In this post, I’ll be going over how my blog is doing, three months after I started it. I’ll be discussing Teen Finance Today’s traffic, impressions, social media following, changes, and my goals for the future. I’ll also explain the challenges I’ve faced along the way and how I overcame them to help anyone else thinking of starting a blog.

For anyone looking to start a blog or who wants to better understand blogging, this post will go over what the process was like for me and how my site’s doing three months later. 

About Teen Finance Today 

Teen Finance Today is a website that provides financial information for teenagers. As a teenager myself, I was frustrated by the lack of accurate and helpful financial information; thats why I created Teen Finance Today.

It all started around six months ago when I came up with the idea during my school’s winter break. After weeks of research and planning, I finally bought the domain and began work on the site. Over the next two months, I designed the website, figured out Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and worked on all the other necessary logistics. 

Teen Finance Today by the numbers:

Currently, Teen Finance Today’s traffic is minimal, with only ten visitors in the past 30 days. This number isn’t very accurate because my site has optional Google Analytics tracking, so that number is likely to be lower than the actual traffic. At any rate, approximately ten monthly visitors is hardly anything in the scheme of the internet. 

Although the site’s monthly viewership is unimpressive, the traffic, as well as impressions (the time’s someone saw your site as a search result and didn’t click on it), has been quickly increasing. 

Hopefully, as I continue to write more articles in different areas, the site will get more and more impressions each day, which will, in turn, lead to more visitors. 

In terms of content, in the past three months, I’ve written 12 posts (including a guest post at teenfinancialfreedom.com). In total, I’ve written around 20,000 words.

I also recently started an Instagram page to promote the site as well as provide other short-form content. In the weeks since I started the page, I’ve gained 72 followers. 

My goals  

Setting out on this journey, I didn’t have any specific goals. Since then, I’ve decided on two goals I’d like to achieve by the end of the year:

My biggest goal is to increase my monthly traffic. By the end of the year, my goal is to have 100 monthly views. Although this goal is ambitious, I think it’s defiantly doable if I continue to consistently write helpful articles that provide value to the readers.     

Another goal that will help increase awareness about the site as well as reach a different demographic is to have 150 Instagram followers. This is another ambitious goal, but if I post useful information a few times a week, I think I can achieve it.

Achieved goals:

Along with writing posts, there are a few other things I’ve been doing to grow the blog and make a better user experience. 

Social Media 

As I’ve already mentioned, I started an Instagram page where I create blog post summaries and other content like quotes. In the near future, I plan to start branching out to other social media platforms like Pinterest and Twitter. 

Website redesign 

Another big change I’ve made in the past three months is my website redesign. Even though my original website was decent, I decided to redesign the website and created a different layout, using high-quality images/icons to create a more visually appealing site. 

Guest posts

I also wrote a guest post for teenfinancialfreedom.com – another finance blog for teenagers – about “How to Set Yourself Up for Financial Success.” Going forward, I plan on writing more guest posts for other websites. 

What I’ve learned:

I’ve been blogging for three months now, and I honestly expected to have far more visitors than I do. There are a few reasons I suspect I haven’t seen any real growth yet. 

1. Long posts are important 

Originally, I was writing articles less than 1,000 words long. In the past month, I’ve started to write more detailed and in-depth articles longer than 2,000 words. Since I’ve made this change, I noticed a substantial increase in traffic and impressions. 

You might be asking: Why does article length affect traffic?

“When your text is longer, Google has more clues to determine what it is about. The longer your (optimized) text, the more often your focus keyphrase appears” – Yoast SEO.

For this reason, it’s extremely important to write long posts. 

2. SEO 

Another big thing I need to work on is SEO: 

“SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” In simple terms, it means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility for relevant searches. The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business” – Search Engine Land

For the first few months of blogging, I’ve been focusing on improving content, user experience, and providing the best information possible. Going forward, I plan on continuing this, as well as focusing on SEO. 

3. Time

Although I don’t exactly have any authority on the matter, considering my blog is brand new and has barely any viewers, it does take time to build a significant following. 

Most bloggers won’t see growth for at least three to six months.

Advice to others starting a blog:

Write about something you care about

When you start a blog, the most important thing is that your writing about something you care about. Personal finance has been an interest of mine for years, so it’s easy to write about topics I already understand, like investing and financial literacy. 

If you’re not writing about something you care about, you’ll quickly lose motivation and have a hard time consistently writing posts and improving your site. 

There’s no such thing as perfection

“Perfection is the enemy of progress” – Winston Churchill.

Something I’ve always struggled with is perfectionism. When you’re starting a blog, it’s easy to obsess over small details. If you waste time on unimportant changes, you’ll never be able to consistently write posts or even create a website in the first place. 

“Aiming for perfection usually winds up in a project or something else never being finished. So go for good enough instead. Don’t use it as an excuse to slack off. But simply realize that there is something called good enough and when you are there then you are finished with whatever you are doing” The Positivity Blog 

Starting is the most challenging part

For weeks I thought about starting a blog, alternating between feeling excited and overwhelmed at the prospect of building a website from scratch. But when I finally pulled the trigger and bought a domain, I didn’t look back.

Once I purchased my domain and a year of hosting, I was extremely motivated to finish building my site as fast as possible. The way I looked at it was if I didn’t start the blog, I would just be throwing away money.

Schedule change 

From now on, I’ll be posting on Fridays instead of Mondays so lookout for an extra post this week!

Contact information

If you have any questions or would like to write a guest post, email me at eli@teenfinancetoday.com!