Hey there, welcome to cindygrows.com! My name is Cindy, the person behind this blog.
So, back in 2017, I was stuck in a 9-to-5 boring job, trying to pay my bills and chip away at my student debt. Like most of you, I didn’t like that life, and I knew I had to do something about it.
That’s when I started to Google around to see how other people were making money online passively, and see if any of those ideas could work for me too.
I start With SEO
Then, SEO grabbed my attention: it seemed pretty straightforward, and the return on investment was great. But what really got me was the idea that it is possible to create a passive income stream that could last for years, all with a few months of hard work.
It felt totally actionable, so I jumped in, did my keywords / niche research, started a blog, writing blog posts, building links, etc. I honestly thought it could be my ticket to freedom.
BTW, I’d learned so much from SEO blogs below for free, and I am still super thankful to those guys.
But the first year? It was really tough. I had learned a lot, and definitely made my mistakes. My first 3 blogs? Total flops: I spent over $2000 and made less than $200 back.
And you know what? I’m not embarrassed to admit that. It’s just part of the journey when you’re just starting out.
And then I got lucky, because I found some super easy niches that allowed new small sites to rank on Google quickly, without the need of many backlinks. So I stepped into some super easy niche soon.
And then, boom, I got my first payout from Google Adsense: $751.35 on December 21st, 2017. It was the best New Year’s gift ever!
That moment was really huge for me. It proved that my hard work was actually paying off.
But more importantly, I realized something: for beginners trying to make money online, the key is to find the easiest path.
As a beginner, you are just too weak to compete with a beast.
When it comes to SEO, it’s all about choosing those “easy-to-rank” niches or keywords to get started. I also figured out a smart way to identify these chances through reverse engineering.
It worked like a charm.
I kept going, slowly working my way up. By the end of 2018, I was making over $6,000 a month. It wasn’t a huge amount, but it was enough for me to finally quit my job.
Then I Had to Switch Gears
2023 hit, and everything changed. Google dropped its Helpful Content Update, and my traffic and income dropped by over 70%. It felt like I was starting from scratch, but there was no way I was giving up.
I decided to switch things up and focus on Pinterest, because my recipe blog seemed to be a perfect fit for it.
Funny thing is, I had been posting my blog post links on Pinterest in 2022, with no clue how Pinterest worked.
I was just sharing links to my articles, with no optimization or strategy at all. And somehow, I started getting dozens of daily visitors from Pinterest… for almost a whole year.
It was a no-brainer.
So, I wasn’t really surprised when I saw that it only took about 2 months to start getting around 1K daily visitors from Pinterest to my recipe blog once I got serious about it.
What’s Even Better About Pinterest?
It’s way easier than SEO. And honestly, it took way less money and time to hit 1,000 daily visitors than SEO ever did.
You can actually start with just $200 on Pinterest and see results in about 2 months. But with SEO? $200 is pretty much a drop in the bucket.
One of my biggest breakthroughs was learning how Pinterest’s algorithm works and how it loves “fresh” content.
That means fresh images and text, even if they link to the same article.
So, I started making multiple pins for each post, testing different graphic design, colors, and headlines.
This tactic really helped keep my content in front of people and kept driving traffic back to my site.
For me, Pinterest has been a game changer. And I also love the idea of sharing this method with beginners like you, if you’re thinking about starting your own blog and making money online.
I can say with total confidence that Pinterest is your best bet if you’re just starting out and don’t have much budget.
If you haven’t started a blog yet, don’t worry – I’ve got you covered with a quick blog-101 lesson to help you get going.
Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you can get my Pinterest strategy and start applying it to your online marketing practice.
And hey, if you have any questions, just drop a comment below! I personally answer every single message from my readers. I am ready to help you out.
Let’s make some money!