CASE STUDY: HOW HAN ACHIEVED HER INSTAGRAM GOALS & DOUBLED HER PAGEVIEWS IN 2 MONTHS
Since I started offering blog coaching services, the number one fear I’ve heard from you is that you’re scared you won’t get any results from it.
...Or that you don’t think it’s right for you, your blog, and your online presence.
...Or that you’re just not sure whether it would be worth spending the money on it.
...Or that there are so many people saying they offer blog coaching, you don’t know who to turn to.
Today’s case study will put those silly fears to bed. For good.
WHAT THE CLIENT NEEDED HELP WITH
PAGEVIEWS
Why was this important to her?
Because she wanted to start making money from her blog and getting more opportunities. In order to do this, she knew she needed more pageviews and therefore more traffic to her website.
Some people think that pageviews are pointless to track because they’re purely just a numbers-based growth metric.
The higher your pageviews, the more valuable and high quality the content on your website is.
But the way you can track it even more is combining your pageviews and looking at your traffic sources to see where more of your readers are coming from.
This is so important because it shows whether your efforts are paying off. If you’re putting loads of effort into Twitter and most of your users are getting to your website from Twitter, you know it’s working.
This client had some really big Instagram goals and like a lot of you, she was frustrated with the platform. But she was determined and was keen to experiment with her strategy so she could find different ways of growing on the platform.
The reason why this is important is because your Instagram account is an extension of you brand. All of these platforms link back to your core, which is your blog.
EMAIL LIST
With her email list, she just wanted to see some sort of growth as she was only in the starting stages. But what was great about this is that she realised how important an email list actually is and so wanted to start putting more effort into that.
THE CASE STUDY
This is honestly one of my favourite blog posts that I’ve ever written.
I first met Han from Wellness and Wander at a blogging event. A few months later, she reached out to me about working with me as a blog coach. She chose the two month Bloggers Strategy package and after an initial call, we got to work.
HAN ACHIEVED ALL THE GOALS WE SET FOR HER AND MORE DURING OUR TIME WORKING TOGETHER.
Han’s first goal was to double her pageviews. She did that.
In terms of her Instagram goals, she wanted to reach 900 followers. She did that.
Her third goal was to grow her email list. She did that.
But besides the fact that these results are amazing - she also grew her confidence and stepped way out of her comfort zone than she ever thought possible.
This is a perfect case study of what you can do when you feel stuck with your blog and you’re struggling to manage your time.
So let’s go into the details.
THE STATS:
Doubled pageviews in less than a month
Surpassed 900 followers on Instagram
Was shortlisted for Fitness Influencer Of The Year at the Blogosphere Blog Awards
Quit her job to focus fully on her blog and offer some of her own services
One thing to point out is that A LOT happened for Han in our two months of working together. But this didn’t all happen in an instant, she isn’t an overnight success.
She made some purposeful decisions, put my homework and strategies into action, and dedicated herself to the process to make these results happen.
THE PROCESS WE WENT THROUGH WITH HAN
I thought it would be useful to give you a little bit of background as to how our blog coaching partnership worked and the activities we went through together to get Han these results. But the most important part of our relationship was the weekly 60-minute calls we had.
WEBSITE AUDIT
I did a full review for Han of the following:
Blog Audit: design, style, organisation, and call to actions
Content Audit: the format of blog posts, headlines, the structure of content
Social Media Audit: a review of current active social media channels
I would tell you how I set out the audit, but I think that might be giving too much away 😉
What I can tell you is that Han had a list of action steps to work on after the audit was done and they made such a difference to her online presence as a whole.
GOAL-SETTING WORKSHOP
As part of the coaching package Han picked, we went through a goal-setting workshop, where we discussed her blog goals, Instagram goals, and email list goals.
The problem I find is that we’re really good at setting goals, but then we ignore them for weeks. Or we set the bar so high that deep down, we know it’s too much for us to reach.
So I took Han through a series of strategic questions for each goal to figure out her goals. Here are some of the questions you need to ask yourself:
Why this goal?
How will this have a positive effect on your life?
How will you feel when you’ve made progress on this goal?
How will you track your progress?
How will you start?
This is important because it not only means you’re crystal clear on what your goal is but how you’re actually going to achieve it.
BRAND STATEMENT
Since Han was feeling really stuck with her blog when we first spoke, I thought it would be a really good idea to give her the Brand Statement exercise. This is an exercise I created where I take you through a series of prompts to help you create a brand strategy statement that will underpin everything you do and help you find the success you’re looking for.
The most important thing to note with this exercise is that it’s difficult and even Han said she had to spend a few days really thinking about it. But that’s the whole point - you’ve got to try and push through to uncover your true words.
CATEGORIES EXERCISE
This exercise followed on from the content audit I did and especially as Han’s blog is the core of her brand, I thought this was really important for her to do.
This also follows on really naturally from the brand statement exercise, because that allowed you to discover WHO you’re talking to and the next step is figuring out WHAT you’re going to say.
BLOG CONTENT OPTIMISATION WORKSHOP
As part of the coaching package that Han picked, she got the option to have four resources of her choice. One of these was a blog content optimisation workbook. In order to help her get the most out of it, one of our weekly calls was a workshop which revolved around content optimisation. We covered things including:
Questions to ask before you create a piece of content
Finding a keyword
Where to put your keyword
Han’s main goal was to increase her website traffic and what determines that? Yep, your content. So I knew I needed to put something in place for her that allowed her to do that, whilst making it streamlined enough that it didn’t add much time onto her process.
She said since she started implementing this strategy she’s seeing results already!
GUEST POSTING
This was something Han mentioned around halfway through our time together as something she wanted to work on. That’s the great thing about this package, it can be so personal and we can work on whatever it is you’re struggling with or want to improve!
We went through a guest posting workshop that included:
Main guidelines for guest posting
How to find websites to guest post on
Pitching
Following up
Other guest posting strategies
One thing I would say about guest posting is to track it. Keep a log of the people you’ve pitched, whether they’ve got back to you and where you’re up to with the process.
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Now as you know, there are multiple ways to increase traffic to your website and one of these is social media. While Han was pretty happy with her efforts on her active platforms, she thought she could be more strategic (and I know she’s not the only one!)
We went through another workshop here which covered:
The platforms you want to be active on and why
The platforms where your audience hangs out
Strategies to grow your audience on each platform
How to find more of your target audience
BRAND STORY
One of the final exercises we did with Han was her Brand Story, which really helped to tie everything in together that we’d gone through to give her a streamlined look at her online presence as a whole. I’d say that this was one of the most valuable exercises we did.
Why?
Because Han had to dig really deep to uncover some answers and said some really interesting things that she took to use to promote her brand, like:
“I want physical and mental health to be looked at as the same entity.”
“Fitness doesn’t mean looking like a fitness model - it’s accessible to anyone.”
“I want to help and educate people by sharing the correct information.”
By combining this with your strategy statement and categories, you’ve got a solid foundation to work with in terms of your messaging and content ideas for across your platforms!
BUSINESS SET-UP
Han told me she’d handed her notice in at her full-time job on the day of our penultimate call together. So we decided to switch things up and just have a chat about her plans for the future now she’d made this big leap.
I knew she was feeling overwhelmed - who wouldn’t? But I also know that she felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. That’s when you know you’ve done the right thing.
And fair play to her, she took action! She got her website set up, got clear on her packages and even bagged herself her first client within a week. That’s determination.
TAKE ACTION
You do have the ability to make things happen. Remember, you’ll only accomplish something if you believe in it, make the time and take action.
Either you have blog goals or Instagram goals, or maybe you don’t know what your goals are yet. (I can help you with all that through one of my blog coaching packages, but for now just start taking action!)
Blog coaching is honestly the most effective and rewarding thing I do in my business.
My strategies have helped me win three blogging awards, hit nearly 100,000 pageviews and take my online marketing business full-time. And they work because they are unique, practical, and based on real experimentation and implementation - not just ideas or theory.
I’ll leave you with something Han said to me on our last call: “It was 100% worth it, I think every blogger should do it.”