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Time flew by, and before I realized it, I have already been blogging for one year! Crazy to think about how far I’ve come in that year. How much I’ve grown. How many things I’ve did in my first year of blogging!

Sure, I am not one of those people who have created a full income-producing business within a year, but I am actually ok with that. 

I started from absolute zero and therefore had to learn so much. And the funny thing is while in the beginning, I was pretty desperate to start making money with my business, now a calm and security have settled over me. 

I don’t care so much about the fact that I haven’t even made 100€ in my first year of blogging. Sure, that would have been great, but I know it will come eventually. 

That knowledge, combined with the joy of the journey, has made me much less desperate and left me with the hunger for learning and growing even more. 

So even though I have not made much money in my first year of blogging, I have planted some important seeds that will no doubt explode my income soon enough. 

This post is dedicated to sharing those seeds I’ve planted in my first year of blogging. 

I hope this gives you a more realistic view of how that blogging journey can look like. 

Not all of us have those crazy success stories we read online. And because it seems like ‘everybody else’ has them, many people get discouraged and quit when things don’t work out as quickly for them. 

Just because you don’t see results yet doesn’t mean the seeds aren’t growing! So, let this post inspire and motivate you to keep working through that initial phase of seemingly no growth. 

Read also: 10 Lessons I Learned In My First Year Of Blogging

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Recap 

1. Getting comfortable creating content 

As mentioned previously, I’ve started from absolute zero. I first got introduced into the whole idea of online entrepreneurship in October 2018. 

And as Black Friday came around in November, I jumped straight into my first business model. It wasn’t exactly what I had imagined, though, and I put it on hold a few months later. 

Then on the 1st of April 2019, I published my first blog post on my brand new Blog. 

By that time, I had gathered some little insights into the online business world. However, I still knew very little about content creation or marketing. 

Therefore I dedicated the first two months to simply get the hang of it. 

I didn’t do any marketing during that time. Merely coming up with content ideas and writing blog posts. 

It surely wasn’t very spectacular, but I believe that this time of purely focusing on writing content gave me some very much needed confidence and ease in my whole blogging journey. 

Now, looking back, I realize how incredibly far I’ve come. 

It took me much longer than those initial two months to get truly comfortable and efficient in content creation. 

I remember it as being rather difficult for me to come up with content ideas, and it seemingly took ages to actually write it out. 

Nowadays, I find inspiration for content out of nowhere. If I am inspired, I can write a 2,000-word post in half or even a third of the time it took me back in the beginning. 

Now, one year into my blogging journey, I have lost the fear of running out of content ideas. The quality and value of my content are steadily increasing, and I am actually feeling proud of it. 

In the beginning, I struggled a lot with creating content that I myself liked and was proud of. Very often, it just didn’t feel very original or valuable. Now, that has changed, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it!

2. Becoming clear on my niche 

Maybe the biggest problem I have struggled with throughout my first year of blogging (and quite honestly I am still struggling with it a bit) was finding a niche I felt aligned with. 

I started somewhat in the Personal Development niche. By now, I am more in the “Boss Lady” niche, meaning Female Entrepreneurship and parts of Personal Development. 

I am much happier with it now, but I still don’t feel like I am entirely aligned with it. But I guess I just keep going with the flow and developing my business with time. 

But this uncertainty about my niche has definitely slowed my progress down significantly. Would I have a niche I would feel crazy passionate about I would be able to give 130% and create tons of content and products and therefore make an income quickly.  

You can read more on that topic in 4 Things That Determine How Long It Will Take To Build A Profitable Business.

3. Creating a Blog 

I know I’m captain obvious for stating this, but I’ve created and published a Blog. 

Nowadays, everyone can do that and even in a matter of a few minutes. 

But still, I consider it something to be proud of. After all, putting myself out there on the world wide web for the first time can be a scary thing. 

That’s one reason why so many people don’t ever get started with building a business. 

4. Settling for a branding design 

The word “settling” here is a loose term. I am still not entirely fixed on my business branding. 

But I have at least come to find somewhat of brand-specific colors and fonts I try to stick to. 

Of course, it is beneficial for your business if you stick to the same branding from the very beginning. 

But personally, I try to not stress myself too much about it. After all, this is my business and my rules. If I want to change my branding into using only hot pink, I will do so without asking a business advisor for permission. (I am so not going to have a hot pink business!)

5. Learning about SEO 

Ah, search engine optimization, you love it, or you hate it. 

In the beginning, SEO can feel utterly overwhelming. After all, search engines like Google use over 200 algorithms to rank pages and posts. You will never be able to do well on all of these 200+, and who knows when Google will just suddenly change them? 

On the other hand, you can reap great rewards with SEO, and it can actually be rather easy and fun. 

For learning about SEO, I like to use Neil Patel’s content. He always shares excellent little tips and tricks that you can implement to make your content rank better. 

Through his content, I have learned a lot about SEO in my first year of blogging. 

Granted, I am nowhere near having my SEO game on track as much as I want to, but I am getting there. 

6. Marketing consistently on one platform 

One of my best decisions during my first year of blogging! 

Marketing has been the scariest topic for me in building my business. I dreaded doing it for a long, long time. 

What also didn’t help was the fact that I didn’t particularly like the social media platforms. 

Thankfully, however, I discovered Pinterest marketing and dove in headfirst with Tailwind and Pinfinite Growth. 

I have been pinning somewhat around 20 pins consistently each day for months now on my Pinterest account. 

That effort has been rewarded, and Pinterest is by far my most significant source of traffic. And the best part: It is steadily growing!!!!

Again, I am nowhere near the traffic I want to have. But I’ve recently hit the 1,000 monthly sessions mark on my Blog, and that is a motivating development. 

7. Creating my first Freebies 

Another milestone I was pretty proud of was creating my first freebie as an opt-in incentive to my email list. 

I am still struggling with having freebie or course ideas I am truly passionate about. 

So having the first one was a big and comforting step for me. 

If you are struggling with this, too, just create something basic and small. Like a printable planner or a Journaling prompts list. 

Offering a one-page pdf file might not seem very exciting, but there are people out there that will want that! And most importantly, it will get the ball rolling for more fabulous and better freebies and eventually, also your own courses. 

8. Starting an Email list 

As mentioned in my previous point, I also started an email list! Again, there was some resistance towards doing that, which makes me all the more proud to have overcome it. 

It’s still in its beginning stages, but I am sure it will grow massively during the next year. 

If you are anxious about having that more personal connection to your audience an email list provides, you should use the time to build it when you only have little traffic to your Blog. 

Sure, it will feel a bit like a waste of time to write weekly emails to a handful of people. Still, it allows you to grow more comfortable with it, with only a few people watching you. 

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What’s next 

Alright, so those were the most significant milestones I ticked off during my first year of blogging. Naturally, the question that follows is, what’s next? 

I want to do or accomplish a few things in my second year of blogging: 

• Becoming more passionate and inspired about my business
• Creating my first course 
• Having at least 10,000 monthly visitors to my website 
• Earning 2,000 €/month with my business 
• Hiring my first virtual assistant/outsourcing a few tasks 
• Starting a YouTube channel and a Podcast 
• Proudly telling my family and friends about my business (I am still keeping it a secret until I have finally begun to make a regular income and established it as a ‘real business.’) 

I guess in a year from now I’ll be able to tell you how many of these I’ve actually accomplished ^^ 

Until then, I hope you keep working as ambitiously as I on your business or whatever goal you currently have. 

Have patience and be consistent! If you keep going, success is inevitable! 

With much love 

Sophie

I always find it interesting to hear about the lessons people learn in their first year of blogging. And since my own one-year anniversary has passed, I decided to share my biggest lessons with you.

But first: Can you believe it? It’s already been ONE YEAR! I am so damn proud of myself for what I’ve accomplished this past year! I actually published content each and every week! If I put my mind on something, you can be sure it will be performed with scaring consistency ^^’

And of course, I am incredibly grateful for every single one of you! Whether you are a first time visitor to this Blog or you’ve been a loyal Felicity Seeker for a while now, you are the heart of this community. Without you, I would not spend my evenings working on this business.

So thank you immensely, for keeping my passion and hope alive!

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1. Lesson: Task batching is MAGICAL!

I still don’t do this all the time, but I’ve come to learn that doing a bunch of the same tasks at once saves you soooooo much time.

For example, I might spend a few days writing my content for the next few weeks. That way I don’t need to worry about it every week anew. And since I am already in “writing-mode” it flows so much easier and quicker.

The same goes for creating Pinterest pins or scheduling my pins with Tailwind.

It’s just really nice to focus on one thing for a while and get it all out of the way before moving on to the next thing.

Then again, sometimes, I do feel more like doing a bit of everything. In those moments, I like to go with the flow and just do what feels most aligned to me.

2. Lesson: Focus On One Traffic Source

It is easy to feel like you need to have a business profile on every social media platform out there. After all, you want to reach the biggest audience possible, right?

However, especially in the beginning, I believe you should only focus on ONE platform to market your content on.

When I started marketing my content, I created a Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter profile.

But to be honest, I never really liked marketing on social media. I much more enjoyed it with Pinterest (which is a search engine by the way).

So after half-hearted marketing on all three platforms, I first dropped Twitter and, at the end of 2019, decided to drop Instagram, too.

3. Lesson: Pinterest Beats Instagram, Facebook & Co. By Miles!!!

As previously mentioned, I’ve always felt like I had to do marketing through social media. Yet I always dreaded the thought of doing so.

But then I discovered Pinterest marketing, and I honestly fell in love!

With Instagram, Twitter & Co., your posts are pretty much only relevant for a day or so. The majority of people won’t spend the time scrolling through your older posts. Therefore you have to produce a ton of content whose lifetime is very limited.

In search engines, however, your content can rank for years to follow! Sometimes your content suddenly starts to take off after months of posting it and provides a steady source of traffic.

For example, my most significant amount of traffic comes from my blog post 10 Ways To Tune Into Your Feminine Energy. I’ve created multiple pins for it, but the initial one is over six months old at this point, yet it produces traffic for me, each and every day!

Can you imagine that happening with a six-month-old Instagram post? Probably not.

Also, Pinterest doesn’t require you to interact much with others. It might be my introverted side speaking, but for some reason, I’ve never liked interacting much on social media. Not on my private accounts nor my business accounts.

I love talking to people in person, but the whole commenting, liking, and chatting feels very stressful and bothersome to me. And it takes time!

With Pinterest, I don’t have to do any of that. I just do my thing, and whoever is interested in my content clicks on or saves my pin.

Pinterest is literally like a perfectly uncomplicated friend ^^

Read also: The 5 Biggest Pinterest Mistakes I Made In The Beginning
Read also: My Pinfinite Growth by Melyssa Griffin Review

4. Lesson: Marketing can be fun!

For the majority of my first year of blogging, I hated marketing. The thought alone made me uncomfortable, and I dreamed of the day I could hire a virtual assistant for that task.

But as I started to learn more and more about marketing and only focused on Pinterest, I actually found myself enjoying it more and more.

It was mainly that initial phase of being overwhelmed and anxious because I had no idea how to market correctly that kept me from enjoying it.

Now, I know that marketing can actually be fun if I do it my way and push through that initial phase of overwhelm by investing in a course like Pinfinite Growth and amazing tools like Tailwind.

5. Lesson: The best progress follows after frustration

Without fault, there will be frustrations throughout your journey of building a successful business.

You will never reach a level that is entirely without frustrations. Still, they will most likely become rarer than in the beginning phase of building a business.

So naturally, I had my fair share of disappointments throughout my first year of blogging. And yes, it was frustrating to try such much time and time again and not see the results I had hoped for.

What I noticed, however, was that after those phases of frustration – especially the bigger ones – followed highly motivating stages of growth.

That’s why for a while now, I’ve actually become excited every time I am in such a frustrating phase. Because I know that very soon some significant progress will be made!

You might also be interested in: 9 Hardships You Have To Face In Life

You might also be interested in: 25 Quotes That Help You Recover From Failure

You might also be interested in: 7 Reasons Why Failure Is Important For Success

6. Lesson: There are no spontaneous growth spurts, and that’s ok.

We always hear all those success stories of people changing one little thing about their strategy or taking one course, and suddenly their traffic spikes like crazy!

So far, I’ve not had those crazy spikes. Sure if you look at percentages you could say I had great moments of growth. But even if going from 10 views a day to 40 a day is a 400% growth, it’s not necessarily the spike I had in mind. (But it’s of course still very much appreciated!)

Anyways, what I’ve found in the last few weeks is that somewhat of a calm and security has settled over me.

I am not desperate anymore to get those crazy growth spikes or finally make tons of money online. Sure, I am still working towards that, but I am much more patient and don’t really care that much if it happens today or next week.

Mainly because I am 100% certain that it will happen eventually. I have this unwavering faith that success will come sooner or later. And since I am genuinely enjoying myself and the steady progress I am making, I don’t feel in a desperate rush for it.

I love that feeling of calm and ease. And I have the feeling that once you reach that, you finally open the doors to let the Universe deliver your manifestations.

It feels like that practice of letting go and not clinging to that dream, the law of attraction teaches.

Should you still feel impatient and desperate to have that success, remind yourself of how far you’ve already come. Maybe look at your Google analytics and see the steady growth your traffic has made throughout the past months.

You will enjoy running and growing your business so much more if you just let go of that impatience and enjoy the steady progress.
Because in the end, steady growth will benefit you more than one crazy spike.

Also, you never know how long those over-night successes have already been growing for that “sudden” success to happen.

One press account said I was an overnight success. I thought that was the longest night I’ve ever spent.

– Sandra Cisneros

I was 40 years old before I became an overnight success, and I’d been publishing for 20 years.

– Mary Karr

It took about 10 years’ time for Shopify to be an overnight success.

– Tobias Lutke

7. Lesson: One Blog post per week is enough

Looking at some of my business role models – Alux.com and ProjectLifeMastery.com – I kind of thought I’d need to publish content at least three times a week to be truly successful.

But quite frankly, I’d much rather publish one fantastic quality content each week and focus the rest of my time on creating amazing products or improving my existing posts.

I learned this mentality from Neil Patel. Neil has a crazy successful SEO marketing Blog, and you guessed it, he publishes one post per week. Yet he has three employees working on improving and updating is already existing content.

I immediately fell in love with that strategy! I think it’s rather sad to think of the crazy amount of content that gets published, but barely anyone takes notice of it.

I think the idea of carefully curated and regularly nurtured content is a lovely one.

8. Lesson: Content is king …. but inside a constitutional monarchy

This is an addition to the previous point.

For a long time, people preached that “content is king.” Meaning who has a lot of quality content succeeds inevitably.

But in today’s age, where there are billions of pieces of content out there on the internet, it’s much much harder to get people to discover your quality content.

That’s why marketing is so important.

Again, Neil Patel is a fantastic example for someone who spends a minority of his time creating content but a majority on marketing it.

So, yes, I’ve learned that my content is not everything. In fact, I should probably only spend 20% of my time with it and the other 80% with marketing it.

9. Lesson: Same content – many faces

One excellent way to get a significant impact from a few but quality content is by multiplying it.

So you’ve written a blog post. Let’s read the text out loud and record it. Then hire a virtual assistant to create a YouTube video and a podcast out of it. And suddenly, you have that same content on three highly used platforms without much more effort on your side compared to the one initial Blog post.

Two people, who are doing this are Stefan James from Project Life Mastery and Jim Kwik.

I absolutely adore this strategy! It’s the perfect example of “working smarter, not harder.”

What’s especially great about it is that most people won’t even notice or be bothered by this duplicate content because they only consume your content on one platform.

I, for one, am not reading the blog posts, watching the youtube videos, and listening to the podcast of the same entrepreneur altogether. I mostly do one or the other.

And in the few cases of me being a rather loyal follower of that entrepreneur, I love to have the variety to choose in which formate I want to get the information.

It’s honestly a win for everybody!

10. Lesson: My business can be anything I want it to be!

You might have noticed a recurring theme in the previous points. A lot of them mention me thinking I needed to do something a certain way but then realizing I could actually do it in a different and much more enjoyable way.

So I guess one of the more profound lessons I’ve learned in my first year of blogging is that I should just do what feels right to me and not what I think is correct to do.

I am genuinely believing more and more that building and running a business can be easy and fun if you just find the right balance between being in flow and pushing your comfort zone.

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On that inspiring note, I want to end this “lessons of my first year of blogging” list. I am already getting excited about doing another one in a year from now! It is just so amazing to look back and realize how far you’ve come. I love that!

Let this be a reminder for you to look back on your journey and be proud of how far you’ve come.

And if you’ve thought about starting a Blog yourself, do it already! Before you know it, a year will have passed, and you will have gotten so much closer to your dream life.

Until next time!

Sophie

Hello, and welcome to my review of the Pinfinite Growth course by Melyssa Griffin! 

As a student without income who is trying to grow an online business, I know the pain of investing more and more money into a business that is yet to produce any income. 

On the flip side, I firmly believe that you do need to invest in tools, courses, mentors, books, etc. if you genuinely want that successful business of your dreams as quickly as possible. 

So the questions, of course, is: What are wise investments and where should you rather not spend your money? 

The starting point

Alright, first things first, where was I when I purchased Pinfinite Growth? 

I purchased Pinfinite Growth at the end of December 2019. 

I had uploaded my first blog post on April 1st, 2019, and started actively marketing my content in July of the same year. 

At that time, I had already learned what a fantastic marketing tool Pinterest is. And since I saw much more potential in Pinterest marketing than writing guest posts or doing Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc., I went all-in pretty quickly. 

On July 10th, 2019, I purchased Tailwind to aid me with my marketing. I knew I didn’t have the slightest chances to even remotely get the traffic I wanted without a scheduling tool like Tailwind, and I highly recommend it to everyone who wants to get serious with Pinterest. 

Read also: The 5 Biggest Pinterest Mistakes I Made In The Beginning

Now, if you look at my Google Analytics, you can also see that in July, I finally started to gain some traffic. Not much, granted but increasingly more over the weeks that followed. 

At the end of 2019, I had reached 2m monthly Pinterest impressions, which is a stellar result I was very proud of. 

Read also: 6 Things I Did To Get 2M Pinterest Impressions

The problem? Those 2 million monthly impressions converted to only about 20-page views a day. What a disappointment. 

So, having mentally recovered from my last business investment and having cultivated an abundance mindset, I was ready to level my marketing game up. 

My solution: Pinfinite Growth by Melyssa Griffin. 

By that time, I had already been following Melyssa for quite a few months. I really liked her personality, and I trusted her to provide tons of value in her course. 

I knew I could either wait and try to figure my issues out on my own, or I could take the help of an expert who actually works together with Pinterest and is up to date with their newest algorithms. 

You guessed it. The choice was rather easy. 

My Pinfinite Growth Results

I’ve now used the Pinfinite Growth methods for over three months. That’s the time frame Melyssa recommends to wait until to draw any final results. 

And it makes sense. After all, Pinterest is a search engine, and results don’t happen overnight. 

So, what exactly are my results? 

On the first day of Pinfinite Growth these were my stats: 

• 2m monthly Pinterest views 
• 512 Followers 
• 775 monthly pageviews to Strivingforfelicity.com

Now, three months later, I have these results: 

• 1.7m monthly Pinterest views
• 644 followers 
• 1049 monthly pageviews to Striving for Felicity 

That’s probably not the crazy traffic explosion you wanted to see, right? 

But still, it’s a growth of 135%, not bad for three months. But then again, I would have most certainly seen some growth anyway. 

So…

Was Pinfinite Growth Worth It? 

To me, yes! I honestly don’t regret investing that money at all. 

Sure, I didn’t have one of those crazy traffic explosions you might read about in other people’s reviews, but I had already anticipated that. 

After all, I already started out with 2m monthly Pinterest impressions and half a year worth of Pinterest marketing experience. AND I had previously used Tailwind, which is the holy grail of Pinterest marketing. 

Therefore there weren’t many extraordinarily mind-blowing secret techniques Melyssa could share with me I had not already known of. 

But you always have to remember that the more you already know, the less new information there is. 

And that’s ok because most of the time it isn’t those enormous amounts of information that move the needle but much more so just one little additional spark of knowledge. 

And those little sparks of information, that’s what I purchased Pinfinite Growth for. And I wasn’t disappointed! 

Pinfinite Growth taught me quite a few little tips and tricks I hadn’t known of before. And I eagerly implemented them into my Pinterest strategy. 

Also, to hear the information I already did know repeated in a different way swayed me to make some changes as well. After all, repetition is the mother of skill! 

So, all in all, Pinfinite Growth made my Pinterest marketing more effective and similarily much easier. 

AND! I don’t need to worry about any Pinterest changes because I can jump into Melyssas course once every few months and check if any algorithms or other things have changed that I should know about. 

In my eyes, that is a definite win! 

The Pros and Cons Of Pinfinite Growth By Melyssa Griffin 

Cons 

• It is pricey, not gonna lie. Especially since you absolutely must subscribe to Tailwind as well 
• It’s no quick fix (if you are looking for that you’ll be disappointed, though in my eyes that’s a sign for quality and reliability) 
• Some of the videos were slightly outdated (but nothing huge you wouldn’t be able to figure out on your own. Sometimes Pinterest changes its appearance slightly, that’s normal, and I wouldn’t expect Melyssa to make a new video every single time) 

Pros

• Even for somewhat experienced Pinterest marketers with already some success under their belt, it will have new and helpful information and strategies 
• Melyssa offers a workbook that goes with the course and is pretty helpful
• Most of the videos are pretty bitesize and comfortable to take in
• The course also has lengthy in-depth videos by Pinterest employees 
• You gain lifetime access and can take advantage of all the updates she makes 
• The information is legit since Melyssa actually works closely together with Pinterest

Well, that’s my Pinfinite Growth review. I hope my experience with and opinion about the course will help you with making the decision to purchase it or not. 

Generally, I’d recommend purchasing it as soon as possible. Since the more you learn about Pinterest marketing on your own, the less Melyssa will be able to teach you. 

But again, even if you are experienced like I was back then, there will almost certainly be at least a few new tips and tricks for you to implement. 

I wish you massive success on your online business journey! Be patient and have faith that everything will work out just fine with time!

Until next time 

Sophie

You’ve probably heard the saying “content is king.” And sure, content is essential in our informational age. But your content can be absolutely outstanding and attract tons of people. However, if you don´t have a high converting website that turns your visitors into subscribers or costumers, you are missing out on money and your tribe. 

That’s why, as a blogger, you also need to focus on designing a high converting website. 

Since designing a website from scratch as a complete blogger/entrepreneur newbie can be very confusing and overwhelming (been there, done that ^^’), I decided to give you some advice I wish I had had in the beginning. 

How I started out 

Alright, first, let’s indulge in a little storytime. When I started my business, I was completely lost. 

I knew nothing about opt-in incentives, e-mail lists, traffic, lead magnets, sales funnels, conversions, and the million other things that are to know in online entrepreneurship. 

That’s why I was incredibly thankful that the team from Affiliate Marketing Mastery set up my website with the most essential plugins and the theme I had chosen. 

Now, I believe it would not have been that difficult after all to set it all up on my own. Especially since it would have forced me to do some more research and learn what exactly a theme is, instead of just choosing one I thought looked good. 

Anyways, I was happy to have a Blog up and running and now started to upload weekly Blog posts. 

But of course, I didn’t just want to upload my content. I wanted to make my Blog look a certain way. 

At first, I tinkered around as far as I could without any coding knowledge, but I didn’t get to the results that I wanted to have. 

And as I started doing more and more research, I learned that there are plugins that can create a post grid. Happy to finally have found a solution for my problem, I downloaded and activated the free Post Grid plugin and got it all set up. 

After that, I only had a few minor problems with my Blog design for the next few months, but generally, I was content. 

Fast forward 7-8 months, and I finally start to learn more about SEO, e-mail lists, traffic, conversions, and opt-in forms. 

And as I finally got the courage to create an opt-in e-mail form on my homepage, what did I have to realize? My theme gave me only minimal and rubbish looking options. 

AGAIN … my over $100 costing theme let me down -_- 

I saw all those other websites like projectlifemaster.com, melyssagriffin.com or neilpatel.com, and I kept wondering, “How do they make a gorgeous website like that???? Do they hire expensive developers or something??? I can’t afford that right now …” 

Entry: Elementor

While I was trying to figure out how to make my website work for me (mind you, I was, of course, still posting content once a week and was by then also doing marketing on Pinterest to generate traffic to my Blog), I did a lot of research. 

And over and over again did I stumble over Elementor. 

Elementor as a tool and the functions it promises looks stunning … but then again, so do many tools, and I can’t throw my money at every shiny object out there. 

So I thought “pfff, no, I am not going to invest in that. I’ve already spent so much money on my business, and I have no income. Maybe I´ll do it once some money has come back to me.”

But as I got more serious and determined to build a converting website and an e-mail list Elementor became more and more attractive. 

And then, shortly before the New Year, they offered a 50% discount. And I just was like, screw it … I’m not broke, so of course, I invest $25 into a fantastic tool like that! 

And let me tell you that it was one of the best decisions to end 2019 with! 

The longer I use Elementor, the more I learn about all the features and realize just how incredibly valuable Elementor really is. 

And it is so, so, so, so, sooooooooooooooooooooo cheap!!! 

Seriously, that tool is absolutely overdelivering on the price-value-spectrum! Having to pay only $50 a year for Elementor is like an offer send from heaven! It doesn’t get much better than that!

Sometimes I can pretty much feel my mouth watering when I see what I have just been able to create with Elementor. It makes me feel so damn proud of myself, although, with this theme builder, it is incredibly easy. 

Elementor has honestly solved all my website problems and granted all my design wishes. 

I can now do the most gorgeous opt-in forms, highly customizable and moveable sidebars, AMAZING popups and bars and so so so much more! 

Oh! Did I mention the many amazing templates to choose from? 

Anyway, I think you get the point. Elementor has all those functions I could have dreamed of. 

Now, I am not going to give you a step-by-step manual on how to use all the different Elementor functions. 

That would be quite frankly a waste of both yours and my time since the Elementor team has already perfect explanatory videos on pretty much all of their functions. 

And of course, those videos are going to be much more up to date than whatever I could replicate. 

So, if you want to check out the different functions and how to use Elementor before you start building your website, go to their YouTube Channel and browse through the videos. 

Or, if you are more like me and like to dive in headfirst and learn as you go, you can simply google your question once it arises and then find the corresponding YouTube video. 

That’s how I’ve figured out more and more functions (although a more systematic approach would have been probably wiser ^^’). Should you not be able to find the video that answers your question, try playing around with different terminologies. 

For example, instead of “opening popup” you might want to search for “triggering popup”. Those are just terms that you learn as you go. 

Elementor And/Or Theme?

But before I get into some of the parts of a high converting website, let’s talk about the whole Elementor and/or WordPress theme topic. 

Because that has been something that has confused me a ton and kept me from purchasing Elementor sooner. 

I want to add a short disclaimer here. I am still far from being an expert in the whole WordPress/website/design arena. And I still haven’t understood the WordPress theme/framework subject entirely yet, but this is what I have figured out through research: 

So basically, you don’t need a theme with Elementor. You could use your absolutely naked WordPress site, and Elementor would provide you with everything you need. 

On the other hand, if you do have a theme, like me, you don’t need to worry either. When you design a page or post, Elementor gives you the option to choose the layout “Elementor canvas”. 

Once you select that, your page/post is just a naked white page. As if you didn’t have a theme at all. 

Now, that makes one wonder, why do people still use such limited WordPress themes then? 

Ok, first of all, I think it is worth mentioning that Elementor launched in 2016. So it’s a pretty young company. 

Now, I haven’t done any research on their competitors. Still, if we consider the age of the internet and that WordPress itself was launched in 2003, I believe it makes sense to say that such highly customizable website builders are still a pretty new tool. 

And if you look at Elementor’s development, you’ll discover some of their newer features are the theme builder and the popup builder. So I believe those WordPress premium themes will become more and more useless as tools like Elementor grow stronger. 

The one thing you might still need a premium WordPress theme for, as I read online, are online shops. 

Now, I still know next to nothing about that since I am not at a point yet where I have anything to sell online. But apparently, you might need a theme for doing eCommerce. Although Elementor does have eCommerce widgets …

If you want to do that, please do your own research. Again, I am no expert on this. I just wanted to make you aware of the one “but” I found during my research. 

But now, let’s finally get to the juice!!! 

The ingredients of a high converting website

So, what are the components of a high converting website? 

Of course, you want your website to be full of great content and look pretty and not too overwhelming. But those are very personal design choices. 

I want to talk to you about some essential parts of a high converting website I wasn’t aware of when I started my Blog. 

Blog Posts 

Let’s start with the gateway to your website most visitors will take: Your Blog Posts. 

Your blog posts are highly crucial for your conversion because they attract most of your visitors (especially if you are still just a blogger and haven’t added any tools or courses to your website).

Your readers want the solution to one of their problems, and only your content gives them that. Your homepage is of no interest to them at that point. 

So how can you capture the addresses of your Blog post readers or sell them something? 

1. Sidebar 

Sidebars are an incredibly common and powerful way to grab your page viewers’ attention for the things you want them to see.  

These can include: 

•  displaying ads/affiliate marketing (always remember proper disclaimers!)
• opt-in incentives  
• related content 
• social media buttons 

2. Below your post

Another area where you can put a lot of these elements is below your post. 

That’s also the place to put a comment section in. 

3. On top of your page 

At the very top of your page, you could display a banner with an opt-in incentive or an ad. 

4. Inside of your text 

And lastly, inside of your writing is, of course, an eyecatching spot for ads or incentives. 

Home Page 

Next is your homepage. 

Your homepage represents your business and Blog, and it is very likely one of your most visited pages. 

The first questions you should ask yourself when designing your homepage are the following: What do you want your visitors to do on your website? Where should they click? What should they see/read? 

Naturally, you want them to read your content. But why wait for them to read your content and then click on the incentives/ads etc. you’ve placed there? Why not immediately catch their e-mail addresses? 

That’s why you want to have an immediate opt-in incentive straight as the first thing they’ll see on your website. Look at these websites, for example: 

Blog Pages 

Design-wise Blog pages can look pretty much the same as your Blog post designs. 

You could use the same side bar and the same below the post incentives. But if you want to design something entirely different, it’s of course up to you. 

Your Blog should at least have the following pages: 

• Blog page (with your content, maybe different pages for each category) 
• about page 
• contact page 
• affiliate disclosure 
• Privacy Policy 
• Free resource library (this is where you can store all of the Freebies you’ve created for your opt-in incentives – again, Elementor makes it pretty easy to design. (1) You need to create a media gallery, (2) choose one pinnable image for your Freebie, (3) link that image to the pdf or in the case of an e-mail course to a popup form) 

Popups 

And lastly, a feature that can’t be missing in a high converting website: Popups. 

And again (I know I’m probably boring you by now), Elementor has stunning options for this. 

For my first popups, I’ve used Mailerlite, whose free version I used to start my e-mail list. 

Those popups were fine and all, but not very jaw-dropping. But Elementor HAS.IT.ALL! 

They have pretty much every possible kind of popup you can imagine to offer. Most of these popup places literally never even crossed my mind ^^’ 

Bonus: What to keep in mind

Phew, that was a long post! But there are a few last vital reminders I want to give you on the way to sum it all up:  

1. What do you want visitors to do? 

When designing your website, always keep in mind what you want your visitors to do. Where do you want to lead them? How can you get them to give you their e-mail address or click on an ad? 

2. Direct but don’t distract 

Directing your readers towards your end-goal destination through clear incentives. 

Create big buttons, use bold writing, eye-catching colors or movements, and enticing sentences. 

However, always make sure it won’t distract them from the value they were actually looking for. 

3. Provide value 

That leads us to the importance of delivering value. People will be much more willing to sign up for something if they trust you and are grateful for the value you provided them with. 

So always try to overdeliver on what they expect. You might not be able to do that with every one of your posts and especially at the beginning of your blogging career, but don’t worry. 

Simply provide as much value as you can. And later on, you can always go back and tweak your old posts to make them even more valuable! 

4. Know your audience; desktop or mobile? 

You NEED to know your audience! Creating a high converting website for desktop users is an entirely different matter than mobile users. 

Since I was always working on my Blog with my laptop, I put all my focus on the desktop version. Only to realize after months that over 3/4 of my traffic came from mobile devices! And some of my designs weren’t working out at all in that format! In my eyes, that was an embarrassing tragedy. 

It doesn’t have to be difficult though to cover both of them! That’s another of the endless reasons I love Elementor. This tool makes it incredibly easy for you to design a high converting website for desktop, tablet, and mobile users. 

5. Have a coherent theme 

Other than that, you should create a cohesive theme on your website. Let the design speak for itself and tell people what brand it is. 

Optimally, you want to be able to show someone an excerpt from your website, and they should immediately be able to tell which brand it is from. 

If every page looks completely different, that will be a difficult task to accomplish. 

6. There is no perfect website. 

And lastly, a reminder to all those perfectionists out there: There is no such thing as a “perfect website.” 

Of course, there will always be things to improve on your design. But quite frankly, you are wasting a lot of time if you overanalyze your design. 

When create a high converting website design, set yourself a deadline to finish the project, and then leave it at that for a few months before making any significant changes. 

As important as a high converting website is, marketing, creating content and products are much more critical. 

You should focus the majority of your time on the core of your business and not just the pretty wrapping. 

With that being said, I wish you much success in designing your own high converting website! I recommend you give Elementor a shot instead of frustrating over your unflexible theme as I did for months. 

I’ll write to you again soon. 

Sophie