Patience & Pajamas Turns Two!

Hi friends! Welcome to Patience & Pajamas’s second blogiversary party!

To celebrate two years of blogging I decided to share a little bit of everything.

What’s everything you ask?

Today, I’m talking about some of the key lessons I’ve learned from blogging, reflecting on my goals I set a year ago, sharing this years most popular posts, setting some new goals, and sharing my accomplishments from the past year!

In case you’re new here, hello! I’m Peyton, the voice (and everything else) behind Patience and Pajamas. Thank you for visiting my special space on the internet. Feel free to poke around!

Lessons from blogging.

I hadn’t done a lot of research into blogging when I started Patience & Pajamas, but I knew the basics of what it was going to entail. Writing, editing, finding my unique voice, reaching out to a niche audience, and lots of marketing.

Lesson One:

I have never been a fan of English classes. I was always a slow reader, and I would rather make up ridiculous equations and attempt to solve them then spend time studying Shakespeare. Never in my wildest dreams would have thought writing would become something I enjoy! But it has. It doesn’t always come easily to me, and I’m all honesty I’m blown away by how quickly people say they write their blog posts sometimes! For reference I’m starting this draft on June 8th, well over a month before it will be posted! This will give me enough time to organize my thoughts and have things the way I want them without the pressure of a having to do it quickly.

I’ve learned that when I try to do things for a post all in one day I’m rarely satisfied with them. This system of getting my thoughts down and polishing them up or adding to them later works best for me. After all, there’s so much that goes into just one post! Learning what works for me has taught me that I actually do enjoy writing!

Lesson Two:

Don’t compare. I always knew not to compare myself to others, because all of our journeys are different. But it can be hard when you see a new blogger talking about their explosive stats and you’ve yet to hit those numbers in over a year of hard work! I’ve learned to set these thoughts aside and appreciate my slow growth. This is much more sustainable for me, and I love getting to know my readers who comment on various posts or engage with me on social media. While rapid growth can be quite exciting, I imagine it would be quite overwhelming for someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing. Two years in I still wouldn’t say I’m exactly sure of myself, but I am getting better at learning what works, analyzing my stats, and enjoying my journey.

Lesson Three:

All bloggers know or hear that Pinterest is the all mighty powerful entity of blogging. I used to hear it. Now I know it. Towards the end of May I published a post with some graphics I was very pleased with, a good keyword, and useful information that was relevant to the time and would remain relevant in the coming months. My traffic spiked, and not only did I have my best day ever for Patience and Pajamas, I also had my best week, and month. My Pinterest impressions have nearly quadrupled since that post, and all of this happened because I prepared for it and knew what I was doing.

Things have settled down a bit now, but I’ve hit a bit of a stride with Pinterest and found that when I focus on what I know works for me and for this blog, my traffic reflects it. That slow growth has taught me how to really listen and hone in on what my readers want and respond to, and I hope it continues.

The top five posts this year were:

1. The 7 Most Helpful Gifts I Received for High School Graduation
2. Syllabus Week: 5 Things To Do Once You Have Your Syllabus
3. 3 Ways to Help Save Hundreds Shopping for Your College Dorm
4. 30 College Orientation Tips
5. Everything I Bought for My College Dorm

Did I meet my blogging goals I set for myself?

Last year in this post, I set some goals for myself. Then, I completely forgot about them. Silly me, I know. Luckily, I thought to check on last year’s post this morning, and here is how those went:

Publish a blog post once a week.

I did not publish 52 blog posts. What on earth was I thinking? This year I felt l like a bit of a slacker at times when it came to my blog, but school and health will always take priority! I posted at least once a month all year, but now I feel that I’m much better equipped for keeping up with things while I take on my second year of college.

Master Pinterest.

While I wouldn’t say I’ve “mastered” Pinterest, I’ve definitely gotten a better handle on it! My pin style has definitely evolved, and I’ve gotten more on top of creating multiple pins for posts I think it would benefit. I’ve also listened to a lot of awesome podcasts on Pinterest, so while I feel that there is always more to learn, I’ve really upped my Pinterest game.

Look into Tailwind Tribes.

I totally, totally am still in the dark when it comes to Tailwind Tribes, but for right now I’m okay with that. I don’t really understand them all that well. While I did try, they just seem to require a bit more work and research for me. However, to kind of balance this out I did join a number of Pinterest group boards and I am so happy I did! These have been super helpful in sharing content and finding other bloggers.

Dive into the college blogging community.

This year I have definitely discovered and engaged with a lot more “college bloggers” which has been a really great experience! I have some posts lined up with some of my favorite college bloggers to follow, and which ones I found the most helpful throughout my college search and leading up to freshman year! They’re all amazing.

Future Blogging Goals:

52 blog posts.

Fingers crossed I don’t curse myself again for this in 365 days, but I think this is manageable with the skills I’ve gained and commitment to prepping posts and staying on a schedule. I’ve also gotten a lot better at using my blog planner, so that should help this goal to become a reality! I’m not making myself stick to once a week because you never know what will happen, but I would be really pleased to manage 52 posts.

Batch content.

Sometimes, I’m in the mood to write. Others times I’ll schedule out time just for blogging and spend it all just staring at my screen with total writer’s block (or I guess, blogger’s block). Getting posts written, edited, graphics made and added in, let’s not even get started on when photos are involved… that all takes a lot of time and energy and isn’t something I can do at the last minute. Working on a bunch of content at once I’ve found leads me to be more productive. If I have an idea for another post in the middle of the one I’m writing, I’ll start a new draft and write-up a quick outline. This may sound nuts to some people, but for me it’s been working. I’d like to make this part of my blogging routine this year so I can stay ahead and keep things scheduled!

Use more photos in my blog posts.

This is something I struggle with. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to photos, and I’m still trying to figure out how I want to have them styled on the blog. Why is it so difficult? As someone who is lucky enough to have the entire Adobe suite available to me for free from my university, I feel I need to be taking full advantage of it! Illustrator is what I’m leaning towards messing around with at the moment as I’ve spent quite a lot of time in Lightroom and have grown comfortable with it. I’m not a pro by any means, but I think it’s time to start learning something new. Maybe I’ll become inspired, and figure out how to incorporate more photos for you guys!

Accomplishments from my second year of blogging:

Ending off on a high note, here are some of my accomplishments from this year!

I made my first affiliate sale! It may seem small, but to me this was super exciting, as I got to see my research and hard work pay off.

I published 5 blog posts in one week.

36 posts were shared!

Patience and Pajamas has had visitors from 104 countries. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it, that’s a far cry from last year’s count which was in the forties.

Patience and Pajamas was nominated for an award! The WEGO Health Awards Blog: Best in Show category. You can read more about it in this post!

This year’s stats blew last year’s out of the water! Especially these past few months. It has helped me create a game plan for this fall’s content, which I am really excited for!

Thank you for your support.

Whether you’ve been reading Patience and Pajamas for years or this is your first time visiting the site! Remember that you can always follow along on all of my socials (click here for Pinterest, here for Instagram, and here for Twitter), drop me a line via email ( peyton@patienceandpajamas.com ), and/or leave a comment below! I love interacting with you all and getting to learn more about my readers.

Here’s to another year of growth and opportunity!