• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Meet Jen
    • About Me
    • Contact Me
    • Disclosure & Privacy Policy
  • Blog Menu
    • Homeschool
    • Lifestyle
    • Family
    • Blogging
  • Resources
    • FREE Subscriber Resources
    • My Favorite Resources
    • Start a Blog
  • Shop
    • My Store
    • Phonics Curriculum
    • Homeschool Planner
    • My Favorite Resources
    • Teachers Pay Teachers Store

Blogging

  •  

     

STARTING YOUR OWN BLOG!

Find post content on blogging right here! Our blogging resources page is a new addition to the website. Stay tuned for more great content coming your way in the coming days and weeks.

Pinterest can be a blogger's best friend! I'm sharing exactly how I use Pinterest and my strategies for maintaining a consistent pinning schedule!

October 27, 2018 By Jen Merckling

5 Tips to Create a Pinterest Strategy

When I started blogging a year ago—I had zero clues about Pinterest (or blogging for that matter)!  But it didn’t take me long to discover, I not only needed to get a clue about Pinterest—I needed a strategy for using it effectively!  Truth be told, I still find Pinterest to be a bit of an…

Read More

December 14, 2017 By Jason Merckling

New Blogger to Do List Before Publishing a Blog Post

Before publishing a blog post there’s a number of things that are going through your head.  Then…you hit the publish button AND the bottom drops out.  You realize that 10 different things still hadn’t been done.  You know who you are (me!). I’ll walk you through some of the key learnings I’ve had blogging and…

Read More

Build an email list for your new blog with these simple to follow tactics that I used to generate real email subscriber results for a 2 month old blog.

December 8, 2017 By Jason Merckling

How to Build an Email List From Scratch

So you’ve got your blog up and running!  Now you’re probably thinking about some of the other actions you could take to be a success with this blogging thing.  One of those actions is an email subscriber list.  But how do you build an email list from scratch? You’ll find all kinds of information out…

Read More

Selecting the best WordPress plugins for a blog is overwhelming. So many choices to consider for the exact same task. I'll help you simplify the process!

December 5, 2017 By Jason Merckling

Best WordPress Plugins for New Blogs

So you’ve got your new blog up and running – the hosting service is set up, the blogging platform has been selected, and you’ve chosen a beautiful theme for your site!  Now it’s time to add your own touches and adapt the site to your needs.  Customizing a website for most of us can be…

Read More

December 2, 2017 By Jason Merckling

Pinterest Friendly Blog Posts – 7 Simple Steps to Drive More Traffic!

Traffic to your website comes in many fashions.  Probably the most prominent for many bloggers is social media.  Our latest website gets 70% of its traffic from social media (Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter).  A whopping 55% comes from Pinterest and that number is growing by the week.  Many bloggers claim that a stunning 90%…

Read More

10 insightful tips to help you choose the perfect WordPress theme for you website.

December 1, 2017 By Jason Merckling

How to Choose a WordPress Theme – 10 Insightful Tips!

Starting a blog involves many important decisions before you ever type a single word.  Each of those decisions require a certain degree of contentment as you’ll being living with them as you launch and brand your new blog.  You have to choose a domain name, determine how your new blog will be hosted on the…

Read More

Effective Facebook ad targeting made simple. Using the Audience Insights tool you can fine tune your target audience and drive results.

November 28, 2017 By Jason Merckling

6 Amazingly Effective Facebook Ad Targeting Tips

Advertising costs can be a frustrating part of starting a new blog.  A key component that drives advertising cost is the target audience you select.  By making some minor tweaks to who your Facebook ad targeting, you’d be surprised at the increased conversion rate you can achieve and equally drive down advertising costs.  In this…

Read More

How to choose the best blogging platform when you start a blog. Here's a comparative look at the free versus paid blogging platform options.

November 26, 2017 By Jason Merckling

Choosing the Best Blogging Platform

Are you ready to start your own blog?  Maybe you’ve already made that decision and you’re on to the next step.  Now your trying to figure out how to make this blog thing go live!  You’ve come to the right place.  This post is part two in a four-part series on how to start a…

Read More

How to start a blog today! A guide for beginners. Start a blog in less than an hour with simple steps on web hosting, domain name, and SSL certificates.

November 26, 2017 By Jason Merckling

How to Start a Blog Today – The Ultimate Guide

Follow along on a five-part series of posts on how to start a blog.  The first post in the series focuses on 3 simple steps to get your blog off the ground – choosing your web hosting service, determining your domain name, and setting up a SSL certificate. Start a Blog | Post Series How…

Read More

Facebook ads are a great option to drive traffic to your website for a low cost verus other options. Facebook Ads Manager is intuitive and simple to use.

November 23, 2017 By Jason Merckling

5 Steps to Implementing a Facebook Ads Strategy

Starting out your new blog can be daunting on many fronts. So many things to learn as you put your toe into the water and test out this blogging passion you’ve long been putting off. Now you’re all in, and it’s time to put your hard-earned dollars behind this new project. But how much money…

Read More

"YOU CAN'T USE UP CREATIVITY. THE MORE YOU USE THE MORE YOU HAVE." -- MAYA ANGELOU

BLOGGING RESOURCES

Building and maintaining a website takes time. As we launch our blog (JENMERCKLING.COM) and build the website, join us for the journey and learn with us along the way. I'll share the key learnings that we make as we strive to create a user friendly website that is functional, intuitive, and engaging for the user! My biggest ask--share your ideas, your questions, and your comments. I'm eager to make this communication a two-way street for the "technical" side of blogging. We can all learn from each other!

Design Tools

Seriously, there are so many tools available when it comes to designing your website.  There are also a lot of opinions on how to do it as well.  I'll share my key learnings and thought processes with you!

Advertising

Budgets for promoting your blog can be limited in the early going.  I'll share ideas that gave us the best ROI as we launched our blog and also talk about our advertising goals.

Favorite Plugins

Thank goodness for those plugins!  There are some real time saving plugins that have saved me days building our blog.  I'll share them here and walk you through how we used them on our site.

SEO

Optimizing your blog for traffic is a critical early step to success.  I'll provide some ideas around how we approach SEO to successfully launch our new blog!

Social Media

The majoritiy of website traffic now comes by way of social media referrals.  Here's some tactics we've implemented, along with the results we've obtained!

Monetization

A question that's on every bloggers mind, "How do I monetize this blog?"  There's an evolution to this process as you build a new blog.  I'll share our ideas here!

BLOG STATISTICS

Check out some of the latest blog statistics for month 6 (February 2018) of our blog, JENMERCKLING.COM! We will update this section frequently to provide snapshots of monthly data from our blog ranging from pageviews, social media traffic (Pinterest), and blog income reports.

OUR PINTEREST PROFILE

February 2018 Average daily saves 95; Average daily people saving 91

PEOPLE WE REACH

February 2018 Average monthly viewers 687,295; Average monthly engaged 19,647

ACTIVITY FROM OUR DOMAIN

February 2018 Average daily clicks 193; Average daily visitors 190

MONTHLY PAGEVIEWS

February 2018 pageview data from our blog (Google Analytics) JENMERCKLING.COM

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM!

❤️Love of Learning, Leadership, Creativity, Cr ❤️Love of Learning, Leadership, Creativity, Critical Thinking… 
Just some attributes at the heart of why many of us homeschool! 

We’re digging deep into all that this coming week over at the Life Skills Leadership Summit! I’d love for you to join us!! {Grab your free pass in my bio!}🎉 

I’ll be talking about growing independent learners through all the seasons of homeschooling...💐☀️⛈🍁❄️ 

And the longer I homeschool (17 years now)--the more I am convinced that our kids create & experience meaningful learning through play! 🦄🤖🤴🦸‍♀️

❤️My 6 year old twins created this barn (and a set of paper dolls & horses)--complete with apples in a barrel, hay for the horses, and tiny carrots...I did nothing but provide the materials and the TIME to play!

It may not be Instagram or Pinterest “pretty”—but they were so engrossed and immersed in the process!!

 What project is taking over your dining room table?🐴🎨😉
Slow, cozy mornings...Just one thing I love about Slow, cozy mornings...Just one thing I love about homeschooling! The twins set out their toys to enjoy the fire & then disappeared...Now it’s very quiet—maybe too quiet... #whataretheyupto
Happy New Year!!🤩 Time to take down this tree Happy New Year!!🤩

Time to take down this tree & make some changes in 2021!🥳

{GIVEAWAY—Closed!! Winners have been notified —Congratulations to Sarah & Amy!}🎉❤️

But you still have time to join me for the Make Over Your Life Summit!🥰

We're covering all the things...in 8 individual tracks or grab the All-Access Pass:

❤️Marriage 
❤️Spiritual Life 
❤️Schedules 
❤️Home 
❤️Motherhood
❤️Homeschool 
❤️Health 
❤️Finances
Starts Monday--but Early Bird Registration (and best price) is NOW!
{Link in My Bio!!}
This sweet little book is meant to be read with ou This sweet little book is meant to be read with our little ones! They love joining in & “reading” the pictures! ❤️ 
It’s part of The Story of Christmas product in my shop—which also includes a game, narration, & coloring pages. 
 
Link in my bio!!❤️
All dressed up & nowhere to go!😂 #2020life All dressed up & nowhere to go!😂 #2020life
Happy Halloween from Harry, Hermione, & Professor Happy Halloween from Harry, Hermione, & Professor McGonagall!🎃🧙‍♀️