If you know me or have been following me for a while, you would know that I share a lot about my blogging experience, Pinterest tips, and online business tips in general.
But today, I wanted to talk to a guest – her name is Victoria, and she will share the story of her growth in her online business at wemeancareer.com.
When did you start your website?
My website is called wemeancareer.com and I started the website three years ago. But it took me quite a long time to actually put the content I want to have and to launch it. But I actually have a very interesting story concerning my entrepreneurship and how I got interested in making money online.
I would say around 5 years ago, I wanted to learn Polish and I searched for different podcasts sources online. And I found a guy who actually had a podcast on finances and online business and I started listening to him. I had no i dea that I would start a business and I had no plans to start a blog.
I continued listening to the guy to learn Polish and he was talking about blogging and earning money online and in that way, I got so inspired so one day, I was on a holiday and I actually was not very happy with my job. I thought enough is enough and I’m quitting and I will start my online business.
I knew I wanted to do something online but I didn’t exactly know what. I knew I wanted to produce online courses but I also didn’t know which topic to take and so on so it took me quite a while to decide what to do.
I found a career coach and we got an idea to create an online course together – she would create the content and I would create the website and promote it. So that developed into We Mean Career.
How much time do you estimate on building your website?
In the first year, I worked almost full time and after that, I would say it was like half-half. But I would definitely not recommend quitting the job first so I would definitely recommend keeping your current job and start your online business as well.
My biggest mistake was that I first tried to do everything perfectly from the very beginning like finding the best attorneys to create my legal text, to finding the best graphic designers, and so on.
It took me a lot of time but it also, from a financial perspective, was my mistake so I would say to just start quickly and try to do everything at a good, reasonable level. That way, you won’t need to spend so much time.
What are the main traffic sources for your site?
In the beginning, it was really all Pinterest. So, we launched the website in May 2019 and I started creating pins but I didn’t have a lot of traffic and traction. I started searching online for tips on what to do and how to get more traffic. Then, I found your Youtube videos and loved them a lot because you were one of the people who gave very specific information.
Then I heard about your Pinterest course and decided to sign in.
How did Pinterest help you in the upcoming years?
For the first year, Pinterest was my biggest traffic source. And then, as the domain got older and we got more trust from Google, our Google organic search is generating much more traffic than Pinterest. But we also changed our focus a little bit like which content we publish and that content is very popular on Google and this is why we get so much traffic.
Anastasia: So it’s based on the niche as well, right? Like which type of content you create depends on which platform will get you more views.
Yes, and I believe this is really important because depending on what your business is about, you have to check which platforms are the best for you. For example, for career topics, Instagram is not really relevant at all. But for other topics like fashion, Instagram could be a great source of traffic.
And this is why, for me, it was really important to get on Pinterest because I knew that career topics are still very popular on Pinterest and this is why I started it from the very beginning.
What helped you grow on Pinterest?
From the very beginning, our strategy was to create listicles. Like articles in bullets and information. It’s click-baiting that works the best on Pinterest so we have like 30 articles that have very click-baiting titles such as “Never do this at work” or “Never do this during your job interview” and so on.
These articles work really well on Pinterest but they don’t work at all on Google of course. But also, what works are resume templates from Pinterest.
But what I learned most from you (and your course) is mostly how to plan everything. How many pins to post, and also all that technical stuff.
In the very beginning, I had no idea how it is possible to create 25 pins a day and I thought, “Wow, this is crazy. I won’t be able to do that.” and after your course, I understood that it is very doable.
You just have to create a few pins for every article and post them on different boards. This way, you get a lot of content within a few hours.
This was I guess the biggest tip that helped me back then.
Anastasia: It’s cool that something you learned back then still drives you traffic now. You said that your site grew and started getting traffic from Google which is awesome because Google traffic is more targeted to people since they are searching for a specific keyword.
How soon did your traffic grow after starting on Pinterest?
In the first month, before your online course, I had 500 visits during the month. Then in the second month, I had 1,500. And then when I took your online course, my traffic jumped to 4,500 visits and soon we were at 10,000.
And actually, I learned from you the whole idea of Mediavine Ads. After a few months of getting Pinterest traffic, I thought maybe we could do another income source. I wanted to get on Mediavine so it took me, after taking your online course, around six months to reach 25,000 monthly visits.
It also took me a few months to get approved and then implement everything because my strategy in the very beginning was to create a lot of content. But each of my articles was not long and Mediavine wanted longer articles so we had to rewrite almost all articles we had on the website.
So on one side, it was okay because I knew which articles worked and which did not so I just removed all the articles that were not performing on Pinterest. On the other side, it was an investment to fix all the articles and make them much longer. So altogether, I would say it was around nine months to get into Mediavine.
Anastasia: It’s important for people to know the reality that it’s not enough to just reach the traffic level they want but you also want to make sure the quality of your content. If you manage to get traffic from Pinterest with short articles, then you need to prepare your site before submitting an application to Mediavine.
I actually recommend people to make sure that on their home page, they have at least 10 or 20 articles that have longer content even if their top-generating articles are not those. At least, when someone from Mediavine lands on your site, they won’t see just listicles or shallow content and they will see longer articles that have the potential to grow on Google.
I also believe that they check very thoroughly. Right now, we had some articles that were very long and they were all presented on the home page but it was not enough so we really had to rewrite almost the whole content. I would say we have 20 articles that were short and they told me as they accepted us that we still have a few articles that are short. So, we had to hide them on the website so that nobody could view them.
Anastasia: Don’t get scared because there are also other networks that can accept you with ten thousand monthly sessions like Ezoic and Monumentric. They will ask you to have quality content but it will not be as high as the requirement for Mediavine. (NOTE: Recently Ezoic removed the minimum traffic requirement, so you can apply for Ezoic even with a new website. Ezoic accepts sites without any minimum required traffic, so you can try to apply as soon as you have some content on the site (and maybe not much traffic yet). Monumetric requires at least 10,000/mo sessions in your Google Analytics. Mediavine will ask for 50,000/mo sessions and Adthrive requires at least 100,000 mo/ pageviews).
But even Mediavine is doable. It’s just a matter of time so I don’t want to scare anyone. It’s really a great network and if you want to achieve your goal of getting into the network, it’s doable.
Anastasia: Another thing to note is that Mediavine requires to have most of your traffic from the U.S. In that sense, Pinterest can help you reach this goal. If your website is already getting a lot of traffic from Google but somehow you are not reaching that specific mark with the U.S-based traffic, Pinterest will help you improve that percentage.
Mediavine is just one of your income streams. What else do you do on the side?
It was planned from the very beginning that we sell online courses and templates. We are also part of the Amazon affiliate program. I love to have different traffic and income sources in the case that I don’t know the seasonality or any algorithm changes.
Anastasia: I always say to work with affiliate links. Maybe not from the very beginning when you’re just starting your priorities to get traffic. If you don’t have any traffic at all, then the only thing that can work with low traffic is probably when you are selling your own services since you don’t really need a high volume of traffic to get one or two clients.
In the beginning, I believe it’s really important to concentrate on one traffic source and income source and then, once you handle it really well, then you can include another one.
Can you give us some tips for people who are just starting?
It’s important not to try to do everything on your own so get help as soon as possible even with the smallest things first. You can hire someone to write text for you, do graphics, and everything else.
Also, do not try to do everything perfectly from the very beginning. It should be good enough but don’t invest too much time and money trying to optimize every dot.
I believe it’s also very important to invest in your education – to take time to learn something because, for example, I come from digital marketing so my expertise is in digital marketing. I thought I know everything and I will develop everything but then I understood that business and some traffic sources are completely different from what I did before.
This is why I really believe that we have to learn a lot but we also have to test a lot on what works great for us.
If something does not work, maybe we can try to tweak it a little or try something different – just try to be creative and stay on track.
Business is hard sometimes so just test and do your best and it will all work out one day.
I’m Anastasia and I’m a full-time blogger, online entrepreneur, and Pinterest marketing strategist. I help digital entrepreneurs and bloggers drive targeted traffic from Pinterest either through my online courses or through Pinterest consultancy.
