One year of Being Rubitah + 2019 Reader Survey results

Wow- never thought that Being Rubitah’s first year anniversary would come around so quickly!

Exactly this time last year, I was in absolute jitters wondering how the blog would work. I had little experience and a restricted time frame, but hey, I survived!

For the past one month I have been thinking on how I should approach my blog anniversary, considering that the progress has been average and the response low. That’s when something happened.

While discussing with a friend, on whether I wanted to continue after a year, I blatantly said something I didn’t even know existed in my heart. I said that even if my website didn’t do well, I would continue to blog!

Being Rubitah, it turns out, has become more than just a creative outlet for me. It has made me question my own perspectives on life, pushed me to practise what I strongly believe in, helped me to get closer to a larger community of like-minded people and inspired me, to give more thought to my purpose in life. It’s an identity that I am fast fitting into!

Of course, I do wish that you would read my blog and I do eventually want to make an income from what I write, but, I’m complacent. I strongly believe that I will be successful at being a blogger, if and when God wills it.

So first off – Thank you!!

I started Being Rubitah on December 1st, 2018 as a medium to express my thoughts over topics that I felt were important to address in a family life, namely marriage, parenting, faith, health, escapades.

Slowly I realized that there are many in the same mental space as I am, with regard to the above topics. This truly motivated me!

So thank you to all who read my blog!! You are the inspiration behind everything I do- from topics, to photos to quizzes, to design. Your responses drive me to improve my content every single time. I love receiving your comments, messages, emails, questions, and suggestions.

How did my first year of blogging go?

I would like to begin by telling you, what all I did in this whole span of a year and then move towards how the blog performed.

In the first month, apart from setting up the website in all its technicalities, I created profiles on social media platforms -Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, so I could attract more readership for Being Rubitah. I then activated Google Adsense for the blog, in the third month, to see if there can be any scope of income. In the 5th month, I started my blog’s e-newsletter to reach out more personally and finally in the 9th month, I joined the Amazon Affiliate Program..

Yes, I didn’t work much for the blog, in the first half of the year, partly because I didn’t have time and partly because I was still researching on how to progress. Apart from publishing posts and sharing once a week, on Facebook and Whatsapp, I hardly did anything to improve my SEO, promote my blog or reach out for engagement.

It was only after I hit month 6 that I decided to promote and engage actively on social media channels like Instagram and Pinterest, both of which were absolutely new to me.

I still haven’t used any paid strategies nor participated in the follow for follow loop alternatives to increase my readership and engagement.

Anyway, this will be my 63rd post and following are some statistics concerning my blog’s overall performance.

Being Rubitah’s most viewed category this year, has been marriage and the blog’s top 5 popular posts are as follows:

Traffic insights

Most people visiting my blog are referred through social media (59.3%) and primarily through Facebook, 38.7% though have visited from organic search,which is kind of encouraging.

Most googled posts:

Like I mentioned, I have a presence on four social media platforms. I am @beingrubitah on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest and @BeingRubitah on Twitter

Most facebooked post- Living with a vision even without sight

Most instagrammed post- Marrying the arranged way

Most pinned post- 9 cough and cold home remedies for babies and toddlers

I get an average of 110 visitors per month (with around 790 views) where 85.3% are new visitors and 14.7% are returning visitors.

Average time a visitor gives to my blog post is 1:35 mins

My audience or following has been from 91 countries, primarily from India, US and Bahrain. My users are mostly in the age group of 25-44.

I have about 45 people who have read most of my posts. Grateful for that!

My subscriber base for the e-newsletter is 396. Nothing to boast about since 80% of them are from my personal email list. However I do see a sign up of 1-2 every month, since the past 3-4 months, which is quite motivating! The average open rate is 28.7%.

The above statistics are probably very low compared to many blogs, but the performance seems to be improving since the past 6 months, so I’m being positive here!

Do I make any money from the blog?

I have been asked this a number of times so here is what it is. I currently do not make any income from the blog. However the website does generate its own revenue which is very meagre, as of now. If I do earn any income in future I intend to reinvest into the website for paid technology, that can help save my time, on cross promoting and designing the posts.

Reader Survey results

It truly helps to know what I am doing right, what I am doing wrong and how I can best serve you. So really, I thank all of you, who took the time to complete my survey, and shared your thoughts, suggestions, tips and queries with me. I am absolutely floored by your responses and this pushes me yet again to write better!

To those who didn’t but are still regular readers, thank you too! You can always send me a mail or message and let me know your thoughts, whenever you find the time.

Now for the most part it seems as though my content is headed in the right direction. Some of you asked for more personal pictures, rather than web-sourced (which I will try my best to do), some suggested I cover Bahrain a little more (definitely), while many of you seem to not relate with 1 or 2 categories in the blog.

For the last point, my social media platforms will showcase all categories, since it is a family blog. However, if you want to be updated about only one/ a few category of posts (eg: only marriage posts or all categories except faith posts), then do reach out or send a request mail to (beingrubitah@gmail.com) and I will ensure you get what you are looking for.

Relationships, Parenting and Stories have clearly been your favourite categories. So I will continue to publish in these areas. Many of you gave a shout out for the BHH Challenge posts and most of you wanted to read more of the creative stories. Happy to know that!

It was also fun to know the demographics. Many of you know me from real life, are working full time from 9 to 5 and have been following the blog for more than 6 months.

A lot of you wrote some really sweet comments. Thank you – I truly appreciate hearing from all of you!!

What next?

Well, I am definitely more determined. There are a few goals that I am keeping for myself.

I will continue to write and publish atleast one post per week
Plan my time more effectively. I still don’t have the habit of planning the posts whether on the blog or on social media. I tend to be very spontaneous in all that I do regarding my blog. That has to change. I believe a lot of my time can be saved if I do advance planning.
Try to reach 2000 people every month, with my blog, by the next anniversary.
Explore with videos.
Since BHH was received well, I am planning to create an online BHH focussed group next year that will take up the challenge and motivate each other. Do let me know if you are interested to join too!
Definitely more challenges next year based on my niche
Try to get more people to write on the blog. By God’s grace, my mother has been such a beautiful resource of stories and information. Her contribution clearly helped the blog, as depicted in the numbers above. Love you mummy! If you like writing, and are interested to write for Being Rubitah please reach out or send an email to beingrubitah@gmail.com No age restrictions on this one.
Connect with other bloggers and share their work too
Focus on different ways to monetize the website.

Some important mentions

On a very personal note I thank God for this year! Although you read these blogs and have probably no idea how they get created, many of them have been small little miracles, for my own personal journey.

My partners on this adventure have been my parents, my husband, my brother and my son. My parents have been phenomenal in ways I can’t express. They are the Chief Editors for this blog and my mother like I previously mentioned writes atleast once a month, for this platform.

Arun, my husband has been the sole reason why I started this endeavor in the first place. He’s my biggest critic and yet I know that he is secretly proud of me and many a time, just lets me be. By God’s grace, he is someone who also likes exploring places and food, so I get to travel and discover a lot in Bahrain, when he is not busy.

My brother, Robin has always been around to guide and support, whenever I’ve lost hope and my son Steve, is the inspiration behind many of the topics, that I have addressed under parenting, as you may have rightly guessed.

I am truly blessed to have these angels in my life!

So all in all, this year has been slow, yet great for the blog. It was challenging in many ways, but overall, very satisfying too!

Thank you once again for continuing to read and support. Being Rubitah.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the above, in the comments below.

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Hi! My name is Rubitah. I’m a Content Writer certified Life Coach, Counselor, Social Work professional and the Founder of Being Rubitah. Over the years through my professional and personal life, I have realized that prayers and love can do wonders to family life once you come to terms with yourself and surrender to God. Do you relate to me? Then you may like what I post here! Read more about me

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