Happily Ever Adventures turned 2 yesterday!! I can’t believe it has only been two years; it’s so hard to remember a time when we weren’t blogging! I’m not sure if it’s really a thing to celebrate a blog birthday/anniversary, but I’m a fan of celebrations of all kind so I couldn’t let the day pass without celebrating! Unfortunately, Bassam is still in Lebanon dealing with a family emergency so we are not celebrating together. He was also in Lebanon on our blog anniversary last year, so I’m hoping we’ll finally get to celebrate our 3rd blog anniversary together. I decided to spend the day letting our Instagram audience make all my decisions. You can see how that went in the video below:
Whether you’ve been following along for the full two years or for the past two minutes, thank you so much for your support! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me every time I get an email, message, or blog comment from you. It gives me the motivation and inspiration to keep going on the difficult days. I’ve found so much happiness from feeling like I can help others even just the tiniest bit through my blog posts and Instagram Stories. The best compliment I’ve ever received is that I made someone dealing with grief realize that they could one day be happy again. Comments like that are what inspire me to keep working hard on this blog. Thank you so much for being part of the adventure with us!
Most Popular Posts This Year:
The Best Beauty Products to Buy in France
Los Angeles to Portland Road Trip Guide
How I Turned My Grief Into Inspiration
About Us / FAQ
Why did you start your blog?
We had a very rough first year of marriage. My mom passed away two weeks after our wedding, Bassam’s sister moved to another country, and Bassam was putting in lots of hours at a job he wasn’t very happy in. We barely saw each other and when we did, we weren’t having much fun together. On our first year anniversary we went to Costa Rica. We had so much fun there together as we tried new things and had new adventures together. It reminded of me what we used to be like before we got married. I decided I wanted us to get back to living life to the fullest. I wanted us to travel as much as possible before we had kids, but I also wanted our every day life to feel special. Around this time, I had just started following a few bloggers and it seemed like so much fun. I had a small blog years ago {Live It! Magazine} and loved it, but I lost it after my site was hacked. I thought starting a couples blog would be a great way to hold us accountable to my new goal of living every day like an adventure. It really did help! In the beginning, we had to push ourselves to go out and do new things even when we didn’t want to because we needed blog content. Now, we LOVE doing new things together and it has been a big thing for us to bond over.
How did you come up with the name?
We actually started off with a different name! We didn’t realize it was very similar to another blogger and they approached us about it {not so nicely}. Even though I was frustrated that they approached us assuming that we copied them on purpose {I genuinely didn’t know they existed}, I decided to change our name since they did have it first. We asked our Instagram audience to help us come up with a new name and Happily Ever Adventures was a combination of two people’s suggestions. I’m so glad that happened because I think this new name fits us better! When people first see our name they tend to think it’s going to be able a fairy tale relationship, but that’s not our idea of it at all. What the name means to us is that life is NOT a fairy tale, life is not perfect, life can be very difficult, BUT it can also be a beautiful adventure if you choose for it to be. If you work hard at it, if you prioritize it, if you approach life with a sense of curiosity and wonder, you can live every single day as a beautiful adventure. We hope this is what we portray in all of our posts and interactions. It makes me so sad when people say that we make them feel bad about their relationship or we are portraying a fairy tale, because I really do my best to show to real side of things as much as possible. Obviously I can’t show everything because I have to respect my loved ones’ boundaries and I never want them or Bassam to feel uncomfortable with what I am sharing.
Do you have other jobs?
Yes! That’s why sometimes it’s so difficult to keep up with blogging, because blogging is definitely a full time job in itself. I am a behavior analyst and work with kids and adults with autism. I’m on the training team at my company which means I do clinical work, but I also train staff and help create curriculum and trainings. Bassam started his own company exporting heavy machinery and does some accounting work on the side as well.
How do you split up blog responsibilities?
Honestly? We don’t really, haha. It’s mainly me who runs the blog. Bassam takes a lot of our photos and used to do our photo editing, but I’ve been slowly taking that over because I need faster turnaround times than what he could provide and I didn’t want to feel like I was nagging him all the time. Bassam is interested in helping out more, he just hasn’t had the time. I’m hoping to transition some responsibilities to him later this year.
How do you make money? If your photo gets a lot of likes on Instagram do you get paid for it?
We do make money, but probably not as much as we could. It’s really important to us to only work with brands we truly love because we never want to lose the trust of our audience. That trust is priceless! Also, we are not willing to work with brands who won’t pay our rates. Our income comes from affiliates {when you purchase some of the items we recommend, not all of them, we make a very small commission, anywhere from 2-10%} and sponsored posts {we create content for a brand we are working with}. Eventually we will add ads to our site. We haven’t really focused on making income from the blog because we’ve been more focused on building our audience. I’d like to start focusing a bit more on brand partnerships this upcoming year.
As far as if we get paid if we get a lot of likes, no. We only get paid if it’s a post created for a brand. That being said, please do like our posts when you see them as the Instagram Algorithm is heavily based on engagement.
What’s your favorite thing about blogging? What’s your least favorite?
My favorite thing about blogging is connecting with others. I can’t tell you how much it means to me when someone trusts me enough to tell me something that is going on with them and ask for my advice. I went into the field of psychology to help others and it has blown my mind that I can also help others through blogging. The greatest gift to me and what makes all the long hours I spend working on the blog worth it, is when I hear that I positively impacted someone. Each time I think about quitting, I remember those comments and they push me to keep going.
My least favorite thing about blogging is how saturated the market is. Starting when we did, it feels really difficult to put ourselves out there. There are just so many blogs, which is amazing because there is something for everyone, but it’s so hard for people to find you. Getting on the first page of Google is so much more competitive, having your pins found on Pinterest is more difficult, and Instagram feels impossible. I’d keep doing what I’m doing even without much of an audience, because I truly love it and helping even just one person feels worth it to me, but it can get frustrating when you feel like you’re putting so much work in and it’s not going anywhere.
How long do you think you’ll blog for? Where do you see your blog going in the future? Do you want to be a full time blogger?
I don’t have plans to stop! Whenever I think about upcoming changes in our lives, I always think about how much fun it’ll be to blog it! I genuinely love blogging and sharing with others. I love writing, I’m starting to love taking photos, and I love being able to inspire others to live their every day lives like an adventure. For as long as there are are blogs and I’m still loving it, I’ll be here.
I see our blog developing with our future goals. I don’t know if I’ll go full-time, as there are so many things I want to do as well. I also never want to hate our blog and I worry that if it’s my full time job it’ll take the fun out of it having to make sure it brings in enough income. I’m not ready to share just yet, but I have some goals I’m trying to figure out and the blog plays a large part in it. I want to offer more than just the blog platform and potentially offer workshop, consults, and courses. It won’t be for a very long time though, as that will coincide with some other professional goals I have for myself.
Some Stats
While numbers aren’t everything, it is nice to pull a few key stats and compare each year. I often feel discouraged by our blog traffic, but comparing it to the previous year helps show me that there has been progress. Even if it is slow progress, it is still progress. I will often look at others who have been blogging the same amount of time as us and be really hard on myself that they are doing so much better. I always have to remind myself not to compare and that our situations are different. I have to believe that I am doing my best considering the time I have and my other priorities. I also didn’t focus much on blog growth strategies like Pinterest and SEO, which I have started doing in the past few months. You’ll notice that our Instagram numbers grew quite a bit the first year and not much the second year. That’s in part due to the Instagram Algorithm, but also mainly that we stopped putting as much effort on Instagram. We love Instagram as a platform to connect with our audience and develop relationships, but as the IG Algorithm continues to change, we are realizing we need to focus our efforts on the one platform we own, our blog.
This Time Last Year:
Instagram Followers: 70,000
Monthly Blog Visitors: 5,000
Email Subscribers: 0, didn’t have an email list
Today:
Instagram Followers: 86,000
Monthly Blog Visitors: 21,000
Email Subscribers: 1,100
I’d love to hear from you! What are your favorite things we do? What would you like us to do differently? We want to be able to offer you content that you love this upcoming year, so send us all your feedback! Thank you so much for following along and for your love and support! We’ve loved being on this journey with you!
Photo Credit: Jillian Rose from our engagement shoot
Leave a Reply