Lindsay’s Sweet World is Seven!

Seven years, y’all.  I’ve officially been blogging for seven years and I don’t see giving it up any time soon!  I love to write, and I love to create, and even though I’m sure most of you don’t find my content riveting, this space means a lot to me.  I love having this virtual scrapbook of our lives, and it’s so awesome to be able to go back and see all of the things we’ve done over the years.  

As I do year after year, today I’m going to share some of the things I’ve learned as well as some accomplishments from the past year…

A few things I’ve learned this past year…

I learned that I will always choose blog reading over TikTok and Instagram videos any day.  I know the blog industry seems to be dying, but there’s just something special about the written word that you just don’t get in a video.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a good TikTok video, but it’s not my primary choice for content. 

I also learned that I am not a fan of Instagram Reels.  I wish people would just give them up and keep the produced videos on TikTok, or I wish Instagram would keep the Reels separate from the main feed.  I miss the old Instagram of pictures and captions.  I do love watching people’s stories, but I almost never watch Reels.  It’s an immediate skip for me.  If I wanted to watch stuff like that, I’d just open TikTok.  Anybody else?

I’ve been stressing for years over making the switch to Wordpress, and I think I’ve decided not to take the plunge.  Migrating seven year’s worth of content sounds scary, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle the anxiety of switching it all over.  I imagine the formatting of my old posts would be a disaster after the switch, too, so I’m not sure it would be worth it to switch. 

I learned that I made the right decision to focus on pageviews/ad revenue and affiliate income for monetization.  I considered putting more eggs in the sponsorship basket at one point, but it just didn’t feel like “me.”  Now I’m thanking myself for that decision because I know so many ladies who rely on sponsorships for the bulk of their income, and many of them have been struggling to find/land them this year.  The influencer market is pretty saturated these days.

 

A few accomplishments this year…

I managed to continue to keep blog pageviews consistent this year even though it seems that blogging is a dying art as most people are turning to Instagram and TikTok.

I also continued to bring in consistent income since my pageviews were consistent.  Woo hoo!  Mediavine will always have my heart.

Despite all of the changes with Pinterest and their new algorithms, several of my older posts are still making the rounds and bringing in a lot of traffic, even after all these years.

I finally put together a loose schedule for posting on Instagram stories during the week, and I made some pretty templates to use.  I ended up sticking with my schedule all year long, so that was a major win.

I also organized my story archives on Instagram, so everything is labeled nicely and easy to find. 

 

Stats

I honestly haven’t been tracking much this year as I’ve just been enjoying blogging for blogging.  My old Pinterest content combined with my daily content keeps the pageviews/income flowing, so I’ve been able to sit back, relax, and not worry about the numbers so much.  So instead of posting my usual stats, I’m just going to post my three most popular blog posts of all time.  I have several that are catching up to these, but for now, these are my top three yet again.

 Most Popular Post of All Time: How to Organize Your Child’s School Papers in Just One Box with 195,774 261,450 288,707 304,239 views

Second Most Popular Post of All Time: Olivia Cate’s Pink & Gold First Birthday with 22,984 111,748 146,997 156,577 166,247 170,873 174,688 views

Third Most Popular Post of All Time: How I Organized My Entire Life by Creating a Series of Lists + How I Use My Planner to Easily Maintain Them with 103,617 133,911 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.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to all of you who visit this little space every day, to those of you who offer kindness and encouraging words, to those of you who purchase through my links, to those of you who engage with my posts on social media and pin my Pinterest images.  I am truly humbled by your support and I’m very grateful that I have the opportunity to stay home with our kiddos while also providing an income for our family.    

Happy seven years and cheers to seven+ more!