How to Get to 6.6 Million Pageviews in 2 Years of Blogging with Caroline Simmons

This episode demonstrates that it is possible to get to 6.6 million pageviews in 2 years of blogging, because Caroline Simmons of Swaddles N Bottles did it! And the best part is she loves sharing all her tips and tricks.

In this episode, Caroline and I discuss how Pinterest has fueled her blog growth, and how she strategically uses group boards to find new opportunities.

Learn how she hires contributors to create content for her parenting blog, and how she's started a new blog to teach other women how to build online businesses. This is all in addition to having two babies at home!

If you want actionable steps to take your blog traffic to a new level, you will love this episode!

Resources:

• Swaddles N Bottles
• Tailwind
• PinGroupie
• Pinning For Pageviews
• Canva
• Shutterstock
• Adobe Photos
• MiloTree
• Social Warfare
• HashtagJeff
• ShareASale
• CJ Affiliate
• PepperJam
• The Basics of Blogging
• The Basics of Blogging Facebook Group
• Mastering Affiliate Marketing
• The Slight Edge

* May contain affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I might receive a small commission at no cost to you.

Transcript - How to Get to 6.6 Million Pageviews in 2 Years of Blogging with Caroline Simmons

Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 0:03

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to The Blogger Genius Podcast. Today, my guest is Caroline Simmons. It's Caroline right? Not Carolyn?

Caroline Simmons 0:21 Yes.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 0:21 Yes. okay, and Caroline is a mother of two itty bitty kids. And she's a blogger. She's owner of a blog called Swaddles n Bottles, and it's a resource for new moms.

Now what's super interesting is that she started this in 2016, and she has since grown it to over 6.6 million page views. So we are going to get into how she has done that. Welcome to the show. Caroline.

Caroline Simmons 0:49 Hi. Thank you for having me.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 0:51 So I have to say that we met because you sent me the loveliest email out of nowhere, just saying how much you enjoyed the podcast.

Caroline Simmons 1:02 Yes, I am someone who always want to be learning about whatever there is out there that I can get my hands on involving blogging and growing. And just finding new strategies and tips.

And anytime I see your email pop up in my inbox, I either read it right then and there, or I flag it because I know it's always got such great content. So yeah, I really enjoy it.

And, you know, I like that we were saying that the internet can be kind of a lonely place. And so I always like to just send a positive message whenever I can. And just send you a little word of encouragement that I'm reading it and I'm loving it. And it is absolutely helping me.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 1:42 Thank you. And you're also using MiloTree, because if you sign up for MiloTree, you get my emails.

So honestly, like when I get an email like that. It's it makes my day.

Caroline Simmons 1:54 Well, good. I'm happy to hear that.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 1:56 And then when I learned a little bit about your business, I was like, please come on the show, I want to interview you.

Caroline Simmons 2:02 Yes, I'm happy to share whatever I can. Kind of pay it forward everything you've given me. I'd love to share some of my tidbits and hope that it can help someone else.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 2:11 Okay, so let's start at the beginning. You started this blog not long ago?

Caroline Simmons 2:16 Right.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 2:16 So tell me a little bit about you. And how you did this.

Caroline Simmons 2:20 Okay. Yeah, so I launched it in October of 2016.

Starting a blog two years ago to help other mothers

Jillian Tohber Leslie 2:25 Wow. So two years ago.

Caroline Simmons 2:27 Just about two years ago now. And my first daughter was just three months old at the time. And when I was pregnant with her, I spent so much time online, trying to get my hands on any and all information I could about what was to come in my near future.

In terms of my pregnancy and labor and delivery and bringing home a newborn and breastfeeding that newborn. And so I spent so much time online, just trying to collect every bit of information I could.

Then as I kind of started going through, you know, those first couple months of motherhood and testing things out and trying to figure out. What was working what wasn't. What were the mom hacks that were saving me time and sanity and whatnot.

I thought I would love to share this. And so I decided I wanted to start a blog. I had never done anything website related in the past.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 3:22 And what was your previous life?

Caroline Simmons 3:24 My previous life, I kind of dabbled around in a few different things. And I spent a few years working for an energy company. I did some recruiting for them. I did some customer service for them prior to leaving my job.

Right before I had my first daughter, Emmy, I was working in higher education and working with college students, which was really, really fun.

So, to be honest, I can say that I hadn't found what I wanted to do long term. And then when this idea, once it struck me, like creating a blog creating something from scratch that I've done all on my own, and growing it to the point of reaching me, no, never would have guessed it would have been millions of mothers and helping them.

Once that idea was in my brain, and in my heart, there was no stopping it. It gave me, it's still to this day gives me goosebumps, just thinking about having the opportunity to do that. And so that's kind of what set me on my path.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 4:24 Okay, so you get this idea. You have this tiny little baby, and you think I want to help other mothers, right? So what do you do?

Start a blog to solve a problem you're struggling with

Caroline Simmons 4:34 I bought a domain and I'm pretty sure my husband thought I had lost my marbles because he's like, do you know anything about blogging? And I didn't.

And really, when I was a new mom, I was a new blogger. I researched. I took every free course I could find. I read every book I could find. I invested a little money in some paid ebooks and paid courses.

I just just dug into anything I could get my hands on to figure it out. And I started creating content. I think one of the things that was the most helpful was that I was creating content for an audience that I was in the same position.

I was going through the same struggles, and I was finding solutions. And I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And I think that really helped.

I had to tap into what's going on in my life. What struggles and am I going through? And how can I help others?

Jillian Tohber Leslie 5:37 You know, it's so funny, because people will go, I want to start a business, what should it be? And I always say, examine your own life. Because, you know, if you're having a problem, chances are millions of other people are having that exact problem.

And that's it again, we didn't set out to create MiloTree, we built it for ourselves, it worked really well. We're like, Hey, we could help other bloggers.

And so we didn't set out to go, we're gonna make this app. And, you know, it's just, we scratched our own itch, and we were able to find a solution. Just like you did.

Caroline Simmons 6:11 Right, yeah. And that is, I think, what what brings in the people is when you're solving a problem for them, and you're not setting out trying to do something for yourself, right?

Having a mindset of helping as a blogger

You're saying, and this is something that a lot of people are struggling with, how can I help? And when you have a mindset of helping, I think people can sense that. Yes. And I think that they are attracted to it.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 6:35 I agree. It's like, they can smell it.

Caroline Simmons 6:37 Yes.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 6:39 Okay. So you start writing posts.

Caroline Simmons 6:42 I started creating content and building the website, which that was a struggle in itself. Learning this new platform of WordPress, and that, that took some time. That was probably the biggest learning curve.

Jillian Tohber Leslie 6:57 Did you did you hire somebody?

Caroline Simmons 6:59 No, it was really just tutorials, and watching a lot of YouTube tutorials, and just reaching out to other bloggers, and just kind of trying to figure it out little by little. And still to this day.

I would say it was maybe three months ago I installed a new theme in my blog and made a major change. So I tried not to be too hard on myself with it being perfect in the beginning. Because that is