53. Organic Traffic Options | Stephanie's win-win story

Today’s guest is Stephanie Royer. Stephanie is a former special education teacher who now supports teacher business owners with blogging and Pinterest. She is the creator of Bring Your Own Traffic - a course that teaches a streamlined and realistic strategy to get more eyes on your products through blogging and pinning. She is also the host of the Pay Less for Traffic podcast, a weekly strategy chat about how to make the most of your organic marketing efforts so you don’t have to keep opening your wallet for expensive ad campaigns.

Connect with today’s guest:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/stephanieroyersolutions

Work with Stephanie: https://stephanieroyersolutions.com

Listen to her podcast: https://pod.link/1746357794

Resources for blogging and pinning: https://stephanieroyer.podia.com

These show notes may contain affiliate links.
I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this description.

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Transcript

Janice: Joining us today for a guest conversation is Stephanie. Stephanie is a former special education teacher who now supports teacher business owners with blogging and Pinterest. She's the creator of Bring Your Own Traffic, a course that teaches a streamlined and realistic strategy to get more eyes on your products, leveraging the power of blogging and pinning.

She's also the host of the Pay Less for Traffic Podcast, a weekly strategy chat about how to make the most of your organic marketing efforts so you don't have to keep opening your wallet for expensive ad campaigns. If you're one of my podcast listeners who's also a service provider trying to balance capacity and make the math, math, then you'll really enjoy today's conversation about how Stephanie got started, what kind of packages and services worked well for her, and how she solved

that ever challenging capacity puzzle. If you are a fellow TPT seller who has tried to get blogging and Pinterest really humming [00:01:00] along in a realistic workflow that works with your capacity and also allows you to devote the time and creativity you want to your TPT store, then Stephanie has some words of wisdom for you as well.

Stephanie comes to us from the full-time blogging world where people make a living with just their blog, with no TPT store and no printables, and she really sees the unique challenge that TPT sellers have where they want to pour all their creativity into their printables business, and also leverage the power of organic traffic with their blog.

Stephanie sees incredible potential, knows that the sky is the limit, and she's also extremely realistic and down to earth.

We're all pinching our pennies tighter than ever, and Stephanie is going to stretch your dollar bills farther than you ever thought was possible and really pump you up about the potential of organic traffic in your teacher business.

 [00:02:00] Stephanie, thanks for joining me on the podcast today.

Stephanie: Oh, thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat.

Janice: For anyone who is new to your corner of the internet, will you let people know how you got started in the world of teacher business?

Stephanie: Of course. So I am a former special educator. I taught for 10 years and then I had a little sidetrack a little bit in my career. I had cancer and it was just kind of that eye-opener of life is just too short to be drowning in paperwork all the time. And my youngest was just 1-year-old at the [00:03:00] time, so I decided to step out of the classroom at least until she started kindergarten.

And so that's kind of that period I think a lot of stay at home parents experience of, I'd like to contribute to the household income. And so I dabbled in a few things. Online teaching was one, and that's where I met you, Janice. But I had a mommy blog just as a creative outlet during that time, and I started to use Pinterest to get people to find my blog posts.

And I had a friend in digital marketing and she said, Hey, I have people who want to use Pinterest, and that's not my favorite thing to do. So would you mind doing that for my clients? And so I had no idea you could get paid to do other people's Pinterest. And so I said, of course, and that's kind of where it started from.

I was doing Pinterest marketing only, and then over time [00:04:00] it kind of morphed into an all-in-one blogging package because I discovered that my clients would get a better outcome if I went ahead and did their fresh blog posts at the same time, because Pinterest, as we know, loves fresh content and I said, Hey, I can do that for you.

I can blog for you. I could do your Pinterest all in one cohesive package. And somewhere in there, I worked for a TPT seller and I realized how much I loved that, and so I slowly let go of my regular business clients and transitioned into supporting only TPT sellers.

Janice: I think you're right about the stage of life that many of us start learning about the world of online business. When my oldest went to kindergarten, that was when I stepped out of the classroom, I was going to be teaching in the same school district she was heading into. And that was too complicated a role and we intensely [00:05:00] felt that we needed more flexibility to make that work.

So I can totally resonate with just the need for more flexibility and that curiosity that it brings. That there's just so many ways to make an impact on the world with the internet. And we can still be involved in education without being in the classroom. So it's so interesting to hear how your timing went down with your kiddos.

So you came from the blogging world without printables, right? Like the full-time blogging where like a blog is the income source. Is that correct?

Stephanie: Absolutely. And to this day, that is still my goal, is just to have that passive traffic machine over on my website. But I had freebies and things 

Janice: List builders, right?

Stephanie: mm-hmm. And I am going to start taking what I've seen working in the TPT space and apply that to my own

neglected Mommy blog over here in the corner.

Janice: I think it's so exciting because a lot of people in the TPT space, we have our printables that we know and we love and [00:06:00] we care for deeply, and we're looking for ways to bring traffic to them. And your perspective is so refreshing because there are people who just have the blog without the printables who are making really incredible money, just pairing together organic traffic and it's like, wow, if your blog could be its own income source

and have these printables, it really does open up a really fresh perspective on the way to make the math, math. And so I think that your expertise is incredible to add to the voices in this teacher business space. I just think that's so powerful. S o in your business, as we compare it to classroom life, I can absolutely appreciate that there's less paperwork than in the special education teacher life

but was there ever a time that running a service provider business didn't feel like a total win-win?

Stephanie: Absolutely. So when I first got started, I was just so grateful. I was so grateful for the opportunity to [00:07:00] help people with Pinterest marketing. And then over time that word of mouth machine that we love so much, people started coming to me and asking if I could help with this or that. And again, because I was so grateful, I said, yes, absolutely, yes, I can do that.

And so I ended up with this weird combination. I had package clients over here who just paid a flat rate every month. Then I had clients over here where I had to track hours because I was an hourly va. I had some clients where it was a combination of the two, and it just felt like too much of a juggle, that my mind had to switch back and forth.

And I also discovered that realization of, Hey, I'm getting really efficient at these tasks and I'm still making the same amount of money. I am capped. I only have so many hours in the day, and if I charge this much per hour, this is all I will ever make. [00:08:00] And so I had to kind of have that just soul searching moment of, is this enough?

And I also realized that I could support my clients better within a package. So that's where I just kind of tried to figure out, well, how do I get out of this? How do I transition from this Burger King of sorts? I know you've called it that before Janice, into just having similar looking packages across the board.

Janice: I think as service providers, we want to be Burger King. We want to let people have it their way. If people already have identified a task that feel sticky that they don't wanna do, and we have the skillset to help, we want to say yes and help them feel like they're drowning less. I never feel badly about the eras where I've said yes to packages that I no longer offer before.

But it's interesting in that season where you have a variety of ways that you support people, you really do get to look at the transformation. Like which one of your clients is really winning and [00:09:00] why? What is it about that package that's really getting them better results than someone else. Oh, well there's parts of this that might be a win-win for me, but there's also parts of this that might not be a win-win for them.

And you do feel a responsibility to move them into the package that other people are having the best transformation for. Because we wanna be good stewards of everyone's money and make sure that this investment they're making into their traffic is the shortest distance between two points. So I think that learning phase is really.

When figuring out what the best way is to support people, because it's not, it's not your client's job. It's not a TPT store owner's job to know whether they should hire a VA or whether they should hire a specialist, and if it should be hourly or if it should be packaged. That's where you bring the knowledge because you've been there and done that and you can really walk them through why one option is the right one. So you landed in hourly as your home or package based? What was the best way to deliver Pinterest [00:10:00] and blogging services? What did you find in the end?

Stephanie: I landed on package. And then I actually, like you were just talking about, I did discover that the best transformation for my clients came when I wrote the blog content for them. And so I tried to do Pinterest only packages for people because a lot of TPT sellers just really want that Pinterest

help, and they didn't really have fresh blog content going out very often. And eventually I had to say, this is not gonna bring you the results that you're looking for to just keep making pins for the same content. And so that's when I did away with Pinterest only packages completely. And I just have my blogging and pinning and then I do some other SEO stuff through packages.

Janice: Yeah, and I'm sure there's some hesitation along the way. A lot of people feel comfortable blogging because they've been doing it for a long time, and they feel like they're okay doing that, or they want their blog to really be in their voice. Lots of people are nervous if [00:11:00] someone else can really sound like them and seamlessly jump into their written content.

But it is really tricky. If you don't have the fresh URLs, you can't make something work on Pinterest. And it does make a lot of sense to have the same person Doing the keyword research in both places and tracking those keywords overall, I think that when it's not a streamlined workflow with the same person doing blogging and Pinterest, there's a lot of like duplicating of the same work, and that's not a win for either party.

You probably get that, like there's too many cooks in the kitchen feeling sometimes when the package isn't structured properly.

Stephanie: Absolutely. I've had moments where I've made a pin and I log in and I'm like, whoa, where'd that URL come from? And I've already created a pin and I don't wanna get them in trouble with Pinterest because their spam filters have just gone crazy in recent years. And so, yeah, it can be challenging when there are too many cooks in the kitchen.

Janice: Yeah, so I'm glad that you were able to find something that is a win-win. And even if someone didn't want to originally [00:12:00] pass off blogging, if the shortest distance between two points to get the result they want is actually you doing both I'm sure it makes people nervous. What's the best way to kind of test drive someone writing on your blog to see if they can write in your voice?

What's the best way to enter into this type of a package?

Stephanie: You know, that's a really good question. I think if you catch the name of someone who blogs, you could ask them if they were willing to do a handful of posts for you to just test drive it and deliver that through a Google Doc that you can then adjust to make it sound like you.

So it might be a little bit more work upfront, but I think you'll discover, Hey, they actually did a pretty good job and I don't have to really edit it too much. And hey, this is amazing.

Janice: And you might not be ready to hand over like a whole WordPress login yet. But yeah, a Google Doc can be a really good baby step if it's someone for the first time.

Stephanie: Absolutely.

Janice: Yeah, and that word of mouth machine is incredible. A lot of times if we [00:13:00] chat with our colleagues and we say like, oh my goodness, how are you getting so much new content up on your blog?

Or, I really love the structure of your posts. Did you take a great blogging course? And they'd be like oh, actually I don't write my own blog posts. I think when we get curious about people's content that we admire, we learn a little bit about how they're making it happen because none of us are really doing it all,

even though it feels like that sometimes when we look around.

Stephanie: Yeah, that was the big eye-opener for me when I started working, for TPT sellers, was just seeing how many different aspects of their workflow that they outsource. And everybody does a different combination because different aspects of this process, light them up in different ways. And so it was fun for me to see all of the different ways that service providers enter the chat for these TPT sellers.

Janice: Absolutely. And there are people who, they'll make their product, but they don't wanna do the marketing assets at the finish line. So someone else is doing like their covers, their thumbnails, and previews. There are people who love [00:14:00] to blog about their products, but don't like to make them right? And so different people are excited at different steps of the product process.

I know photography was the first thing I hired out. I could take all the product photography courses. I just don't have it. I just don't get it. I'll never figure lighting out. It doesn't matter what I buy on Amazon, that's just not in my wheelhouse. But I would do like five other tasks to continue to be able to payroll someone to take beautiful pictures of my resources because they matter and it really does help.

Do you think that blogging is something that most people can learn to do on their own, or do you think it's one of those services like photography for me, where they're probably just going to always have to hire it out? I.

Stephanie: I think that blogging is a learnable skill and it's one where there's a spectrum. You know, you can get on and just start writing blog posts, but then you slowly build your knowledge on okay. SEO, I can learn a few things here. I can learn how to market it on [00:15:00] Pinterest. Um, I think what happens though is the more you learn, the more you realize, oh, there's a lot that goes into a blog post.

Oh, this is really overwhelming. And then from there you kind of have to decide. Do I like this enough to learn it, or do I want to go ahead and outsource it? And so like for me, when I first started blogging, I absolutely never wanted to think about Google, SEO. It was so intimidating to me. I had no intention of ever learning how to do SEO and

I actually didn't take a Pinterest course at first. I just could sense that Pinterest was a good idea. And so I started, I think I used Google Draw. 

Janice: Oh my goodness, 

That's throwing it back.

Stephanie: Yeah. So I was like making my pins and putting them on there. And then just with that tiny bit of

experimentation I was getting results and I thought, [00:16:00] oh, I need to actually learn how to do this. And so then I did find a course and I took that course, implemented some of the things I was learning, but those were also the glory days of Pinterest, so it took off pretty, pretty easily. But then over time I did discover I really do need to learn Google SEO.

Darn it. And so then I'd started taking courses for that, and then realizing that the combination of the two is so powerful.

Janice: I think it's such a good point to think about what really lights you up because when you say This is going to be something that I keep an eye on, you really are deciding to keep up to date on it for the long term. And I know I started with a Pinterest course and then they closed. They were like, Pinterest keeps changing,

we can't keep up with it, good luck. And I was like, oh no, I thought you were gonna be in my corner for the long haul. But that strategy didn't work anymore. So I was back where I started. And then I had a blogging course that came highly recommended that I took, and those blog [00:17:00] posts they did well, they still do well now, but blogging changed. And that person was not in the same type of business I am with the types of printable resources and the types of services.

He was just was trying to accomplish something very different. And I felt like I was always translating what I was learning and trying to stay up to date when that's really why I had invested in a course. So I think when I think about something like a skill like photography, I could probably learn that once

in a course and be okay. But it felt to me like organic traffic was constantly changing. And when I was shopping for a new updated course for the new Pinterest and what Google is today, personally, I was really looking for someone who was really excited about this and was gonna stay up to date with it because that's the part where I don't trust myself.

I trust myself to take a course and finish it. I don't trust myself to stay up to date with every algorithm change. It's so challenging to do.

Stephanie: It really is. And [00:18:00] that was one of the reasons behind my blogging course, my blogging and Pinterest course, I had to do a lot of kind of soul searching before I created it, of am I willing to keep this up to date? And I also realized that that was actually part of my strategy. That made it a little bit more evergreen was because I didn't try to chase every shiny new algorithm shift, and I'm more of the little engine that could. Here's a realistic strategy that stands the test of time for the most part, that we make adjustments as needed.

Once those algorithm shifts become more permanent because there are always gonna be ups and downs on Pinterest and Google, but once you've discovered, oh, this one is sticking around, I need to adjust my strategy for that. Those actually come less often then I think people think.

And so that's kind of the strategy I teach in the course is just a little bit more [00:19:00] realistic, a little more practical. So it's something that you can do yourself, that you don't feel overwhelmed and have to hire out immediately, that you can really get your legs under you and realize, okay, is this doable for the long haul?

Janice: I really felt empowered when I was taking your course, because you, you weren't trying to upsell me on hiring out blogging and Pinterest. You were trying to convince me that I could do it myself. That I could put a lot of the fluff and the noise aside and make a workflow that was practical that I could keep up with, and it allowed me to be the writer in my own content, which I really wanted to be.

I just didn't know if I could learn the skill, if I could keep up with it, if I could keep up to date on it. And so I think your course takes a really no fluff empowering approach, which I really appreciate because sometimes in other courses, I second guess all the way through it. I think but what part of this applies to my business?

Is this the right choice for my [00:20:00] business? And you did such a beautiful job at the beginning of your course being like, I understand exactly what your business is trying to accomplish, and this is the shortest distance between two points for this type of business. So big fan, of bring your own traffic and really, really grateful for your course.

I don't know if I'll ever hire out blogging on a consistent basis. I'm more of a batcher. I put out a flurry of content and then I focus on something else. 'Cause I'm kind of a very small team running this operation. So it was always difficult for me to figure out what kind of support was available?

Do you work with any smaller TPT sellers that are trying to figure out what the first baby step is into getting more organic traffic moving?

Stephanie: Yes, I do. I do that in a few ways. I have a quarterly keyword research package that I do with people. They wanna write their own content, but they want to make sure that they're headed down the right path so they have an idea of [00:21:00] the product that they wanna feature in their posts.

Um, you know, maybe a general idea of the type of post they want, but the keyword research part it's just baffling to them. And one of the hard parts about courses in the keyword research space is that they teach things like, oh, you know, you want a lot of search volume and you want, you know, they, they have all of these, I don't know, they throw a lot of numbers, people, and

a lot of those numbers aren't good for people who are just starting out. And I've actually had someone question me like, that's not a very high search volume. And I said, well, it's better to show up on page one for this more obscure keyword, and then people actually click on it because that gives Google more information about you.

Janice: And who you want them to find for you. You need some clicks to train Google.

Stephanie: Yeah, and so sure I can target this really popular, saturated, [00:22:00] 2000 clicks a month, but I'm gonna be on page 10 that does nothing for your brand whatsoever. And so it's just that balance of trying to help them find the right keyword with the right volume for where they're at in their business

right now. So that's one thing that I do. I also added on coaching to my course. And so it's not something that I do as a standalone service. It's more of I'm here to help you implement what you're learning because the course a hundred percent, you can do it yourself. You can get started. But if you just kind of want that person as you're getting started to be like, okay, can you read this?

Can you give me feedback? I have a few more specific questions and it's not expensive. I didn't want it to be expensive. It's just a small add-on to the course and that has been really powerful for the people who have tried it. And yeah, I think that's kind of where [00:23:00] I'm at for the people that aren't ready to completely hire out.

Janice: So much of this business can be so lonely and the accountability of a service provider, of a coach. Just like sometimes you get to the finish line of a blog post and you just wanted someone to read it and be like, this isn't terrible. You worked really hard on that. This is going to be great. It's okay to get that kind of assist and bring someone into the picture or, Hey, before I push publish on this, what am I missing?

Like I've been staring at it for so long. I bet there's something. I just need fresh eyes. And I feel that way about organic traffic in general. When we finish a product line, we finish a new bundle, we're exhausted and we don't wanna look at it ever again. We want to go on to anything else. And so I think it's so valuable to have someone look for a keyword angle or the right opportunity to get new eyeballs on this because there just comes a point where you've looked at something too long and you're not the right person to market it and share it with the world.

Stephanie: And then the other thing I do for people who [00:24:00] maybe have blogged in the past, and they've taken a break from blogging, but they kind of are feeling like a newbie all over again. They wanna get back into blogging, but they just don't know what to do with this backlog of content.

And so I also do content audits for people, and those are more for people with established websites, but they just have no idea where to go next.

Janice: And you were talking earlier in our conversation about how you could take a crack at writing your own blog posts and you can kind of get going. But it's like the beginning of our TPT journey. You don't know what you don't know. It's fun to make those first couple products, but then when you do learn a little bit, you're like, oh no, I have to go back.

I have to optimize them all. And some of us know how to do that in the TPT world, but on our websites, it's like, oh no, I can look at my content and be like, this one. Is not my best work. This one is not optimized, but I don't always know what to do about it. So I think a content audit can be really helpful if you need some [00:25:00] direction, because making more bad posts probably isn't the next move.

And even making some fresh posts that are, you know, best practice and up to standards. I imagine that Google still looks at the whole site as a whole and we can't ignore that older content on our site.

Stephanie: You can't ignore it for too long. Eventually it has to be dealt with. And I think the other thing that's so important is that TPT sellers have so much on their plates, and time is of the essence, and so they want their content to actually move the needle. And if I'm gonna take time out of my week to write this blog post,

I need it to do something for my business. And so just, I think it's so wise when TPT sellers raise that white flag and say, Hey, I need some keyword help. I wanna make sure that these posts I write are exactly what my business needs and that will actually bring me sales.

Janice: And I think when I'm consuming content from people in the full-time blogging [00:26:00] space, I'm reminded that they don't have the second arm of their business, right? They're just content, content, content and they're really growing the blog as the product. And it is true. TPT sellers have this whole other business where they're making products and revising products, and that's their focus.

And they're trying to bring that advice into this space, but the people giving the advice don't have the whole second business going. And I think in many ways that's what makes our keyword research puzzle unique in this niche is because it's almost a backwards approach. I hear the full-time blogging crew say, wow, I see a great keyword opportunity, and that's their reason for writing a piece of content.

Whereas we have a bestselling product or an affiliate link. Or something hot off the presses that we want people to find out about. And I think you know how to find the keyword that will get our goal accomplished. 'cause we're not usually putting a post on our sites in the teacher business space because we saw a flyer of a keyword [00:27:00] opportunity.

Stephanie: Right. The other problem too is that I think a lot of, um, sellers move into blogging and they're like, okay, I have this printable checklist. And I'm gonna write a blog post about this printable checklist, and the problem is that user intent for that printable checklist, it's possible your TPT store is ranking on page one for that product, because that's user intent.

Instead for your blog post, you need to find something where products aren't on page one. Instead it's ideas and actual blog content, and that's how you cast a wider net, if that makes sense. Um, and so that's kind of the other hurdle that I think a lot of TPT sellers learn that learning curve of how do I write a blog post, quote unquote, for this resource that actually

matches user intent. And I'm not competing [00:28:00] with my actual printables because Google smart enough to know if someone looks for a checklist, they wanna go straight to a printable, you know?

Janice: Yeah. And going back to your combo package, something that I've learned from studying with you is that often the clues to that user intent come from Pinterest. Pinterest is really looking for something with at least nine ideas, or at least 10 ideas, so you have three and Pinterest isn't going to care.

So like, what can we do? And those are just things we don't know. When we use a keyword research tool and it says like, Hey, you should write about bulletin board letters. You're like, okay, but Stephanie knows how to get inside Pinterest and be like, if you don't have at least 10 options, Pinterest is not serving this up to anyone.

And I think that's so valuable because what if I had written the blog post first and then asked you to pin it on Pinterest? You would send me right back to the drawing board and it's just not efficient and it's not gonna make either one of us happy.

Stephanie: And that was the disconnect that made me ditch my Pinterest only packages. 'cause I had these lists of URLs and I'm like, [00:29:00] Ooh, I can try my best to find a Pinterest friendly keyword, but at some point, you know, you need the content ideas that will do well on both Google and Pinterest, and they do exist, but you have to dig for them a little bit.

Janice: And I think that's the beauty of your keyword research package too. Nobody wants to sit down to just write a blog post because they want to write one every week or they know they should. But if somebody like vets a keyword opportunity and says like for your domain and your store and your goals, this is the post that's next for you.

Well, I'll clear my calendar all day for that task. It just makes you feel very different when you sit down to actually make time for organic traffic. 

And you've been in the teacher business space a little while. Do you think that organic traffic is enough in 2025 and beyond, or do you feel like we have no choice but to pay for Facebook ads these days?

Stephanie: I don't think paying to play is necessary. Some people will throw [00:30:00] like two bucks a day, five bucks a day at just promoted pins, just so that they can have an assigned ad person,

So that they can have that face at Pinterest if they do have a problem.

So some people do that, they call it like an insurance policy, but they're not doing it for the actual traffic. And Facebook? No, again, I have one foot in this space and one foot in the pro blogger space and there is like Facebook ad arbitrage and there's so many strategies, but I think that's more of a distraction for TPT sellers than it is a help.

Janice: Yeah. And our time is so limited because these businesses are so complex. All that time that you sink and buying a course and learning how to set up Facebook ads and throwing money to test them, to learn the audience and find out what works. It's nice to hear that it's a choice. If you're interested in that and you're really pulled towards it, you can.

But there are a lot of people who [00:31:00] don't want to go anywhere near Facebook ads and paid traffic in general. It's just not what makes sense for their business budget right now.

Stephanie: Yeah, and I never want to come across as like anti ads because they can absolutely speed up the process. But if the question is are they necessary for growth? No, they are not. And you can save your money. It will be slower going in some ways. But overall, I personally don't think they're necessary.

But that does not mean there's not a place with the right business and the right budget to really amplify their traffic with paid ads.

Janice: Blogging and Pinterest can be so frustrating at the start because it is a slow burn, like so many things in online business, you can't necessarily see if it's working or what the results are for a while. But I know that I've been at this for about eight years and it's so interesting to see those posts that I took my time on and did right from the

Start, like they're still the ones that bring the traffic and rank consistently no [00:32:00] matter what I'm doing in my business today. So whether blogging and Pinterest is a current focus, or I went off and worked on something else, my dashboard shows the same optimized content. And that's just really encouraging to me.

I feel like if I had an ad turned on and then I turned it off, the graph isn't as even and as consistent. So that's the blessing in organic traffic from my side.

Stephanie: Yeah, I heard this really good analogy on a podcast recently. They were talking about, the train of momentum. When you think about a train and all that engine warming up and all the work that goes into just getting that train to move just an inch or two down the track right at first, but then once it's moving, man, it takes a lot to stop that train.

And I definitely feel like organic traffic is that way. That you do a lot of what feels like spinning your wheels at the beginning. Learning all the things, writing the posts, making the pins. Eventually it becomes routine and you start to see the [00:33:00] results. So then that helps you keep that momentum going.

Janice: That's so true, and I know that I've pivoted over the years in my business and I have some pins that are still taking off and some old content that I've tried to erase from the internet that I just can't because it was so optimized that it's still getting served up everywhere. It reminds me of the power of like keyword research and that it works, but I also really appreciate that your approach takes our time from the start to really make sure that our content pillars,

and what we're trying to be known for out on the internet actually makes sense. How far into your TPT journey do you think you should be before you really start being ready to make these decisions and start blogging?

Stephanie: I wouldn't wait too long, but I do think that you need to have your TPT workflow down. You have to feel comfortable in what you're doing on TPT because if that's going to be the main arm of your business and your income, you wanna make sure you have that locked in. I would [00:34:00] always suggest buying your domain right away.

It costs, what, $13 a year or something like that to just own it. You don't have to do anything with it. Put it on Autorenew though, because I learned that the hard way. I have many ideas for websites, and I buy the domains for that same reason. I just wanna sit on it. When I'm ready, I'll build the website, and for some reason, one did not get auto renewed.

I forgot to click that box, and I realized that it lapsed and I went to go purchase it again. And the price had skyrocketed because that domain had been previously owned. And so you wanna make sure that when you buy and lock in your domain that you autorenew that. 

Janice: But it's good to hear that you can lock in the domain and you don't have to make a website before you even know, like which product line you're gonna be known for and what people want you to make, right? That's a baby step that I don't think people told me about early in my journey.

Stephanie: yeah, because you get so [00:35:00] much data about your customers and about your future blog audience by what they're purchasing, what are they looking at, which products convert really well. As soon as someone sees that preview, they buy it, you know? And you also get data about your products that maybe don't convert quite as well, and you can kind of figure out, well, why is that?

And could I solve that with a blog post? You know, walking them through more features of that product. There's just a lot that you can learn about your audience and that can inform your upcoming blog content and without that data, you would be blogging a little bit blind and you might have to go back and rework your content.

And so by working on your TPT store first and really ironing out those product lines, which then become your content pillars on your website, you're able to really, just have a [00:36:00] much stronger approach to your website when you're ready.

Janice: And I know that because I had done a previous pivot. I started your course and realized I wasn't ready yet. There were some big questions that I needed to answer before I could really keep going, and so I did have to like slow down to speed up and go back and reshuffle some things and figure out what needed to stay, what needed to go, what needed to be optimized, where I was actually going, and I had to be realistic about some pillars that I wasn't going to ever return to.

So I needed to not put more breadcrumbs into Google to tell it to send me more people that I didn't want. And so there's a, there's a whole reflection side with blogging, but it is really cool after you've done it for a little bit, to have your own little corner of the internet. I think we're always so nervous to tell people like what our job is and what we do, but

you can just be like, I have my own little corner of the internet where I make things and share my wisdom and help people and find more people like me.

And I think that's really special when I think [00:37:00] about a legacy, like when your business comes to a close and you retire someday. There'll be this little corner of the internet where you shared all the things you know about teaching and all the little favorite activities you did in the classroom. I think that brings me back to when you talk about the good old days of blogging, I think that that part of blogging is still there.

This is a little stamp, a little memory book of our teaching wisdom.

Stephanie: Yeah, and I think the other thing that I would recommend to people who are wanting to create that corner of the internet is that none of this has to be perfect. You don't have to have everything figured out. 'cause you know, I think with a TPT store you're constantly learning and adjusting and changing, and you'll never feel like your TPT store is truly done and ready for your website.

So when is my workflow ready for something else? Get your legs under you, you're creating your marketing, you feel like that's doing pretty well, and then you're ready to add on another [00:38:00] piece. And so for me, I would say pinning and blogging should be something you add onto your plate sooner rather than later,

for sure.

Janice: Yeah, that's really helpful to know. I think we hear so many things that were a big success for others and we try to do them all at the same time, but we really lack an order of operations to guide us and tell us like what do we have to take on next? And it can really make the capacity puzzle really tricky. I do have a good number of freelancing friends who follow this show. So, as you were transitioning from VA hourly work to package based services, how did you finally solve that capacity puzzle? Because every service provider friend that I know gets to that point where their calendar maxxed. They are working all the hours they have to work, and we're always like just shy of the number that we need to live on.

It's like we all run into that exact moment. How did you untangle the capacity piece so that the math [00:39:00] would math?

Stephanie: So my capacity piece is challenging because as you can probably imagine, one client, because I'm doing Pinterest marketing and blogging, that is a big part of their budget and it's also a pretty big chunk of my monthly income. And yes, I can make the math, math by bringing on one more package.

Bring on one more package, and that represents a lot of words. And I refuse to use AI and , I feel like if someone's paying me to write words for their business, I am writing those words a hundred percent. And so it was exhausting and I finally just had to realize and just accept the fact that yes, the numbers would be simple if I just took on more writing clients.

My brain can't handle that. That is exhausting and my clients deserve the best. And so I [00:40:00] naturally discovered what my limit was for words clients. And then from there I said, well, then how many of these other packages would I need to have in order to fill in the gaps in the budget?

So I wouldn't say my capacity puzzle is completely solved. I'm not sure if it ever is because we go through different phases in our lives. Like right now, the client load I have is perfect for summer, but I could use another couple of clients while my kids are in school.

So it's just that ever-changing puzzle. And I think at the heart of it though as freelancers we're very client focused and we want to do what's best for the people who trust us inside their business. But overall, I just had to decide, and really it was being honest with myself because I'm the kind of person I love to say.

Yes, I love to help people and give them those transformations, but I finally [00:41:00] had to just tell myself, stephanie, you just can't do this much every week.

Janice: I think there's two times of year that really help us get real about our capacity. One of them is summer and the other one is the holidays. Where like the words are hard. And so it is tricky because like, I don't know about your bills, but mine are all 12 months of the year. And I know that teacher businesses feel this too, right?

Like during the summer they still have to pay their mortgage and also no one's shopping in the TPT search bar. Um, so they have to get creative too. And so I think in that realm, the freelancing situation is a lot like the TPT product creation game because. You do have to really plan how to spread out the work and spread out the income to make the math, math for all 12 months of the year.

It also brings some great creativity though too. I know people who, if the TPT search bar is open, they are excited to publish new products and optimize things, [00:42:00] but once it slows down in the spring, they're like. That's okay, I have a list of neglected things that I know are important, and I would welcome some variety.

And they go and they do a burst of blogging. They do a burst of photography, they do a burst of all those other things that they've wanted to do but couldn't rationalize doing when the TPT search bar was hot. And so I think having some variety in your packages is a win for others because there are so many strategic ways you can support people other than just writing the words

for them, but I think it's a win-win for you too, because we put services on our menu that we enjoy doing, but if we put too many in the same bucket, we don't enjoy it anymore.

Stephanie: Yeah, like it's work.

Janice: We don't want the job to feel like work, but also when you're writing inside someone else's business, I think we take that responsibility even more seriously. And I wanna show up excited to write words for a client. I wanna show up excited to edit their podcast.

I wanna show up [00:43:00] excited to dive inside their business and problem solve. And so we have a responsibility to make sure our capacity has us excited to open each and every project.

Stephanie: 100%.

Janice: Yeah, so I love hearing people talk about the schedule capacity puzzle. It makes us all feel a little less alone. If summer is tricky, if the holidays is tricky.

It's tricky for all of us, but it is solvable and there are little changes we can make along the way to make it feel better. And as someone who has a small marketing budget, it was really great for me to hear how I could make organic marketing work inside my business and gain more clarity about what the right level of support would be.

Because I think if blogging and Pinterest was just on my desk, just me, myself, and I, I probably wouldn't do it. One of those days that the words felt hard, I would probably just wander over to another task. But for me, having a little bit of keyword support. A little bit of accountability in a coaching package, a course from someone who actually understands the outcome I'm trying to achieve.[00:44:00] 

Those are just little boosts that can help make blogging easier. How long were you blogging before you felt like it felt easier? Like how much consistent blogging did you have to do before you felt like the workflow was in a little bit of a groove? That was a long time ago. I wonder if you remember.

Stephanie: It was a very long time ago, and my kids were very young, and so it was one of those things where I did it at night before they went to bed but yeah, I would say, when I started learning Pinterest was when I felt like I had to create that workflow in order to keep feeding the content machine on Pinterest.

And so it took a few months, I would say about six months before I felt like, okay, I've got all of this under control where I can write a post, I can create the pins, I can create the pinning schedule. But back then, that was when tailwind was a thing and so then I had to relearn the whole thing once we realized [00:45:00] tailwind, isn't what Pinterest wants.

They don't want the pin cycling through multiple boards. You start to figure it out and then you have to readjust and then move on. And so that was around the time I started thinking about helping other people. And when this change with the pinning happened and that was when a lot of people were like, wait, I can't just plug one pin into Tailwind and then pin for eternity.

What are you talking about? I need help. And so that's when I had a lot of service providers knocking on my door, like, whoa, how do I do this? Because I used to be able to just do Pinterest for like a day or two and then be set for the year.

Janice: that's what I was gonna say. It really changes your whole TPT seller schedule. I haven't had to put out new blogging content in a while. I blogged about each of my products and then I loaded them in a tailwind queue and that was my plan. And I know I've been off Tailwind for a little while, but the native Pinterest [00:46:00] scheduler has been the perfect, happy medium for me. I just want there to always be something in my queue, Stephanie, that's like my current season of Pinterest.

I wanna schedule a couple to go out, so I have one going out every day. And then when I log into Pinterest, I just want there to be something still scheduled. That's like the baby step season of blogging that I'm in. I just wanna stay just a little bit ahead so Pinterest knows I'm still active all the time.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm. Here's like a humble moment. I am in that season of trying to get back into the rhythm of creating new blog content. It's like, wow, I can create multiple blog posts from beginning to end for clients every week.

But you know, I am still trying to get into that rhythm for myself and because I'm trying to revamp an old Pinterest account. I want a backlog of content before I start doing that. And so anyway, I'm still trying to figure it out in some ways.

Janice: Well, and your mommy blog, correct me if I'm wrong, that one is [00:47:00] monetized right?

Stephanie: Yes. So I was able to get into, journey by Mediavine, and that was what made me want to start blogging again because I realized, wow, once I have a blog post published, it can be bringing in money immediately. So that was motivating, but I'm still trying to figure out where it fits in the big picture of clients first.

Janice: sure.

Stephanie: Because those words are harder to come by because they're not my words, I have to think like someone else, and I have to get those finished first. As much as I would love to prioritize my own business, I've gotta keep that word bank high from the beginning of the week. And so my blog posts wait till the end of the week, and sometimes it's just the motivation isn't there, where client work took a little longer than I planned and I need to move into the weekend with my family,

Janice: You're right there in the trenches with all of us. I can relate.

Stephanie: Yeah. And so that's the thing is I will never pretend to be someone who has it all figured out because really there is no way to [00:48:00] say, I know blogging and pinning 100% and I'm an expert and I will never change 'cause that's just not real.

That's not reality.

Janice: I loved the new monetization section that you added to your course in March because it did open up my eyes to new ways that this blog that I've been working so hard on could make money. And when we think about that slow TPT search bar season, how amazing would it be to get. A check from your blog every month from past content you had written.

How much less stressful would may, June, July be if you had like just this, you know, we always add just one more revenue stream, one more revenue stream, and hearing that you call your mommy blog neglected because I think you have very high standards, but it's still printing money for you each and every month, and those are the types of tasks that I will make space for on my calendar in 2025, is I'm writing this post today to bring traffic to teach Google, like who I'm trying to connect with, but also because I know if I get this [00:49:00] post right and I get it up on Pinterest in the right way, this is gonna work hard for me for literally years.

Stephanie: And I think in the TPT space especially, we write blog content that we hope will convert. But we have to remember Google traffic is different. I mean, if someone wanted to buy a product from you, they would likely already be on TPT. And so your Google traffic is helping you cast that wider net and some people will convert to a sale.

Some people will discover your store. There are lots of different results that you can get for your business that aren't just purely sales. You can get someone to sign up for your email list, so many different outcomes, but while you're working on those different outcomes just by someone clicking on your website and you earn a few bucks,

just by having people come to your website, it can really change the game for a lot of us who are, you know, we don't have the budget for a big team and we're just getting started, and so having [00:50:00] that monetization can really make a huge difference.

Janice: It's that long-term mindset that I really appreciate. I could have someone stop by in the TPT search bar, buy something right away, and I celebrate that. But I can't capture their email, I have no way to reach out to them again. And in some ways, I would rather them find me in the blog. Jump onto my email list and we can have a two-way conversation, and I can serve them in many different ways for a long time.

So not that I'm gonna turn away a TPT sale because I'm not, but a more exciting journey for me to bring in people from the Google search bar who I could serve for a long time.

Stephanie: I love that.

Janice: Stephanie, if people wanna learn more about organic traffic and all of the magic that you're sprinkling all over the internet, where is the best way for them to connect with you?

Stephanie: Well, considering we're talking to your podcast friends, do have a podcast and it is called Pay Less for Traffic. And the whole point of the podcast is to talk about how we can do this without opening our wallets for paid ads. And so we talk [00:51:00] all about blogging and pinning. We also talk about popular things that people spend money on in this space we have what's called the Let's Pay Less series, and we talk about whether or not

we think those are essential for our budget right now so that's a really fun way to keep in touch with me. I also do have a course like we've talked about. It's called Bring Your Own Traffic. A DIY, evergreen, you can get it anytime. I don't open and close a cart because everybody's budget is different.

And so whenever you are ready, you can find it. And I am on Instagram. I am more of a stories kind of gal, but you'll see me every so often on Instagram at Stephanie Royer Solutions.

Janice: And I'll of course be a good podcaster and link all of that in the show notes. Your podcast is one of those that before I get to the end of an episode, I find myself going back to my computer to look at something because you always bring a new lens to look at the blogging game that I didn't [00:52:00] even know.

I remember the episode you talked about, like the broken link checker. I was like, what? I know nothing about this. I must immediately know if any links are broken on my site. It's just such a fun podcast. I find myself listening to episodes over and over again because they're just so actionable. but A 10 minute episode can bring me three new ideas to get me back into the seat of blogging before a new week, and I'm so grateful for the content that you share on your podcast.

Stephanie: Oh, I love that. Thank you.

Janice: Stephanie, thanks so much for sharing your win-win story today.

Stephanie: Thanks so much for having me.