Blogger Confessions #4: The Savvy Couple
Happy Saturday and welcome to the fourth episode of the 'Blogger Confessions' interview series on the blog. Today, I'm bringing in Kelan & Brittany Kline from The Savvy Couple to talk about blogging and how they have managed to keep everything straight as personal finance bloggers.
Kelan and Brittany, take it away.
Blogger Confessions with The Savvy Couple
1: In at least 100 words, describe the target audience of your blog.
We are a personal finance & lifestyle blog for families. We help moms learn how to budget their money and save like crazy. We also teach stay-at-home parents how to make money from home so they can help support their family alongside their spouse. We share new budget-friendly meals, DIY projects, and home hacks with our savvy readers.
2: What makes your blog different from other blogs in the PF blogosphere?
I think when it comes to differentiating yourself in the blogging world, it almost always comes back to how you share your story.
Brittany and I started dating back when we were in 9th grade, went to college together, got married, bought our first house, and now have our first baby together. We have a ton to share about making a marriage successful!
But I think what really differentiates us is the fact that I left my law enforcement job to become a full-time blogger. We leveraged our frugal living habits and savings to allow me to follow my dream and start an online business.
It's all about the story!!
3: What’s the thing that you’ve struggled with the most since starting your blog?
Imposter syndrome and focusing on the wrong things.
For the longest time, I was searching for "What would make me money the fastest?" We struggled hard to get traffic and any type of monetization. The moment I started focusing on our readers and the relationship we had with them is when we started to have some incredible months.
Our blogging income broke $10,000 in June and again in September. Don't try to follow what others are doing. Find your story and tell it while giving as much value as possible to your readers.
4: Do you publish your net worth on your blog? Why or why not?
We have mentioned it a few times, but have never written a "net worth update" type of thing. Not sure why we don't. But now that you have my mind thinking I think we should start a series on our net worth.
5: Have you monetized your blog (ads, affiliate marketing, etc)? Why or why not?
Yes, we have monetized our blog. We primarily make our money through ads, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing in that order. We are working on our first blogging course so we hope to add a bunch of revenue in from selling our own products.
6: Would you rather be loved, hated or controversial? Explain, please!
I am a lover, so I would much rather be loved. We treat our readers as if they are our best friend. It's just worked for us. We do write on a couple of topics that are controversial and those have been some great articles.
7: Who would you be horrified to know read your blog?
Honestly, no one. I used to care what people thought far more than I do now.
8: What’s your most favorite, least favorite and most embarrassing post on your blog?
My favorite is 10 Things You Are Doing to Make Life Harder Than it Needs to Be.
It has done very well and was featured on Rockstar finance. I get to share a little of my testimonial within the article so that is very special to me. Having this platform of reaching hundreds of thousands of people is very powerful. So to know I am using my God-given talents and sharing my testimony is exciting to me.
My least favorite has probably been deleted after our audit so I am not sure, haha.
9: Explain your writing process
We normally come up with an idea and keep a long list in our Trello account.
From there, we push it through our workflow. We write all of our articles in Google Docs. Then, we use an add-on called "WordPress.com for Google Docs". With a click of a button, it transfers our work into WordPress with ZERO editing errors.
Once in WordPress, we make some small edits, add pictures, refine SEO, etc.
The last thing we do is have each other read over our work and then schedule it for publication. Our rule is nothing gets published without someone else checking the work. Not sure if it helps much because we still have tons of errors =).
A normal article start to finish takes anywhere from 2-4 hours.
10: What is your favorite blog in the PF blogosphere (other than your own!)?
This is a really tough question and there is no way I can narrow it down to one. We currently really enjoy reading Bitches Get Riches, Budgets Are Sexy, and ChooseFI.
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