Happy New Year! I hope 2021 was good to you and that 2022 will be even better. As the year ends, it is tradition for me to take a look back at how the blog has been performing and compare that performance to previous years.
For those of you who are new here, I have been blogging since May of 2017. This blog was inspired by my hiking adventures with my dog, Glia. After I graduated from veterinary school, I spent a lot of time out on hiking trails, but I was also looking for a hobby that I could enjoy from my couch and that was relatively inexpensive (or even better had the chance of being profitable). Blogging fit the bill!
If you are interested in how bloggers can make money, I wrote a post all about “How to Make Money Blogging About Your Dog (or Cat).” That post discusses all of the basic ways to make money blogging, such as through ads or affiliate marketing.
But if you are here to learn about this blog’s growth in 2021, keep reading. Also, please be aware that this post does contain a couple of affiliate links.
Pawsitively Intrepid: Blog Statistics
There are a total of 183 posts currently published on PawsitivelyIntrepid.com. Only 29 of those blog posts were published in 2021. So I averaged just a little over 1 blog post published every 2 weeks in 2021.
For reference, here is a comparison table of how many blog posts I wrote in each full year that I have been writing for Pawsitively Intrepid.
| 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
| 29 | 46 | 46 | 36 |
I typically try to average about 1 blog post per week, and you can see that I almost accomplished that in 2020 and 2019, but fell short this year.
Many of my blog posts are not optimized for SEO, but I am trying to be more intentional with search analysis and writing good headlines. So with that said, let’s take a look at the number of users and page views that these blog posts have resulted in.
Number of Users and Page Views per Year
I am writing this blog post a week earlier than usual, as I will be on vacation the first week of January this year. So I wanted to make sure my New Year’s blog post was ready to go ahead of time. As a result, all data from 2021 is from January 1st, 2021 to December 26th, 2021.
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual # of Users | 1.7K | 5.4K | 45.7K | 123K |
| Annual # of Page Views | 3.5K | 8.6K | 65.5K | 171K |
| Annual # of Sessions | 2.2K | 6.4K | 53K | 142K |
This year’s numbers are more than 2.5x higher than 2020’s numbers, which I am very pleased with!
Last year, I also compared the average users and page views/month for the year, as many revenue factors for blogs are based on page views/month.
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Users/Month (avg) | 50 | 150 | 450 | 3.8K | 10K |
| PageViews/Month (avg) | 180 | 290 | 720 | 5.4K | 14K |
And again, you can see that both of these metrics more than doubled from 2020 to 2021. For those who are more visual, here is a graph to show the increase in page views per month averages from year to year.
When I set goals in January of 2021, my goal for traffic for the year was to average over 5K users/month throughout the year. And since this blog is a little seasonal and gets the most traffic in July, I aimed to achieve over 10K views in the month of July. So I am very happy that my average was 10K page views/month throughout the year, with July even higher.
Most Popular Posts From 2021
The top 5 most popular posts for this year (with original posting dates) were the following:
| Title | Publish Date | Views (2021) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 11 Tips for Successfully Tent Camping with Your Dog | 4/22/2020 | 14,619 |
| 2 | How to Pass Other Dogs Calmly: Stop the Stare | 11/25/2020 | 11,133 |
| 3 | Dog-Friendly Guide to Badlands National Park | 11/6/2019 | 6,539 |
| 4 | How to Make Money Blogging About Your Dog (or Cat) | 8/12/2020 | 5,917 |
| 5 | Shenandoah National Park: Dog-Friendly Appalachian Mountain Trails | 12/25/2019 | 5,509 |
Traffic Sources
Another interesting blog statistic is the sources from which traffic is coming to a blog/website. Last year, my pie chart of traffic sources looked like this:
As you can see, organic search (such as traffic that comes from Google or Bing or DuckDuckGo) was 76% of my traffic, followed by social media. Social Media comprised almost 16% of my traffic.
In 2020, Pinterest accounted for 89% of my social media traffic, followed by Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. This year, however, Pinterest didn’t seem to be sending over as much traffic, so I wasn’t surprised to see my social media percentage decrease. (Although, I was a little surprised to see my direct traffic increasing.)
So in 2021, about 74% of my traffic came from organic search and 13% from social media. Since I am trying to determine how useful social media is for growing a blog, this year I want to compare numbers a little bit more for social media traffic.
| 2020 | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|
| 7,470 (89%) | 15,862 (85%) | |
| 697 (8.3%) | 2,166 (12%) | |
| YouTube | 95 (1.1%) | 472 (2.6%) |
| 5 (0.06%) | 17 (0.1%) | |
| 87 (1.0%) | 4 (0.02%) |
It looks like Twitter is the only social media source that actually decreased the number of sessions. However, I am no longer active on Twitter, so that is an obvious potential cause of the decrease.
Monetization
I was able to monetize this blog in 2020, which was a big step for me. I haven’t historically shared many details on income and expenses for this blog but thought that it may be useful to someone. And if nothing else, it is a nice summary for me to look back on over the years.
Okay, so first let’s take a look at income for 2020 so that we have a reference for progress and improvement in 2021.
I had 2 main sources of income for Pawsitively Intrepid in 2020: Ads and Affiliate Income. Aka Adsense and the Amazon Affiliate program.
I set up a Google Adsense account for Pawsitively Intrepid in March of 2020. In 2020, I earned $146.72 from Adsense with an RPM of $2.54. This year, I made $555.36 from Adsense with an average page RPM of $4.23.
I would have earned more with Adsense, but in mid-September, I switched my ad network to Ezoic. And from September to December 25th, I earned $429.11 from Ezoic with an average ePMV of $19.82.
If you’re like me, you may be wondering… what’s the difference between rpm and ePMV? Honestly, it confuses me a little bit too – so I am just going to refer you over to this article by Ezoic.
Last year I also opened an Amazon Affiliates account in March and earned a total of $158.30. This year, I have earned $290.56over the entire year.
So my total earnings for 2021 = 555.36+429.11+290.56= $1,014.03!
If I don’t include the used laptop I purchased, this was enough to cover all of my expenses, which included the following:
| Ruffwear Gear (to review) | $115.48 |
| Pinnacle Video Software | $32.01 |
| Income School Course | $199 |
| Domain Renewal | $12.95 |
| Host Gator (hosting) | $173.39 |
| Short Pixel Credits | $10.73 |
| Total | $545.56 |
So how did I do on my goals for 2021?
Let’s take a look!
Traffic
This year, my goal is to average over 5K users/month throughout the year. And since July is historically the month when this website gets the most traffic, I am aiming to achieve over 10K page views in July.
https://pawsitivelyintrepid.com/pawsitively-intrepid-a-review-of-blog-growth-in-2020/
Yep, check! I averaged 10K page views per month with 21K page views in July. This year truly has exceeded my expectations traffic-wise.
Monetization
In 2021, my goal is to break the $100/month income threshold. (For reference, in 2020, I averaged $30/month.)
I will increase income from my blog in two main ways: ads and affiliate income.
For ads, I will continue to work on increasing traffic to this website. The more traffic, the more ads that will be seen on this website. I also intend to transition from Adsense to Ezoic, as many bloggers report a higher RPM (amount paid per view) when working with Ezoic. Ezoic has a relationship with Income School, which will allow me to transition to Ezoic before meeting the 10K/month page view requirement.
For affiliate income, I am planning to invest in some great dog hiking and backpacking gear in order to create some detailed gear reviews in 2021. I am also adding affiliate links for some blogging resources that have been helpful for me.
https://pawsitivelyintrepid.com/pawsitively-intrepid-a-review-of-blog-growth-in-2020/
I am happy to report that I did break the $100/month mark in the second half of the year. I didn’t quite average $100/month, instead my monthly average was $84.50. But I did increase my ad income significantly by transitioning from Adsense to Ezoic, and this helped my monthly income grow throughout the year.
As for other sources of income, I did not earn any affiliate income from Income School or Avantlink as I had hoped to do, so next year I will be back to focusing mostly on Amazon Affiliates.
YouTube
Over the last year, the people behind Income School have become big promoters of YouTube. And this makes sense, as I originally discovered them and their membership program by watching their videos on YouTube.
I never thought that I would be the type of person to show my face on YouTube. And originally, I thought I liked writing significantly more than video production. However, I have found that I really just enjoy creating content.
So in 2021, I hope to add 52 videos to my YouTube channel (about once a week, but I likely won’t get the first few added until February). That being said, there are a few existing videos on my YouTube channel already. And as of Jan 1st, 2020, I have 31 subscribers to that channel.
Feel free to find me and the pups on YouTube as Pawsitively Intrepid.
https://pawsitivelyintrepid.com/pawsitively-intrepid-a-review-of-blog-growth-in-2020/
Well, I do have a YouTube Channel. It has 22 videos, 16 of which were created in 2021. The channel gained 121 subscribers (has 154 total) and 1.7K hours of watch time in 2021.
The biggest stumbling block to really achieving my YouTube goals in 2021 was that my original computer couldn’t process video efficiently. So I had to upgrade my computer this year. I may retry this goal again for 2022 now that I have better technology.
Goals for Pawsitively Intrepid for 2022
And now it is time to set new goals for the new year!
Traffic Goals for 2022
Traffic is an easy measurement and as my blog is still relatively small, it is an obvious goal each year. The goal this year is to double the traffic again. With an average of 20K page views per month, this one might be a little difficult. Wish me luck!
How will I increase traffic? Mostly by writing more. And writing well. If I can provide useful content to readers, more readers should come.
I will also continue to learn and grow my SEO skills. If I can find underserved topics, it will be easier to create blog posts that Google will show on the first page of search results. I plan to go through the Income School course on SEO again to help improve my SEO skills.
Additionally, I have been considering taking a course on how to better utilize Pinterest. The course I may purchase in 2022 is this one from Wear Wag Repeat. Tori Mistick is fantastic and if you aren’t already listening to her podcast, then you should.
Monetization Goals for 2022
So I just barely made my monetization goals for 2021. But, I really want to push hard in this category for 2022. Increasing the income that I can make from this blog, will open up the opportunity for me to spend more time working on the blog.
So I am going to dream big here and work to break the $1000/month threshold.
How will I be able to do this? There are several components to increasing income from this blog.
- Increased Traffic = Increased Ad Earnings
With 200-300 page views per day (6000 – 9000 page views/month) at the end of the year when my traffic is lowest, I am currently earning $3-5/day or $90-150/month. If I can consistently increase my traffic to 20K + page views per month, I hope to be making closer to $500/month from ads.
- Affiliate Income
Increasing the usefulness of gear reviews and finding more products that I truly love to recommend could help grow my affiliate income. I would like to increase my affiliate income to $100 + per month.
I may have to get creative and find some opportunities outside of Amazon in order to make this goal, as Amazon only gives affiliates 3% of product sales in commission.
- Create a Digital Information Product
Oftentimes the best way to make an income as a blogger is to create an information product that readers can purchase. My goal is to create something to sell in 2022.
For an info product, options include courses or digital books or helpful spreadsheets/workbooks. So a big goal is to complete an info product. At this point, I am leaning towards writing an ebook as my first foray into a digital information product. But we’ll see what 2022 brings.
- +/- YouTube
I would still like to give YouTube a legitimate attempt either in 2022 or 2023. I have a computer that can run video more efficiently now and have Pinnacle Studios video editing software. I am also still a part of Income School’s course. And in addition to the blogging course, Income School also offers a YouTube course.
I am struggling a little to find enough time to work as a veterinarian, write blog posts, and record videos. So I may delay really working on YouTube until 2023 and just focus on writing for the blog and creating an info product this year. But I would like to complete the YouTube course at some point and see what happens.
- +/- Additional Income Sources
Other options to create more income include finding sponsors for blog posts or setting up a print-on-demand online store. We’ll see just how creative I can get in 2022.
Value Added Goals for 2022
And while most of this blog post has been about numbers, it is important not to forget that this blog exists for you, dear reader. And there is no purpose to this blog if it is not providing value for other people.
For 2022, I want to add more gear reviews to help readers decide which gear is right for their adventure dog.
I also plan to focus on tips to help dogs with reactive behaviors. My own pups have some reactive tendencies, but they are still amazing adventure companions. I hope to help others work with their own dogs to safely adventure with their pups.
And I will continue to offer tips and tricks for enjoying outdoor adventures with dogs in a healthy and safe way, as well as some suggestions on great hiking trails to discover with your dog.
Please let me know if there are any topics that you are interested in learning more about.
And if you would like to follow along with our journey, sign up to get our monthly email newsletter.
