🧠 SEO and Travel Blogger since 2018. 💰 Making $30k/mo from one travel blog. 📈 Over 7,000 students and clients served. 💎Get my free SEO Content Audit Guide👇
How to Reach 10k Pageviews With SEO
Step 1: Have a defined niche (i.e. Rome travel)
Step 2: Work on 1 subtopic in the niche (i.e. activities in Rome).
Step 3: Find 3 competitors in your niche with DAs under 30
@bychloecaldwell
It’s 100% because the people writing them are all writers 🤣
I see it a lot with hallmark glamorizing females in publishing too. Having done a masters in publishing can confirm it’s largely white men in exec roles not women unfortunately
Made $31.5k last month in affiliates, my $7 travel mini course, and ads (in that order) from my main site. But I hadn’t checked my pageviews in ages. Just checked and I’m at 99k! So close to that 100kcmark for the first time ❤️
1 million views matters way less to me than the $$$
This time last year I was making maybe $2 from my blog per month (I had turned off ads for my 6 month mediavine push or it might have been $100 max).
1 week into this month and I’ve already hit $4k!
So what changed??
The only way this happened was SEO. I used to bounce around from strategy to strategy, did all those nonsense Facebook group shares, and tried be an Instagram blogger. Such a waste of time.
Here's what actually worked 👇
I've decided to stop sharing my personal income publicly.
I've really enjoyed getting to share the exciting news with y'all, but a few things have happened that made me realize it's no longer safe for me to do so:
Hello to 1.5k new friends!
Let me introduce myself. I'm Nina, a 27 year old Canadian with purple hair and a very cute golden retriever named Theo. Theo is branch manager of this whole operation
$960 away from $350k for the year ❤️
That is more than I’ve ever made in all the other years of my life combined!
And we’re just over halfway through the year. My goal of $500k for the year is feeling easy now and not as insane as when I set it in December
Goal: $100 per day from ads
Already teal across the board, sessions increasing 5-10% daily, and using kadence for a speedy themes.
Always open to
#seo
tips and tricks to move the ticker higher!
Adding author boxes to my site with the proper schema has caused a massive jump in rankings and traffic
I used the Kadence built in author box - but there are free plugins too or custom schema
If you haven’t added this yet, do it ASAP!
One of the ways I scaled my content creation and got into mediavine with my travel blog in 6 months is by using
I even rank
#1
on Google
I've also used it to create ebooks in an afternoon that made $2k within their first week launch!
Here are some tips 🧵
Want to make money fast? Don’t be a blogger
Freelancing will make you a lot more in your first year than blogging will.
But you won’t be able to scale long term.
Mix both.
Start a blog and freelance to learn skills and make some money.
Keep it up till your blog takes off
My first $6k month in ad rev! I was close last month but this month I finally hit it - even with the dip in the first week
My goal of $10k/mo by the end of the year is getting closer and closer
I made $5k this morning
… what was I doing? Visiting a giant prairie dog statue that my dog was thoroughly unimpressed with
Passive income = freedom
And that’s why I love my blog so much ❤️
I always promised myself when I hit $100k I’d do something cool for my audience like a giveaway or something
But I hit it soooo much earlier than I expected so I am not prepared 🙈
Help give me ideas please!!
My site hit the hardest by the HCU is bouncing back in a real way - traffic is above where it was before. I've changed nothing.
It was the one most deserving of being hit cause I've barely touched it this year.
Sometimes these things just reverse themselves 🤷♀️
Say it with me:
ChatGPT is not an effective keyword research tool.
ChatGPT is not an effective keyword research tool.
ChatGPT is not an effective keyword research tool.
ChatGPT is not an effective keyword research tool.
ChatGPT is not an effective keyword research tool.
How to Get Your First 1,000 Organic Pageviews in 2024
These next steps assume you have: a defined niche, a keyword research tool (paid is best), G4 + GSC set up (tutorials on my YT @ sheknowsseo), and a theme set up on your site. If not, do those first and come back.
I hate the term "traffic boner" a la Matt Diggity, but it's all I can think of now when I see my course + coaching sales figures for June :p
Can we come up with a better term for it??
I also don't like hockey stick - because I hate hockey (I know I'm a bad Canadian)
My grandmas dementia is getting worse but she still always asks about my blog and suggests stories of travels from her life ❤️
She’s the reason I’m so die hard for Alt text. She’s blind and has used a screen reader for the entire time she’s read my blog.
Popular keyword cluster that is 99% green: kayaks
Kayak rentals, kayaking, different types of kayaks
If unlike me, you have upper body strength and own a kayak, you should def go for it!
I considered it for so long, but my hatred of paddling means this isn't a niche for me
Had my biggest Google Discover day yet!
2k clicks yesterday for a blog post that isn't topical, is 4.5k words, I shared on socials (some people say that hurts it), and is completely full of affiliate links.
Ended the month with over $114k in revenue from all my blogs
* this could still have cancellations and refunds. So I’m waiting two weeks to send an email income report breakdown so we’ll have more accurate settled figures
Did a quick daily income check in. I made $2k and some change yesterday. Spend the day hiking, chasing waterfalls and taking my dog to the lake.
This 100% isn’t an overnight success. I put in the work early and now it’s paying dividends
Been perfecting my open ai prompt for this
@zapier
sequence
But along the way I broke the Wordpress connection. Gotta fix it tomorrow, but it was running smoothly till I started fussing
I just found a DA 13 travel site in Adthrive
I discovered a new search formula to find all adthrive monetized sites
It only took a minute to see the exact strategy they used to get it there
SEO deep dives are more fun than watching a movie in my hotel 🤩
Ok trying to do this whole “celebrate hitting $100k” thing
I’m VERY bad at treating myself or spending any money
But I just booked an Alaskan cruise for my mum and myself in September ❤️
Had to use treating her as a way to rewire my brain so I’d actually do it
Everyone hates ads on websites, podcasts, and YouTube videos. … until they start one and realize how much hard work and money goes into making them. 95% of content creators I know change their mind about ads after 6 months of content creation
I'm selling my baby site.
I started it in June 2022 and I just don't have time for it.
12 posts
1.7k monthly pageviews - all SEO but the Pinterest is starting to get some saves.
DA 2
Not monetized
Niche: mocktails
Asking $2k USD
$100 referral fee if you connect me with a buyer
Grew to 150k pageviews 6 weeks after hitting 100k pageviews for the first time
I published 12 posts in the last couple months.
I didn’t build backlinks recently
So what did I do? 👇
Now that Google seems to want us to be a brand spending thousands on socials, I’m automating my social feeds with ChatGPT and zapier
Email with instructions to follow ;)
Plus the connections I have to automate newsletters, blog posts, and more
Cause ya girl is lazy af!
The amount of sites currently for sale in the Raptive Facebook group has gone up 3x since the HCU
Many are citing the HCU as the reason for the sale. It’s really sad 😞
A big jump up in ad revenue - nearly at my first $300 day from Raptive
And oddly on a Sunday which is usually quite slow for me?
Gonna hit my $10k/mo ad income goal by the end of the year FOR SURE (even without Q4 increases it seems) 💪
Google really seems to have shadowbanned some creators post HCU. Nothing they do works - I even saw someone totally wipe out everything on their site.
But a lot of people are having success with a new domain with the exact same content.
Has anyone tested this themselves?
Just found over $30k in affiliate commissions for a client in 30 keywords
-and that's a very conservative estimate to account for high vs. low months
You don't need to write 1000 posts or have 5 mil pageviews to make great $$ passively
It's all about quality over quantity <3
You can tell Pinterest bloggers from seo bloggers pretty easily
Their site is CHAOS with no clear niche and usually very surface level listicles. Like 10 best national parks in the us
An seo isn’t gonna write that unless their site is da75
10 Key Takeaways from the Google Algo Leak:
1. Create For Users, Not For Google
2. User Experience is King
3. Get the Right Type of Links
4. SEOs Got it Wrong
5. Testing Matters Most
6. Track Your Content Like Google Does
👇
My goal is 300k pageviews by the end of summer - but with suchhh limited time to work on the site.
I have a plan of action but I'd love to know your ideas too!
What would you do to supercharge the growth of this travel blog?
After having the WORST month in terms of mental health, losing my wallet, accommodation and wifi issues, etc. I am ending it on the best notes
My travel blog hit 200k pageviews for the first time
I broke my $5k ad income goal for that site
I've been quiet with the SEO tips here lately cause I've been pretty ill mentally and physically recently. But I want to change that.
What would y'all like me to do some threads and tweets about?
Please stop dming me to buy sites.
I’ve never bought one. I’ve never asked to buy one.
I run 5 sites and wish I only had 2 and am working towards scaling down to that
I do not want more
It feels like those mormons showing up on your door. Like just leave me alone!!
I've been a travel blogger for 5 years. But I finally stayed at a insta-worthy cabin last night (with a private hot tub!)
Is this what "making it" feels like??
#travelstribe
#travelbloging
Some of my goals for 2024 - business and personal.
Feel free to share yours and we'll hold each other accountable <3
⭐️ $1 mil USD revenue, 50% profit after write offs (mostly travel :p )
⭐️ 10k Youtube subscribers
⭐️ Sell blog for $50k
⭐️ 350 new SEO Roadmap students
These are my 5 favourite ChatGPT prompts for blog owners with freelance writers 👇
1. Fact Checking
“Please fact check this piece and provide a list of inaccuracies: [paste content/URL]”
I used to believe 50k sessions was the highest my blog could reach.
Then I smashed from 50k sessions to 90k pageviews in 6 weeks and had to rethink that. 6 months later I hit 245k pageviews. 🧵
Content to write right now:
- Halloween
- Fall road trips
- Fall vacations
- Thanksgiving recipes
These are posts that peak searches in Sept and Oct.
Publish them now, pin in July and August, and promote to your list this summer for max traffic.
The biggest issue I have with the HCU and the current March updates isn't even the traffic loss or vagueness of Google's information on it.
It's the near impossibility of recovery for sites that have changed their ways.
Not even speaking for myself, but for others.
I’ve really missed writing. After months of travel and stress and course building I just wanted to write some posts. So last night I wrote 2.5 in bed
One is already ranking on page 1 ❤️
Someone is outranking me and they say in their intro that they've never been to the country the whole post is about
...mildly infuriating
But I think I've cracked how to knock em out.
And it's not more EEAT cause mine is FULL of it
As of 6am this morning: $57.8k USD!
A lot of people asked me how many posts: just 30, with another 15 no indexed
No ad revenue, just affiliates, products, services (rarely, but this month they were on), and some sponsored stuff
How??
Minor promo on socials, but mostly email <3
Week 1 and I've already SMASHED last year's November income.
It was my first $26.5k month
In the first 10 days of this month I've already done over $38k ❤️
I’m gonna do a really intensive comparison of SurferSEOs AI against a number of other AI writers for the same article
Is that something people would want to watch on a YouTube live? Or would y’all rather it be prerecorded?
(I’d do an email write up too)
Sometimes you need to stop learning.
Not forever. But for a moment.
It’s so easy to get caught up in every tweet, podcast, newsletter, etc.
You’ll learn a lot, but you’ll never have time to actually do any of the things.
Have seasons of learning and seasons of implementing
61k achieved
I thought that was a laughable goal yesterday 😭🙈
Today I guess we’re aiming for $75k by the end of the day
This is more than I made for a year in the law firm 💸💸
2. I've gotten kind of addicted to the rush of dopamine from getting praised for making money and it's starting to tie into some not so great habits I have around self worth and money. I want to work on feeling like I have self worth outside of the money I earn.
SheMedia is about to get flooded with account cancellations if Mediavine's March 14th announcement is a lower tier network, and with Raptive's new lower tier (I know it's still high, but it's lower than normal Mediavine)
So excited to get this site to $100k months. It’s my 2nd site and I do not give it nearly enough time or attention
But a challenge gets my engine revving! The last one I did I wrote 70k words without AI in two weeks while working 100hrs at a law firm
… I’m a bit competitive :p
The BEST thing you can do as a blogger is network.
Blogging solo is extremely hard, and often disheartening.
Having accountability buddies, people to collab with, and people to cheerlead each other on is key to surviving this biz.
Coming tomorrow: How to Get Paid to Travel!
Learn how to land paid press trips - not just for $500, for $5k+
And keep getting them time and time again <3
Psst... you don't even need a big social media following or tons of monthly pageviews
How to Start a Blog in 2024
1. Buy a domain name. I recommend Namesilo
2. Buy your hosting. This should run on . I recommend Lyrical
3. Choose a defined niche. "Travel" doesn't cut it. "Solo travel in India" is good
I'm in a few FB groups where people keep getting mad at people for asking questions, telling them to "just google it".
Most of the time, the person tried, and the answers were crap. That's why they came to the group.
On Friday I scheduled 300 odd pins with Pin Generator.
Impressions and saves shooting up - but to older images that have never gotten traction before. Maybe showing up for once in 2 years actually helped?
Still nothing big but we'll see if it improves.
Well now I have to rewrite my email for next week
In it I said I didn't hit my goal of a $100k month yet from all my blogs combined
... guess what just happened 6 minutes ago
Best reason EVER to need to redo an email holy crap! I am sooo grateful <3
A few more days until I switch over to Raptive!
A year ago I had just applied for mediavine and thought 50k sessions was insane. Now I’m almost at 150k - if I hadn’t focused on four other sites I’m sure I’d be there by now.
Excited to compare and contrast the networks
Ready to learn how to do keyword research in 2024?
I'm emailing my exact keyword research and topic cluster strategy at 9am Tuesday EST. No resends, sorry.
Get on the list or miss out on the secrets to ranking on Google:
Want to know more about how I made over $110k in a single month from 2 blogs?
I reveal the details - and some of my SEO tips and tricks for getting there - in this podcast interview.
I also reveal a truly cringey Tiktok video that still haunts me to this day!