Hey There, Chelsie

Life Lately and May 2016 Goals

April was…different. I wouldn’t call it difficult, per say, but definitely different in both my personal life and my blogging world. ICYMI, Dustin and I packed up everything and moved from my beloved dry and warm Arizona to Louisiana (the land of insane thunderstorms and flash floods.) The last two weeks of March were filled with packing, cleaning and living on an air mattress and also resulted in having to take a 2-week unplanned blog break. We finally got settled into our new home here and I jumped back into blogging at first with full force, so glad to be back at it. I launched my FREE Refresh Your Blog eCourse and had such a great response to it! I did a minor redesign of my site to incorporate more pin-friendly colors. And then…I struggled. Hard.

Life Lately

I had to adjust to a completely new lifestyle with Dustin’s new job and work hours and at first, that meant being feeling very lonely and trying to fill my time with Grey’s Anatomy and sending texts to all of my friends and hoping they would text back. I also had to learn my way around a new town and adjust to not having an office space anymore (we’re in a 1 bedroom apartment for the time being.) Dustin’s whole work team lives in the same apartment complex for the summer, so I’ve been pushing myself to get out of my introvert ways and get out and make friends with the other wives here. It’s been really enjoyable to have real life friends again (I had one really good one in AZ) because working from home can put a damper on your social interactions. So, I’ve been doing my best to not spend all day in front of my computer and out and about with my new friends here, even if that means spending all afternoon face swapping on snap chat and laughing so hard we’re almost in tears.

Another reason why it was easy for my to put my blog on the back burner was because I was really feeling the weight from playing the comparison game. It was causing me a ton of anxiety when I would write a post and worry that like it wasn’t long enough or informative enough and that my numbers would tank. It was exhausting and much easier to just ignore my blog altogether.

If it wasn’t for a few sponsored posts I already had lined up, I might not have blogged for the rest of April! I’m glad I didn’t completely drop the ball, though. I’ve worked really hard to get HTC to where it is today and I’m really happy with the growth I’ve seen and the amazing collaborations and brands I’ve been able to work with. And with the new month of May and my blog recently refreshed, I’m feeling ready to move forward.

All that being said, I didn’t reach any of my March goals besides launching my eCourse, and I’m actually totally at peace with that. I needed to do some soul searching and figure out the ebb and flow of my life here. I finally feel like things are settling and I’m ready to move forward.

May Goals - Personal

I’m declaring this the month of health because April has been terrible in that department. Before Dustin and I moved, I had lost about 8 pounds and was feeling really great and this last month has ruined it all. I’ve gained all my weight back, I’ve made TERRIBLE eating choices (like eating a whole packaged of raw cookie dough in the span of 4 days) and just being lazy.

First, I want to say that I’m not a crazy lady who obsessed over her weight. But I am almost 5 years out from my knee replacement and my weight has a LOT to do with how long it will last me before I need another one. I’ve ignored that for a long time, but my knee has been pretty tender and painful since we’ve been here (#humidityproblems.) I know, deep down in my heart, that losing weight and trying to strengthen my knee will help me be able to manage the pain better, but man is it hard to want to move it when it hurts.

However, since I’m on a constant journey to accepting my body for what it is (in it’s patched up glory) I feel like I owe it to myself and my knee to try to take care of it a little bit better. It did beat cancer, after all, so prolonging my next surgery as long as possible would probably be a nice favor for it, right?

That all being said, here are my health goals for the month:

Soda Fast - (After I finish the last two cans of root beer in my fridge) I’m going to cut out all the soda and sugary drinks for the month of May. I’ve done a soda fast before and although it’s hard for me (I love my root beer) replacing my daily soda intake with flavored water makes a huge difference.

Replacing Crap with Good Eats - No more cookie dough and Blue Bell Ice Cream. I was recently introduced to these chocolate avocado cookies and not only are they tasty and help curb my sugar tooth, but they are TEN times better then the cookie dough I was pounding down last month. I’m also striving to eat more salads for lunch and just reduce snacking in general.

Other Goals:

Read Me Before You: Everyone’s been talking about how good it is and I want to see the movie because I love both of the main actors, so I want to get my hands on this book and read it this month!

Get Ready Earlier in the Day: Right now, Dustin and I lounge around all morning together because that’s the only time we have to see each other. Then he gets ready and leaves for work by 12:30, so I’m not dressed and ready for the day until 2:00. It puts me into a funk and I already know that I do much better productivity-wise when I’m dressed and ready early in the day, so I just need to not be so lazy!

Blog Goals

Back to my Roots: I’ve already shared what I’m planning on doing with my space over the next couple months here, but the short of it is this: I’m going to worry more about writing what makes me happy and worry less about how many people read and share it. This means writing some more personal posts and getting back into the beauty portion of my blog because #ilovemakeup

Videos: I recently was able to purchase a ton of amazing lighting equipment for photography and for filming videos (see a test photo below!) I keep thinking that maybe I’ll start doing youtube, but in all honesty, I’m terrified about it. Writing on my blog is one thing, but putting myself out there in video format is really intimidating. I don’t want people to make fun of me or think I’m weird! But….this is the year of being fearless, so I should probably pull up my bootstraps and just do it, no? What do you think? Would you watch my youtube videos?

Well, there you have it. Not too many goals this month, as I’m focusing on just getting back to my roots and finding my blogging joy again. Thanks for letting me just chat today and share these things; it’s very therapeutic to write them all out.

Also, I’d love your feedback: Do you want any posts about my health journey this month? And what are your thoughts about videos/youtube?

Holla at me! And hey, thanks for being a friend here. I appreciate you more than you know.

 

Blog Boss: Getting Back to My Roots

It’s time for me to get real honest about my blog for a second:

When I started blogging back in 2015, I was in the middle of a mid-life crisis. If you’ve been around here for a while, you probably know the story already, but here’s a brief recap: I got a degree in English education, taught high school English for a while, loved my kids but didn’t love the politics and had a freak out about what I was going to do with my life. I started blogging as an outlet for myself and it slowly evolved into what it is today. Six months into my serious blogging journey (and because of certain life circumstances that prevented me from finding another “real life” job) my husband and I decided to pursue blogging full time. I have never looked back.

Comparison is the Thief of Joy

Since then, I have worked my tail off to grow my audience, to make an income off my blog, to create content upgrades and to grow my email list. I pay for a lot of different services to help me manage my blog, I spend more time researching about my next step to be successful than I do creating my own content and I set huge goals for myself and work 8-10 hours a day trying to achieve them.

It was fun for a little while, but then I started the comparison game. I was getting frustrated that some of my blogging friends were having amazing success with Pinterest and I was doing the same things and seeing no results. I would watch snapchats of blogging friends open up amazing PR packages and get so frustrated that I wasn’t chosen for the same opportunity. Instead of focusing on all the things that WERE going right for me, I was always wanting more and never happy with what I was producing.

Losing my Joy

Dustin and I just moved from Arizona to Louisiana and I took an unplanned 2-week blog break while we went through that process. I missed my blog so much, but it was nice to take a break and just be present again in my life. The first week after moving to our new home, I jumped back into my blog with all my heart, excited to reveal my new (FREE) blogging eCourse and to reconnect with all of my friends. And then after that, it was complete radio silence.

I realized that I’ve lost a lot of my joy when it comes to blogging. Opening up my blog homepage brought me dread. I would spend hours thinking about what I should be working on and just panic about it not being enough, about disappointing my audience and not meeting their expectations. I would second guess everything I would want to write. I have had so many half-written blog posts sitting in my drafts that I have been afraid to publish because they aren’t long enough or they aren’t informative enough or because they might not bring in enough numbers.

Over the last week, I’ve taken a serious look at myself and my relationship with my blog. I chatted with my blog pal Amanda at Blissful Gal on Saturday and I’ve realized that my relationship with my blog has gotten too serious. Yes, it’s my business and yes, it’s how I make an income, but it used to be where I found my joy, too. And I haven’t been happy about blogging in a while now, just pressure.

Back to my Blog Roots

I started blogging because I needed a creative outlet. That outlet turned into a positive force in my life as I started to find peace with my body and love it again, through sharing my passion for makeup and style. But, I felt like every big blogger who I was turning to for blogging advice was telling me I needed to niche down, I needed to create my own courses and sell them, I needed to write about blogging in order to be successful. Without even realizing it, I narrowed my blog down to just blogging advice and the occasional fashion post. I haven’t written a makeup post in months!

I believe that lifestyle blogs matter (although having a focused audience is super important) and I was turning my back to my own philosophy. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE writing my blogging advice posts, but there is MORE to me than just blogging and there is MORE to me than just my page views.

Pageviews/Numbers/Social Media

I’m not going to look at my numbers obsessively for the next month (and maybe longer.) I’m only going to check my Google Analytics if I have an abnormality in traffic. I’m going to write what I want to write about because it brings me joy and NOT stress about how many people read it that day.

Let’s be real, of course I want people to read my blog. Of course I want people to share my stuff. Of course I would love a pin to go viral and result in thousands of page views within a week. But I’ve realized that those things are not why I started blogging and those things are not the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is me having girl time with all my friends in the blogging community and talking about makeup and sharing what things you shouldn’t spend your money on (and what you should.) The bigger picture is me helping other women find affordable (and adorable) fashion because I believe that every woman should love getting dressed in the morning instead of feeling like they having nothing to wear. The bigger picture is me opening up about my journey with pediatric cancer and having a recently diagnosed 18-year-old reach out to me because she found my blog and it provided her with hope.

Looking Forward

I’m not going to let my blog go to the wayside, but I am going to give myself some grace and a bit of a break. I’m not going to panic if I write a blog post that isn’t “on-niche” and I’m not going to get discouraged if a blog post I write doesn’t get X amount of shares.

I AM going to continue to move forward with all my social media strategies, continue to work on my Pinterest and Instagram accounts and work hard to find brands that I genuinely LOVE to share with my audience. I’m going to continue to share bits and pieces of my blogging advice as I feel inspired to do so. I’m going to start sharing more beauty posts again, because I miss them. I am going to start doing videos again because I think they’re fun. But most of all, I’m only going to do things if it brings me joy. I’m going to take some of the pressure off of myself to be insanely successful and just let it

But most of all, I’m only going to do things if it brings me joy. I’m going to take some of the pressure off of myself to be insanely successful. I started blogging to write and share my favorite things and I’m going to get back to those roots and let everything else happen naturally instead of trying to force it.

Be a Blog Boss

If you are feeling uninspired and in a rut, take a moment to get back to your blog roots. Figure out what brings you joy, what you like to write about and WHY you started blogging to begin with. Let yourself off the hook with numbers and don’t compare your journey to anyone else’s. Her success is not your failure.

I’ve learned that a real blog boss isn’t afraid to be honest about her journey and to get back to her roots. I am a blog boss, and I will find my joy again.

Tell me, what’s your relationship like with your blog right now?

Refresh Your Blog: A Free eCourse

I mentioned earlier this week that I had a big announcement that I was going to make today…and here we go! Since the beginning of this year, I really wanted to create my own email course. I love taking email courses and sign up for just about every one out there, but I realized that every single email course I took ended in a sales pitch. Many of the e-courses I took were super vague and general, and I felt like all the information I thought I was going to get was being held back so I would pay for it. Now, I’m ALL about monetizing your blog, but I was really frustrated that I was signing up for all of these e-courses that over promised and under delivered. I wanted to create something that was FULL of real information that would truly help bloggers (both new and seasoned) and not feel like a waste of their time.

I hemmed and hawed about actually doing it. I was afraid. I was afraid that others would think that I’m full of it for trying to teach others when I’ve been seriously blogging for just over a year. I was afraid that others would think I was just jumping on the e-course bandwagon. But I decided in 2016 I was going to be fearless, so over the last two weeks, I sat down and created this. I’m really proud of it. I really think it will help someone. And guess what?

I’m not going to ask for your money at the end of the course. It’s completely free. I just want to help.

why you should refresh your blog:

You may have noticed that I’ve done some serious tweaking to my site this last week. I guess you can say I had some spring-cleaning fever. As much as I LOVED my new design, I had to put a critical eye to some of the aspects I hadn’t considered before. My pins weren’t performing well on Pinterest. My blog theme was glitching on the back end. Something had to change.

So I cleaned it up. I not only refreshed my design, but I also did a major clean out of my social media accounts. I sat down and refreshed my strategies, did some back-end work and I feel pretty brand new. I took the time to love my blog, just like I take the time to love myself. I feel passionate and motivated. I feel empowered. And it’s all because I took the time to refresh my blog and give it new life.

I’m not saying you have to completely revamp your blog’s design! This course is all about taking the time to check the details, to make your site more user-friendly and to help you refresh YOUR perspective on your blog. It’s my intent to not only help you find some new inspiration but to get a handle on time-consuming things like social media and engagement threads so that you can spend more time creating content for your blog!

 

so why listen to me?

I may not be the most seasoned blogger, but I sure am passionate. And, as an educator by trade, I know how to teach. Because of my husband’s work, I have been able to blog full time for the last nine months and I’ve taken it very seriously. I am always reading and researching and putting together my own strategies and techniques to stay on top of social media and blogging. And I’m SUPER passionate about helping other bloggers be successful because I think there is room for everyone at the top.

In the Refresh your Blog eCourse you’ll learn:

  • The tool I use to get a first-hand look at the user-friendliness of my blog
  • How to clean out the back end of your blog (plugins to use, things to check for, etc.)
  • How to re-evaluate your mission statement (and a template for writing one if you don’t have one!)
  • Tips and tricks on how to get ahead in the social media world so you can focus on blog content
  • How to refresh your social media profiles (and how to make the most out of them)
  • Tips and tricks on how to clean out the front end of your blog
  • How to refresh your social media strategy
  • and more!

I know that everyone learns differently, so I included video modules and worksheets to be as thorough as possible! I held nothing back!

Click here to sign up!

So, there you have it. I’d love it if you signed up! But, no hard feelings if you don’t want to, either! And hey, if you would be willing to share the news, I’d be forever grateful!

Excited for this FREE e-course to #refreshyourblog!

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Happy Friday. Love yourself this weekend. And love your blog, too!

Hey There, April (Goals, Traffic & Income Report)

Hey There,

I’m doing something a little bit different today. As I sat down to review my March goals and set some new ones for April, I decided that I wanted to add more about my traffic and even share a little bit about my income this month. I really want to help others love their blogs and if that means growing their audience and making some side money off their site, then I want to share how I’m doing that! So, today, I’m rolling out the new and improved goal post to share a traffic and income report as well!

March Goals Recap:

Start Harry Potter #3 Not only did we start HP #3, we were able to finish it completely on Thursday while driving across the great state of Texas! We’re on to number four!

Use my new planner I love love love my Happy Planner and am so glad that I’ve finally found a planner that meets ALL my needs. It’s customizable with stickers, so I can adjust each day to fit what I’ve got planned and it’s been great to keep me organized with my mentorees, sponsored blog posts, and meetings!

Continue to rebrand and update blog posts - Ugh, this was a bit of a fail. I think I updated two. This is definitely something I’m going to work on this month!

Get Serious about my email lists- This was a half success, half fail. I did REALLY good sending out bonus posts the first half of the month, but the move put me in a funk and I didn’t stay on top of it. That’s going to change this month, so make sure you’re signed up for my HTC Sunday Bonus posts! And Blog Bosses, I’ve got some great freebies coming your way soon!

Posting Schedule- I made it a goal to post 4 times a week and while I did great the first half of the month, I failed in the last two weeks (again, the move killed me.) But, I did realize that trying to post 4 times a week was absolutely exhausting and it was hard for me to stay passionate when I was pushing so much. I hold my blog posts to a really high standard these days and aim for them to be really in depth and informative, so I’m going to cut back to 3 blog posts a week. I know that having two days off from not posting will help me produce better content in the long run!

Launch the Mentorship Program- WHICH I DID! I was pretty nervous to launch this program because of the whole imposter syndrome, but I really wanted to give it a go. I have been SO excited about how well it’s been going. Not only have I been able to actually talk face-to-face (facetime/phone calls) with three amazing bloggers, but I’ve really felt like I’ve been able to help them so far. Getting back to my teaching roots has been so enjoyable and has really challenged me in nothing but great ways! I’m actually extending their program through the end of April because we’re having a great time and I want to finish up our projects and I’ll be offering another 6-week mentor program at the beginning of May!

April Goals:

Work while Dustin is working and try to have it all done by the time he gets home (he now works until 8:30 PM.) I want to be more intentional about sticking to office hours so I can enjoy my time with my husband when he comes home!

Continue to revamp old blog posts and recirculate them out in Pinterest!

Get 5,000 followers on Instagram! It’s a big goal (I’ll need about 800 followers) but I’m going to work for it!

Share my very exciting project that I’ve been working on for the past couple weeks! Look for more details on FRIDAY!

Stay dedicated to posting & email schedule! I mentioned above that I’m going to cut back to 3 blog posts a week (but might have a 4th one slip in there every once in a while) so that I can focus on producing more quality content instead of trying to churn out shorter posts. I also want to get back into some of my beauty posts! I feel like it’s time to bring back the Favs and Fails posts, no?

April Site Stats:

Pageviews: 15,000 (down by 7,000 from February)

Facebook Followers: 1100 (up from 1,008 in February)

Instagram: 4184 (up from 3800 in February)

Pinterest: 1.9K (up from 1.2 K in February)

Twitter: 1600 even (up 50 followers)

Takeaways:

-I knew that my page views were going to tank a bit from February, as I basically stopped blogging the last two weeks of March while we moved. But, I have seen an increase in google traffic and I think that’s because I’ve taken SEO more seriously, so hooray!

-I’m really excited to see that since implementing a very consistent Pinterest strategy (AKA, TAILWIND!) that my followers have been steadily growing. Unfortunately, that’s not converting into page views as well as I thought it would, so I still need to work on finding the key to getting the right people clicking on my pins and repinning them. I think part of the problem was that my branding colors were a little too muted for Pinterest. In case you haven’t noticed, I did a bit of tweaking this week and added in a pop of color and bolded up the purples to hopefully make my graphics stronger. I really love the change and hope that I don’t have to do any more site design changes for a long while!

-Instagram is steadily growing! I’ve been intentionally working on leaving real thoughtful comments on the photos of my followers and engaging with them, along with being as honest and transparent as I can in my captions. In fact, one of my most honest photos posted to date has gotten a whopping 800 likes within the span of a week and has over 70 comments. The new Instagram algorithm is scary, but I truly feel like being as honest as I can and just trying to be friendly with my followers is what’s helping me consistently grow the account (along with posting pretty content)

April Income Report:

I never thought I would share this kind of information on my blog, but March was an awesome month for me and it was great to have a bunch of awesome opportunities become available. In an effort to be transparent, I decided I would share what networks I worked with this last month and how much I made from them. I don’t think I’ll share this information every month, but I want other bloggers to know what networks are out there and what the pay can be like! (Bare in mind, this is just the money I made off of sponsored posts, this doesn’t include affiliate ads or sponsored social media syndication.)

Social Fabric: $320

PRIMP Network: $125

One2One Network: $125

Influence Central: $200

Acorns: $250

 

Total from Networks: $1,020

Holy cow! Even though March was a hard month, it was so awesome to be able to make enough money to not only fund my blog, but also, I was finally able to buy the components to upgrade my computer’s RAM, memory, and hard drive. Thank you, THANK YOU, for supporting me here at HTC and for supporting the brands that keep it up and running.

If you are a blogger looking to make a little extra income off some sponsored posts, make sure you check out my super thorough post on how to get sponsored posts with Social Fabric and download my free eBook that shows my step-by-step formula for pitching post ideas!

Okay, that wraps up this very extensive March blog report! I’d love to know what questions you might have or what your goals are for this month!

Hey There, March (Goals & Announcements)

Hey There,

I sat down the other night to write my March Goals post and as I went to look at my February goals post, I realized that it got lost when the back end of my site went psycho and locked me out of everything. I had my hosts restore my site from an older backup, resulting in the loss of my February Goals post. Just as well, since the month started out so rough with all of the tech stuff crashing on my new site.

That nightmare is over and I’m glad to report that HTC seems to be running as smoothly as possible (knock on wood) but I can’t remember all my February Goals…I’ll take my losses. I DO remember that I wanted to finish reading HP #2 with Dustin (success) and that I wanted to work on rebranding my old blog posts (I got through January 2015….baby steps, right?)

February wasn’t the month I wanted it to be for my new blog, but that’s okay. I learned a ton. I got a bit more organized. I’m ready to make March my own and to take on some crazy new endeavors! Here are my goals for March and a super exciting (and slightly terrifying) announcement for what’s to come this month (blogging friends, read on):

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