Yaaay, the day has fin come, my oldest travel blog has reached 50k sessions and was accepted into Mediavine.
Mediavine is a full-service ad management company that specializes in helping content creators and bloggers monetize their websites through display advertising. It is kind of like the Holy Grail for new bloggers.
It took years of trial and error, but if I had known then what I know now, I could have done it in under a year. And that is why I knew I had to write this post. So you can skip all the mistakes I made and go straight for success!
Article overview
My long journey to Mediavine
To give you a little background, this travel blog was hovering around 18k monthly sessions when I went in for my Mediavine push. Now, some of you might think that sounds like a lot. But my blog was more or less dead. It didn’t matter how many articles I wrote or how much I shared, the traffic stayed exactly the same for 3 years!?!?
It was like it had just frozen in time. If one article gained some traction, another one died down. I was desperate because I knew I wanted my oldest (and favorite🤫) blog as part of my monetization strategy. It wasn’t until I worked on my mindset that things changed.
When I was able to move away from stress and fear, and just trust in the decision I made, my traffic started growing. And with that, I got a new wave of motivation to do things differently. I knew that nothing changes if nothing changes.
So with the new tools I talk about below, I went all in during the summer of 2023. My traffic grew to about 35k in a few months and then I was hit by the HCU. I went back down to about 15-20k. But as I have experienced so many times in life, before you get to a new level you will be tested.
So I kept rewriting and republishing and by April 2024 I was at 48k, but I never reached 50k. I should have had 60k as a goal and I most likely would have made it. From there my traffic went down to about 38k in May 2024 when I was hit by another update.
And that was the last straw for me, I got angry and said out loud, I’m tired of this shit. I’m going to reach 50k by August and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Well, I got there by October and was accepted by Mediavine in November.
It took about two weeks for my application to be accepted and then another few weeks for all the other approvals because of the holidays. My RPM right now is $13, which isn’t great. But January is often the lowest paid month and I only have 25% US traffic, which has the highest RPM.
I worked on my mindset
Reaching 50,000 blog sessions and qualifying for Mediavine was not just a numbers game; it was a transformative journey that began with a significant shift in my mindset. I know that sounds cheesy, but it was one of the last goals I had yet to reach. So I wondered why was this one so hard.
I realized that to achieve my goals, I needed to adopt a mentality of abundance rather than scarcity. This meant believing that monetizing my travel blog with a premium ad agency was not just a possibility, but an inevitable outcome.
I put my low numbers out of my mind and only focused on where I wanted to be. By embodying the mindset of someone who had already reached that milestone, I found myself more motivated and focused on the actions necessary to get there.
Additionally, I worked on being open to receiving. This involved letting go of limiting beliefs that had previously held me back. Each step I took was guided by the belief that I was worthy of success and that the universe was aligned to support my journey.
Actionable steps
While the above advice is exactly what I did it is a little vague to say that I worked on my mindset. I know you probably want some more actionable steps. So here’s a quick list of the things I did.
I use this free quantum leap meditation frequently. I visualize how I feel when my goals come true. If you’ve read about my manifestation process, you know that you have to truly believe it before you’ll experience it. So I visualized the life I know I’m meant for, including making a substantial ad income.
I read this book twice. It is one of the best and most transformational books I’ve ever read. I understood why I was procrastinating and what I was afraid of. Which for me was the limiting belief that more money means more stress and less freedom.
Fear of been seen was also a big one for me, which is why I stopped posting on Instagram when it blew up in 2017/18 and rarely shared my blog posts.
I took the goal of 50k sessions down from the pedestal I had it on and decided to think of it as something completely normal. In fact, I set my sights on 100k, and now I’m at 70k one month after hitting 50k. So always aim higher than what you think you want.
I worked on SEO
Yes yes, I know everyone is talking about SEO being dead after all the insane Google updates over the last few years. When I lost traffic in the first HCU and then in May 2024, I was lucky that I had diversified my income and didn’t rely solely on blog income. Although I definitely took a hit.
After all the mindset work I have done in recent years, I heard Tony Robbins’ words in my head; Proximity and resourcefulness is power. Knowledge is no longer power now that everyone with an internet connection has access to most of the world’s information. But seeing firsthand how someone uses their knowledge is.
Tireless research
So instead of turning to blogging groups to complain like I normally would, I rolled up my sleeves and spent a week just researching. Every early morning, night and the entire weekend. I said no to going out and other social commitments because I was determined to reach this goal as soon as possible.
I thought there was no point in just writing and hoping, so why not see what is still working? I joined a lot of blogging groups, especially those that allow people to ask for a Mediavine push. One example is Women Travel Bloggers.
I went through all the sites that had recently experienced growth and been accepted into Mediavine or Raptive with a fine-toothed comb. I wrote down all the similarities I could find between the sites.
Actionable steps
What I found from the blogs I researched was:
- Most of them wrote from a first-person perspective with lots of personal experiences.
- They often write shorter posts (1000-1500 words), getting to the point quickly.
- They posted consistently from the start, minimum once a week.
So I started the daunting task of rewriting 150 old blog posts and republishing them with a new date. I added a few fresh photos, changed up the titles and subtitles with more H2s and added more of my own points of view.
The first page of Google isn’t dominated by the veterans anymore. Newer blogs that are posting consistent quality content are doing better than some established sites. This means it is the perfect time to start a blog if that is something you’ve been dreaming of.
A few other things I did:
- I changed the post meta that is shown below the title from date published to last modified.
- I added an author box to show my expertise in my niche.
- I started converting my photos to WEBP format before uploading.
- Instead of just writing for keywords with low competition, I started writing for the highest traffic. So I get a mix of keywords I know I can rank for and just shoot for the moon with harder high-traffic keywords. I use KeySearch.
- I started sharing my articles on Flipboard and Facebook even though I only get about 100 pageviews a month. In my mind, it signals to Google that this is a real website.
I invested in myself
What would I do if I already had a successful blog? I would invest in myself to save time. Because time is your most valuable resource, yet people spend most of their lives using time to save a little money.
So I invested in myself again, instead of wasting any more time. I wanted to learn from someone who was already exactly where I wanted to be. My last big investment was Six-Figure Blog Builder by Create and Go. It literally changed my life.
But I also wanted to learn from a travel blogger. I already knew SEO, I have a niche blog doing very well. However, everything changed when I bought Nina’s 6 months to 50k course.
It provided me with the last few steps I needed. The insights I gained from Nina’s expertise were invaluable, it helped refine my approach to content creation. The zero to hero keyword method is my favorite of the new strategies I learned.
If you’re a new blogger, I highly recommend her extensive Profitable Part-Time Blogger Program.
I always say, if you have a dream just go for it and adjust as you learn. However, these days in blogging, it is important to have an understanding of how everything works first. That way you don’t have to go back a rewrite 150 posts as I did.
Help from AI
The only thing that is constant in life is change. So while I don’t love AI, I promised myself not to fight against it. So I started trying out different tools to help with my writing, as staying consistent has always been my biggest struggle.
That’s when I discovered Koala AI, a great tool that can help you create high-quality SEO-optimized articles. Instead of starting with a blank page, I began using Koala AI to generate outlines and gather base information.
This not only streamlined my writing process but also significantly boosted my productivity. Although I always rewrite probably 95%, I can now focus on adding my own experiences, rather than getting stuck in the initial stages of writing.
By combining the perspective from 6 months to 50k with the efficiency provided by Koala AI, I’m able to create content more consistently. Going from posting once a month to at least once a week, sometimes twice.
And that’s about it. If you have any questions, comment below or join my email list where I share everything I know about creating freedom for travel through passive income.
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