Lindsay's Sweet World is Three!

*This post may contain affiliate links.

It’s my three year blogging anniversary, y’all!  I’m officially 697 posts deep and I’m still loving this blogging life so much!

There are, of course, frustrations that come along with every good thing, but the good by far outweighs the bad, and this little hobby of mine continues to bless me every single day so I think I’ll stick with it!  ;o)

A few things I’ve learned this year…

In 2018 it feels like literally everyone is trying to “make it” as a blogger. 

I could read other people’s blogs all day.  Seriously.  Why is it just so darn interesting reading about other people’s lives?

Blogging friendships are still some of my favorite friendships even though none of my bloggy friends and I have ever met in person.

Spam followers/commenters/subscribers are just everywhere.  Why oh why do people create so many dang spam bots?!  I can’t even tell you how many spam comments I delete from my blog every single day, how many spam subscribers I deactivate every day, and how many people I block on Instagram every day!  It’s ridiculous.

Instagram is still a tricky business when you're trying to grow authentically, but I’ve made my peace with it.  It’s better to not waste two hours per day trying to grow on there when I could be doing productive things for my blog itself.  It is worlds more important to focus on growing my blog following than my social media following.  Instagram could disappear tomorrow so all of those people who are only making money on the ‘Gram could be out of a job just like that, but my blog will always be here!

I made the right choice to grow authentically on social media than to inflate follower counts by buying followers, hosting 10 loop giveaways per week, and following/unfollowing other people.  I pride myself on my authentic following and I’m even more thankful that I chose to take that route now because it has started backfiring on so many lately.  Brands are starting to wise up.

I heart affiliate marketing!  I love sharing products that I love with y’all here on the blog, and if I can make some money doing it then that’s just a win-win situation!  I’m going to share those things no matter what, so why not?  Speaking of which, my favorite tunic ever can be found here, my exact scarf here, my exact leggings here, and my exact boots here.  ;o)

People really, really love reading about simplifying/purging/organizing.  Ever since I’ve started documenting my simplifying/organizing journey on Instagram Stories, I have gained lots of new, real followers who I can tell are following me because they actually want to and not just because they’re going to unfollow me in a few days.  My IG profile views have skyrocketed these last couple of months.

Twitter still sucks. 

Google is still and will always my best friend.  #GoogleAllTheThings

And a few accomplishments this year…

I renewed a monthly link-up with a few of my favorite blogging ladies for another year.

I have started co-hosting two new weekly link-ups and both have been very successful so far. 

I posted my first of many sponsored posts on Instagram.

My viral post is getting close to hitting the 150k mark!

I have several other posts that seem to be taking off and it looks like they could be on their way to possibly going viral. 

I worked with several of my favorite brands on sponsored blog posts this year, Ava, Shutterfly, and PlumPaper to name a few. 

I found out that one of my faaaavorite popular bloggers reads my blog and follows me on social media.  #TotalFanGirlMoment

Stats

I put my blog stats up every year on my anniversary, and although that makes me feel a little weird, I figured I might as well share them here again anyway.  Y’all know I try to be pretty transparent with y’all, so have fun snooping!  Haha. 

A couple of notes before we begin… I had pretty good growth across all areas except for pageviews.  However, I do know why my pageviews were down this year compared to last year… number one, because my viral post has finally started losing traction… probably because everybody in that niche has already seen it.  And number two, because I haven’t been pushing my content as much on Pinterest this past year.  Other than pageviews being down from where they were, I had steady growth in all other categories.  The growth might be slow, but at least it’s authentic!  There are plenty of ways that I could be inflating my social media numbers right now, but I’m just not interested in that.  I consider myself to be a very genuine person and I want this space and my social media accounts to reflect that. 

Monthly Pageviews: 11,134 24,715 18,054 (Jan 2018 stats)

Subscribers: 18 50 69

Google Friend Connect Followers: 28 42 61

Bloglovin’ Followers: 34 218 317

Google+ Followers: 11 41 50

Instagram Followers: 1,005 4,055 5,945

Facebook Followers: 12 138 293

Pinterest Followers: 351 1,248 1,381

Twitter Followers: 553 705 980

Most popular post: Olivia Cate’s Pink & Gold First Birthday with 22,984 111,748 146,997 views

Finally, the same words I reiterate in every blog anniversary post:

The sole purpose for starting this baby of mine was to start keeping a journal again – to have a place where I could jot down my feelings and document the fleeting moments of motherhood.  A place to discuss my fears and my insecurities.  A place to discuss my shortcomings and a place to celebrate my accomplishments.  A place to share the things that I love.  I kept a journal from the ages of 6 to 21 – that’s almost half of my life in old diaries, notebooks, and binders all carefully lining the bookshelves in my office – and I thought that it was high time to come back to what I love after a decade-long hiatus.  I feel like I have found my passion and I feel like I am home.  I feel like I was meant to be a blogger.  My only regret is not starting sooner.

Thank you to those of you who support me.  For those of you who take the time out of your day to read my blog, comment on my posts, click my links, like my Instagram pictures, react to my Facebook posts, re-pin my Pinterest pins, and follow me on social media channels, THANK YOU!  Every little bit of support goes a long way and I promise you it does not go unnoticed! 

Now for the fun part for ME – tell me what your favorite posts are!  Tell me what your least favorite posts are!  And tell me what you want to see from me in the future!  I would so appreciate it!

Don't forget to link up with us below!  

Your Hosts! 

Whitney at Polka-Dotty Place / Bloglovin / Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter 

Stefanie at Lexie Loo, Lily, Liam & Dylan Too / Instagram / Twitter / Pinterest / Facebook

Keri at Keri Lynn Synder / Faceobok / Instagram / Twitter / Pinterest 

Mauri at The American Patriette /  Facebook /  Pinterest / Instagram

Sarah at Sarah E. Frazer / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Pinterest 

Lindsay at Lindsay's Sweet World /  Bloglovin / Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

*Linking up with Jessi's Design and Going the Distance for What's Hap-"Pinning" Wednesday.

An InLinkz Link-up

<!-- end InLinkz script —>