It is bound to happen, nowhere on the internet is safe from receiving mean comments from someone about something. For some people that is literally all they know how to do is to speak hate. And some say you have finally “made it” when you start getting haters.
First off, that is extremely sad. The fact that we have to just accept the mean comments and use them as a milestone of “making it”.
I usually receive nice comments or a lot of spam comments but I also haven’t been out in the spotlight much. I am the more laid back, stand in the back of the room kind of person. Which is hard to be and try and have a blog that brings in a lot of traffic.
Thousands of Page Views
Well, recently I had a pin go viral and it shot up to over 24k impressions in one day. I started to receive around 2,000 more page views a day from that one pin. Once I saw the spike in traffic I, of course, made a few more pins and two out of those three are taking off as well.
At first, it was just one big spike and then it started to trickle but then it picked back up again, thanks to Tailwind, and it has maintained for the last 5 days.
Random Blog Post
Sometimes we plan every detail of a blog post out and other times we just write something up quickly. I like to write as if I am talking to my audience. That can be good and bad.
I tend to ramble even though I feel like it is all relevant.
This blog post that took off was one of those that I just rambled on talking about a fun fact I had found.
Cue the Mean Comments
I didn’t realize it at first until I just happen to see on my pin that there were three comments. I read the comments and two of them were brutally honest about my blog post and how it was too long.
That hurt to read.
The third comment was someone saying “thanks now I don’t have to read this”. So based off of the two comments left that third person decided to not even read my post.
If they didn’t then I’m sure others weren’t either based on the opinion of two people that left a comment.
Take the High Road and Learn From Them
It took me a few minutes do decide not to delete the comments but to learn from them. I had just quickly put the post together. I had already planned on making changes so I went in and cut the fluffy, added a more relevant freebie, and moved around some other things.
I then went back to the pin and commented back thanking them for the constructive criticism (taking the high road). Hoping that would help show that I can handle things with my head held high.
I also hoped that would show anyone else that read the means comments and my reply, that it would still be worth reading to see how I fixed it. So far I have not received any more comments on that particular pin. And as of today, it has over 201k impressions for the month it has been up.
Just Hurtful
On my second popular pin for this blog post, I found three comments on it too. One was cutting to the chase on what my post was about. Another was just stating her opinion about something in my blog post. But the third was just mean.
This isn’t something you can hold your head up high and learn from. I could learn from the first two comments on the other pin saying my post was too long.
I can’t, however, change my freebie because one lady thinks it’s ugly. Her comment was only left to be hurtful. There was no other goal behind it, she was just trying to hurt me.
So how do you handle comments like this?
Delete Mean Comments and Move On
I posted in two different blogging Facebook Groups seeking the advice of other bloggers and I received at least 60 total comments and they all said to delete it and move on.
Almost all of them had been in a similar situation and most congratulated me on “making it” by receiving haters and hateful comments.
It is very sad but it is the reality of life.
People are mean and I’m not sure exactly why but you can’t let them get to you. Which is much easier said than done.
Look at The Facts
I had to stop and look at the facts and remind myself this was one person and one comment on how she didn’t like my freebie. On the other hand, I had over 300 people sign up for that “ugly” freebie. So the numbers show that they all liked it!
I haven’t received any mean comments on the blog post or any emails back after getting the freebie. No one who actually went in, read the post, and downloaded the freebie complained. It was only that one person commenting on how she didn’t like my freebie on one of the pins that had over 100k impressions on it.
I had four pins go viral in one month from this blog post with a total of over 490k impressions combined. So the facts were showing that A LOT of people saw this pin and A LOT of people read the post and over 300 people signed up for the freebie.
I couldn’t let one person’s opinion get to me. (again much easier said than done)
There is a time to learn and take the mean comments as constructive criticism, and then there are times to look at the facts and delete those mean comments and move on.
Don’t Let Mean Comments Stop You
I love blogging. I know that I am not perfect. No one is perfect. But I still love to blog and share my tips and tricks I learn with others looking to start a blog too.
I have got frustrated and wanted to quit so many times but I keep coming back because it is something that I love to do. Whether I am making a bunch of money or no money I will always blog.
However, those mean comments really shook me. I hadn’t had mean comments and to receive those it did make me feel like I should throw in the towel.
Then I took time and really thought it over and I can’t believe I let them get to me like that. This is something I truly enjoy doing and it is my outlet.
5 Reasons I Had 4 Viral Pins on Pinterest in One Month
After 4 of my pins went viral in one month, I took a step back to analyze why and I came up with 5 reasons I had 4 viral pins on Pinterest. In this post, I go into detail with each pin and explain why I feel each pin did so well. I also share a few pins that didn’t do so well and why.
As you continue to grow your blog and share your blog posts you will find that certain topics do better than others. That doesn’t mean that you have to only write about those topics but you can count on them bringing in new traffic.
For example, I share blogging tips for new bloggers and when I write about making money or getting traffic to my blog those topics do better than others.
I still share other tips because you never know who is in need of that specific tip. Once I wrote a blog post on how to set up your sidebar. It received a very kind comment from a reader stating how thankful she was for that post because it helped her.
I love those comments! Even though it isn’t a super popular topic it still helped someone!
By always writing about all the tips I can share and not just sticking to the popular topics it helps me find new popular topics. That is what happened when I wrote a blog post on something I found that I thought was better than the bullet journal.
New Topic
This was a new topic for me. I haven’t written any blog posts on note taking but it is a popular topic because everyone is always looking for better ways to organize their lives. So I wrote this blog post one day just sharing how I found something that (in my opinion) is better than the bullet journal.
First, in case you don’t know what a bullet journal is, it is a journal full of empty pages and each page has dots for guides on it.
I had first heard of them through another blogger. She shared some of the ways she uses hers to organize her days and keep on task with her blog.
I ended up getting one to try for myself. There were some flaws for someone like myself. Such as I have horrible handwriting and I am not the most artistic person. Yet I am a perfectionist so each page I felt like I was constantly trying to fix it.
If you look at some of the amazing ways bullet journals can be used you can see the appeal but that only works if you have a steady hand. For me, it was more work than fun and I didn’t end up using it.
Another reason is I would always forget it or decide not to bring it because it didn’t fit in my purse and I didn’t want to carry around 50 different colored pens.
If you check out my post I share that I had just recently purchased an iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil and used the free notes app to create my own bullet journal. This improved the handwriting issue because I could easily erase any mistakes. I go more into detail about why I like it better in that blog post so I will skip all of that for now.
Hot Topic
Little did I know while writing that post that it would end up being a very hot topic. I shared the post on Pinterest and with the help of Tailwind the pin took off!
I had over 24k impressions on that pin in 24 hours. Today after being pinned a little over 30 days ago it has over 201k impressions. My blog traffic for the month of June 2019 was over 20k page views. Which let’s just say that is MUCH higher than normal.
I had no idea that it was going to be such a hot topic.
How I got so many page views
As I said it was definitely thanks to Tailwind and Pinterest for sending all of that traffic to my blog. I usually create several images for each blog post and pin them to Pinterest at different times.
With this particular blog post I originally only created one pin and that is the pin that took off. To test it out and see if it was the content (topic) of the pin or the visual look of the pin that made it go viral, I created others to put to the test.
What I found out is there are 5 main reasons this pin took off compared to my other test run pins.
Hot topic
Visually appealing pin
Enticing Title
Keywords in the pin description
Scheduled to pin to all group and personal boards and Tailwind Tribes
While I was creating the test pins I also scheduled out the first pin to all of my group boards, personal boards and added it to all my Tailwind Tribes. I knew that I needed to get this pin out there since it was doing so well from just one pin to one of my personal boards.
Then I created several other pins for my test run. A few did very well and a couple did not. I noticed there was a trend on the ones that did well and the ones that didn’t.
Test Run Results
The main difference was the enticing title. Take a look at these results to see for yourself.
Enticing Title – Pin 1
This pin has a very enticing headline. It creates curiosity and I feel like that was why this pin had the best click-through rate compared to the others.
Visually it is a pretty pin so it was easy to save but I believe the curiosity is what made this pin do so well. It had the most impressions and saves of them all. It was also the first one I pinned so that could be why because the next one did very well too.
This is the stats after a little over 30 days of being pinned.
Enticing Title – Pin 2
These two pins I did the same enticing title because my test on these was to see if it was the pin image or the content that made the first pin so popular.
This one did fairly well. It didn’t receive as many impressions or saves but it came very close and still did very well. What is interesting is this pin had fewer impressions and saves but yet had more link clicks than the first pin.
I’m not quite sure why on that. They were both pinned to all the same boards and all within the same time frame.
Here are the stats after a little over 30 days for this pin.
Enticing Title – Pin 3
However, this one didn’t do well at all. I am not sure why this one didn’t do as well as the first two because it has the same catchy title with similar colors and fonts but for some reason, this one was not a winner.
Looking back I think I forgot to schedule this pin out to all the group boards like the other two did. I just looked back through my pins and I don’t see it mixed in like the other two are. I only pinned it once and must not have scheduled it out. It will be interesting to see what happens after I add it to the schedule!
Freebie – Pin 1
These next two were to test and see if the freebie inside the blog post was popular. Once readers click through and read the blog post many of them signed up for the freebie I put into it after it started taking off.
Originally, I had the normal freebie that I always offer in the post and it always does well because it teaches readers how to start a blog. That freebie always gets sign ups but none of these readers were signing up.
This told me that the people reading were bullet journal folks and not blogger folks. I created a freebie from my other blog that I am starting up because I felt like it fit with that niche better. My other blog is going to be about planning and productivity tips. I created a freebie that was a digital bullet journal which ties into that.
Around 30-50 people a day were signing up for that freebie after I added it. Once I realized the amount of traffic going to the post and yet no email subscribers were coming out of it I knew I needed to switch freebies and it worked.
Like I said I could tell the readers were not interested in my other freebie about blogging. So, I was happy to see they wanted the free digital bullet journal. I did learn though with these two pins that it still was the curiosity the first pins had that was bringing readers in.
These pins did not do well, however, once in the blog post they did sign up for the freebie. But the freebie alone was not bringing in readers.
Freebie – Pin 2
The first freebie pin looks like the second popular pin. I made another that looked similar to the first popular pin to again see if it was the look of the pins that made them do so well.
Neither of these pins did that great. So this told me it was bullet journal folks curious about what I had found that was better than the bullet journal. Not people excited about a freebie and not people that only saved the pins based on their looks.
Safe Title – Pin 1
The other clue was the backlash I received on the two popular pins. I received about 6 comments and most of them were mean.
They were from personal accounts of people who clearly were die-hard bullet journal lovers. They did not like my opinion of the notes app as being a solution that could be better than the bullet journal.
They also did not like my idea of a digital bullet journal also being a solution. Apparently, the curiosity pins made it sound like there was some new amazing thing that was better than the bullet journal that they did not find after reading the post. I personally love the idea of going digital. It works so much better for me. I have found so many amazing fun resources too that solve all of my personal issues with a physical journal.
These were just folks that mean and grumpy and taught me a valuable lesson on how to handle mean comments. One told me my freebie was ugly. There is no reason other than being mean for that to be commented. I had to remind myself that over 300 people had signed up for that ugly freebie so one person’s opinion shouldn’t matter.
However, to make the pin less “deceiving” because I was also told I was fake advertising pretty much. I made this pin to explain a little bit more without giving away all of the info or I wouldn’t get click-throughs.
It seemed to have worked. I stopped receiving very mean and hurtful comments and still was able to have a pin that had good numbers. This is about 30 days of the pin being up. I don’t have as many click-throughs (because of the less enticing title I’m sure) but I still reached a good amount of impressions off of this pin.
Safe Title – Pin 2
I created this pin with the same theory in mind. Again, I just wanted to test out the different titles and see what was working and what wasn’t. This pin is still going so I don’t have a full 30 day stat on it but so far it is doing okay but not a crazy good as some of the others.
It doesn’t have as catchy of a title but I feel like it is less likely to make any readers feel tricked as well.
Here are the stats so far on this pin. I know that is says published May 31, 2019, but this pin was definitely not. The first pin I created (which would have the same URL) was. This one has only been on maybe 2 weeks.
What this has done for me
By continuing to write blog posts on other topics other than just my main popular ones, I have come across a great topic that ties right into my new blog that I just started. I was nervous about branching out but this helped show me there is an audience out there for my new blog.
I have heard other bloggers say this but I didn’t understand until now but they say you never know what blog post is going to just take off! That is so true! I had no idea when I first wrote it that it would bring all of this. This is what this one blog post has done for me.
Gained 378 email subscribers in 30 days thanks to this hot topic and my viral pins.
Made 6 Amazon affiliate sales and my Amazon affiliate account was officially approved! (most of my affiliate links in my blog posts are for blogging resources so I don’t have many with Amazon affiliate links so I always had to reapply since it wasn’t my target products. Thanks to the bullet journal Amazon affiliate links in this blog post I was finally approved!)
Made $30.13 with Google Adsense which is the most I have made in one month from ads.
Broke two records of blog traffic to my blog. Not only did I hit 10k page views for the first time but I broke through and had over 20k pageviews!
I was only 7,000 sessions away from being able to apply for Mediavine!
Gained over 100 Pinterest followers.
My monthly views on my Pinterest account went up from around 75k to over 400k!
I had not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 viral pins in one month!
It was definitely a crazy and amazing month for my blog and all because of one post on a completely different topic than I normally write about!
How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing on Your Blog
I’m sure you have heard all about affiliate marketing and how you can use it to make money on your blog. But does it work? Can you really make money with affiliate marketing on your blog?
Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
Basically, it means that you can get paid for promoting things on your blog. Whether that is a company, a product or a brand. The most common is promoting a product and getting paid when a reader purchases that product.
Depending on each particular affiliate program is how and what you get compensated.
Affiliate Marketing
If you are new to blogging, I am sure this is the one way to make money that you have heard the most about. It is a very simple concept yet when I explain it to anyone outside of the blogging world, they look at me like I’m crazy.
Affiliate marketing is essentially getting paid to advertise or sell for others. I recently found out that companies will even pay you for leads you send to them not just purchases made.
Here is how you can use affiliate marketing on your blog to make money.
Let’s say that your blog is about puppy training. You love to write about how to care and train your puppy.
While writing a blog post about the best products to use for puppy training you will most likely be suggesting the products that you use and trust. Now let’s say that your readers want to purchase that product because they trust your opinion.
If you were an affiliate for that product, your reader could click on a link that would take them to that product for them to purchase it.
This is a win-win for everyone involved.
Your reader was able to solve their problem and get the product that you recommended to help them train their puppy.
If they used your affiliate link to click through and purchase that product it will tell the company, you sent that customer and the company (depending on their affiliate program) will compensate you for sending them a paying customer.
Then, of course, the company wins by receiving a new customer with little effort on their part.
How does it work?
When you sign up to be an affiliate for a company, they will give you a special link that attaches a “cookie” to the reader that clicks through the link. It depends on the affiliate program on how long that cookie will last.
For example, I believe Amazon’s cookie only last 24 hours. However, I am apart of affiliate programs where the cookie lasts 365 days! This cookie tells the company who sent that customer and it is a way to track where the customers are coming from and who to compensate for referring them.
So, if someone clicks on your link and has a cookie that only lasts 24 hours that means that if in the next 24 hours they make a purchase, you get credit for it. Unfortunately, if they put that item in their cart and purchase it later after the cookie expires, you don’t.
You can get paid for the leads you bring a company, the sign-ups you bring, or the sales you bring to the company. Again, it all depends on each particular affiliate program.
You can get paid either by a certain percentage or a flat dollar amount.
For example, I am an affiliate for many courses through Teachable and most of them will pay you 40% per sale. However, I am also an affiliate for SiteGround, and they pay a certain dollar amount per sale. It also grows depending on the number of sales I get per month!
Each program pays out differently, so you have to check those details when you sign up.
All of the affiliate programs I am a part of will pay me even if the customer that linked on my link purchases a different product.
For example, if I have an Amazon link on my blog to a book and a reader clicks through but doesn’t purchase that book but instead purchases something else in the correct time frame then I will receive compensation for that purchase.
As I said before if they click on your link but don’t purchase your product until later when the cookie has expired you don’t get compensated. However, if they click through your link and purchase everything they have been holding in their cart then you get paid for all of that!
So yes, sometimes you may miss out on a sale because of the cookie expiring but you also have to opportunity to make more if they purchase more, which we all know too well can happen on Amazon!
Another example is if a reader clicks on one of my links to one of the courses that I recommend such as Michelle course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing that cookie lasts 365 days so any other purchases they make during that 365-day time frame, I get compensated for as well.
There are some stipulations such as they would have to be on the same device they used to click the original link but that is still pretty cool! If that reader that clicked through my link decided later to purchase another product from Michelle, I would get compensated for that!
Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing
Pros
There is no upfront money needed.
There is no product creation needed.
You can make very good money with affiliate marketing.
You only have to add links to your blog posts.
There are affiliate programs for every kind of product out there!
You don’t get paid as much as you would for creating your own products.
You have to remember to always disclose in each post and should put a disclosure page on your blog.
There are different rules you have to follow for each affiliate programs.
You have to check your links often to make sure they still work just in case.
You have to be accepted into each affiliate program and avoid getting kicked out.
How do I find and sign up with affiliate programs?
If there is a certain company that you know you want to work with then you can go to their website and scroll to the very bottom and look for a link that says Affiliate or Affiliate Program.
If they don’t have a link, then you can try to contact them and ask if they offer an affiliate program. Some of the bigger companies use affiliate networks.
These networks host affiliate programs for multiple companies. This just saves that company from having to deal with it themselves. They just have that affiliate network take care of it for them. Some of these networks include Commission Junction, ShareASale, and Rakuten(Link Share).
You can go to those websites and join the network and have access to join hundreds of name brand companies.
If you don’t know a company but you just are interested in a product, then you can google that product + affiliate and it will list all the companies that have that product and offer an affiliate program.
There are literally thousands if not millions of affiliate programs out there. The most popular one is probably Amazon. It covers such a wide range of products that you can pretty much find any product you want on there to add to your blog.
Amazon doesn’t pay out a large amount per sale and as I said the cookie doesn’t last long either. They also have strict rules on disclosure and making sure you aren’t hiding or concealing anything from your readers.
Make sure to read through all of the terms and conditions before signing up.
Amazon, like other affiliate programs, only gives you a certain amount of time to make a sale before they kick you out of the program. Don’t worry though you are able to try again to rejoin and make a sale.
Also, know that not all programs will accept you and you can be kicked out.
Side note: In Michelle’s course she brings in an expert to give you tips and advice on how to ensure you are always accepted into affiliate programs and what to avoid to make sure you don’t get kicked out.
Amazon
Amazon is a great program to start with for affiliate marketing. They don’t pay a huge amount per sale but they have so many different products that you can add a lot of links to your blog.
They do have rules that others don’t usually so you want to pay attention to that. One major one is where you are allowed to put the links.
They let you put the links of Facebook but you can’t use them on all Social Media platforms and they are adjusting the rules all the time so you need to just check the current rules before posting a link.
They also don’t let you cloak your link, which means to change it to something different.
What that means is if your Amazon affiliate link for a product is https://amzn.to/2GWDo2c but you don’t want your readers to see that, there are plugins you can use to change the link to be prettier. Such as https://momblogfromhome.com/ringlight.
BUT REMEMBER AMAZON DOESN’T LET YOU DO THAT.
There are three different options to add affiliate links to your blog from Amazon.
Here is an example of what an Amazon affiliate link may look like with the text and image option.
You can choose if you want the link to only be text so you can add it to any phrase on your blog such as this! This is different than cloaking your link. By changing the link from the Amazon link to a link with your URL it looks like it’s your product and misleads your readers.
Adding it to a phrase in your blog post about that product is not the same thing. Your readers know that by clicking on that link they will be taken to where the product is sold.
Lastly, you can just have it be the image itself with no text like this one below.
Either way that ring light is awesome and I love mine!
Here are some more tips on Affiliate Marketing!
You have to disclose you are using affiliate links with each blog post and a with a page on your blog.
Affiliate links she be no follow links.
Pretty Links is the plugin used to make your affiliate links (other than Amazons) look cleaner and prettier.
Remember to only share links to products you truly recommend!
Don’t spam your posts with links.
Don’t write blog posts to only promote products (too salesy!)
You can add affiliate links to Pinterest! As of right now, you can add affiliate links to Pinterest. That has changed a couple times in the past so make sure you double check at the time of reading this but as of right now you can make pins on Pinterest with your affiliate links!
