blog post or created pins.
I was hoping to double the blog’s income this year, but I didn’t do the things I had to do double it (update courses, create higher-tiered products, profitable Facebook ads).
I know now that we have incurred lots of expenses in fixing our house and eventually renovating it, my husband is dead set on helping me make more income from these sites.
As a family of four and a fixer upper it’s imperative that we work on this. Before, it was just a nice goal to have as we were fine with the passive income we get from these blogs.
That Was My 2020, How Was Yours?
I know this post wasn’t all that cheerful, but I want to be real here.
My twins are healthy and happy.
I am healthy and my husband is healthy.
All of us are home every day and we can go for walks, play outside, do Pinterest crafts and enjoy family life! And that’s what counts, right?
Are you ready to start a mom blog?
Share with me your successes for 2020!
Please pin me!
Hi Elna! Nice post! 🙂 My success in 2020, after 1 year into this process, is that I found a couple of coaches that work as a team that will take me to monetization of my business. God downloaded a 3-Phase product in me, so now I’m super clear about what I’m focusing on (I struggled with having a clear message). I’m so thankful for your products that have educated me to know how all of this works. Thank you for your personal comments and guidance too. I pray your house will be more and more livable each day – that there will be huge progress – faster than you anticipated. Before you know it, you’ll be looking at this issue behind you. 🙂
Hi Jojo!
Thanks for your kind words. What a wonderful blog topic you have! You are definitely helping people with your words! Thanks for your concern on the house. More bad news unfortunately. The top floor shower has been leaking down to the basement for a while now. No one knew about it! We found out by accident! So no a plumber is in here fixing. I’m praying that is all this house needs aside from a cosmetic renovation!
Hi Elna, I feel like a stalker because I’m a dad, not a mom, but I’m learning so much from your guidance. I am starting a blog about raising kids but it will told from a dad’s perspective. Our two kids are now in their 20’s and out on their own. I was very involved in their raising and was always frustrated reading the popular parenting magazines because they should have been called “mothering” magazines – dads were almost an afterthought. I already have 122 titles to write about, each with a unique event from the kids’ lives, and I’m going to divide the stories up by stages in life, from the hospital and delivery to where the kids are now in their new careers. I don’t expect any problems writing, it’s getting the web site ready that’s making me crazy. It can already be found online but it’s presently a mix of my content vs. content that came with the template I downloaded. When you mentioned sticking with WordPress and Gutenberg to create sites, and how you’re still learning Elementor, I got a sense of what you’re thinking because I’m so frustrated with spending my time building the site when what I really want to be doing is writing and posting, and interacting with readers. I’m looking forward to having the site be all my own content and then I can start following your steps to help it grow. A big thank you for the guidance and encouragement!
Hey Adam,
If you want you can write on Medium if starting a blog is a struggle. Or you can hire it out! Thanks for stopping by!
Hi Elna, it’s always good reading your blog. For 2020 my success was that I created my website, and I am building my online business which is a dream come through and what is more amazing is that I made $200 in my fourth month of blogging.
Hi Lois,
Thanks for stopping by! That’s an awesome success! Good luck!
Wow! This is so impressive! Congrats Elna! I am such a fan of your brand and work! I can’t wait to see more youtube videos…when things slow done with the new move!
Hi Sierra,
Oh, thank you so much! So happy you found some tidbits for your business in 2021! Enjoy blogging!