Ina Coveney
We have a special episode for you today because this is more of a discussion. We have a lot to talk about when it comes to blogging. So I brought my friend Jen Osterhout, who is an old house enthusiast and has a blog at EverydayOldHouse.com, to talk to us about blogging. So hi, Jen.

Jen Osterhout
Hi, thanks for having me.

Ina Coveney
Okay, so I’m going to take off my shoes because, to me, this is like—this has to be like a conversation. I need to talk to you about this blogging situation. First of all, I need to say, I have never actually grown a blog. So people should not be listening to me for blogging advice.

Jen Osterhout
(Laughs)

Ina Coveney
I do know enough by having studied it a little bit. So I asked you to come and talk blogging to me because you have actually made money with your blog.

Jen Osterhout
Surprisingly, yes.

Ina Coveney
So that’s a lot more than a lot of people can say. Why don’t you tell everybody what your blog is about and what you do?

Jen Osterhout
Sure. So my blog is Everyday Old House, and its mission is fairly simple. It’s to help homeowners, especially ones who have older houses, appreciate their home. I do that in two ways: to entertain and educate. I feel like there are so many home bloggers out there who have these perfect blogs and they do perfect projects. I do not. My house is very real. It is a mess. I attempt to do some home improvement projects, and I have a lot of lessons learned.

Ina Coveney
(Laughs)

Jen Osterhout
I feel like that resonates with a lot of people. I get a lot of emails from folks who are like, “Oh, I messed this up. And then I found your blog, and you messed it up too, and you told me how to fix it.” So that’s kind of it in a nutshell. We live right outside of Boston where we both have old houses. Like, I don’t think anybody really knows when my house was built. It’s like circa 1900.

Ina Coveney
Yes, mine too, actually. I’ve gone into researching the history of old houses, and you can find different dates for the same house when you look things up. It’s really interesting.

Jen Osterhout
Oh my gosh, if I told you the horror stories that I have found in my house… I was so mad at this. When we moved into our house, this is something I could have never even thought of looking for, but now it’s the only thing I will look at if I ever look at another house again. The load-bearing walls in my house, the ones on the first floor and the second floor, were not aligned with the main beam of the house in the basement. They were resting on the joists.

Ina Coveney
Oh no!

Jen Osterhout
So for anybody who doesn’t know what joists and main beams are: basically, I had load-bearing walls that were not being properly supported, and the entire house was sinking at that point. It did not get caught during inspection, and it was such an easy thing to check.

Ina Coveney
Oh my gosh.

Jen Osterhout
Yes. You just go to the first floor, measure the distance from the wall to the wall, and then go downstairs to the basement and measure the distance between the wall and the beam. If the distance is not the same, you kind of have a problem.

Ina Coveney
And you don’t know until you’re in it.

Jen Osterhout
Exactly. My husband had owned an old house before he met me, and when we were looking at houses, he kept pressing on all the walls. I was like, “What are you doing?” And the realtor was like, “What are you doing?” And he said, “I had plaster walls in my last house, and they were completely soft. I had to take them all down and rebuild with drywall. That was not a fun project.” So he had had that experience and was checking for it.

Ina Coveney
Wow.

Jen Osterhout
Old houses are a challenge. They’re gorgeous, but they can be a challenge.

Ina Coveney
So you love to do these home improvement projects, and you are not a general contractor. You’re just teaching yourself how to do this. Why start a blog? Why was that a thing for you?

Jen Osterhout
It was actually for organization. What happened was, we had twins, and I knew we were not going to be doing anything on the house for a while. But I had learned some skills, like painting and waterproofing the basement, and I didn’t want to forget those because I knew once the twins were older, we’d get back into it. So I had a notebook where I wrote everything down… and then I lost the notebook.

Ina Coveney
(Laughs)

Jen Osterhout
I decided I needed to do something online. So I did something on WordPress really quickly—kind of my notes. Then people started emailing me, saying, “Oh yeah, that happened to me,” or “Hey, I really enjoyed that.” And I thought, “Wait a minute. People are finding me. Maybe I should take the next step up.”

Ina Coveney
That’s so cool.

Jen Osterhout
That’s how I started. It was for me, so that 10 years from now, I could remember how to do it. The notebook was gone, but the blog was there.

Ina Coveney
That’s such a great story. I feel like I did the same thing with a couple of ideas. One of them was for cooking—I’m not a cook, forget about it—but I have very picky eaters at home. So I started a blog, and I drew a picture of my husband’s face, which is really easy to draw. It’s just a face with glasses and hair parted to the side.

Jen Osterhout
(Laughs)

Ina Coveney
And I just said, “Cooking for picky eaters.” But then I got frustrated because I kind of expected people to find it just organically and for it to just grow and make me a millionaire because I was sharing these things.

Jen Osterhout
(Laughs)

Ina Coveney
It looks like you had the experience where people were actually searching for these things and finding answers.

Jen Osterhout
Exactly.

Ina Coveney
So before we continue, I did want to tell everybody: Jen’s daughter goes to school with my son, and they’ve been in activities together. They just love each other to death. That’s why I’m so excited to be talking to you because I’ve always liked you, and I’m like, can we just get to know each other better? This is awesome.

Jen Osterhout
It really is!

Ina Coveney
So, I asked Jen to bring three things that people need to know about blogging, and I came up with my own list. Everybody needs to know that Jen is the expert blogger here, and I’m just the “in theory” blogger. I’m actually a little scared that the things I’m sharing with you guys, Jen is going to be like, “Yes, but not quite.” So feel free to totally debunk what I think people should know about blogging, okay?

Jen Osterhout
Deal!

Ina Coveney
Before we start with our lists, though, you told me a story that I feel like everybody needs to know. I am in the digital world, and I did not know this. Can you tell everybody what happened with your traffic? What were things like before and after?

Jen Osterhout
Okay. So for me, blogging has been a journey of learning what I enjoy and what I’m good at, and one of those things is SEO—search engine optimization. I got good at finding long-tail keywords that I could rank for on the first page of Google. It was something I learned and found I had a knack for.

Ina Coveney
That’s amazing.

Jen Osterhout
I also focused on Pinterest because it’s great for DIY and home niches. I enjoyed creating images and writing Pinterest captions and descriptions optimized for SEO. What I didn’t do much of was social media or email marketing. Because of this, my blog grew through Google and Pinterest. But last September, Google had an algorithm update called the Helpful Content Update (HCU), and it significantly impacted lifestyle, recipe, and travel bloggers.

Ina Coveney
Oh no.

Jen Osterhout
Yeah. A lot of bloggers lost a significant amount of traffic. I lost about 80 to 90% of my traffic from Google search results, which was not uncommon. It was devastating because I monetized through ads, and ads rely on page views.

Ina Coveney
That’s rough.

Jen Osterhout
It really was. I decided to step back and wait to see what the experts were saying. By January, it was clear that many bloggers hadn’t recovered. Some shut down, while others, like me, started diversifying. I’ve been learning about social media, exploring digital products, and even considering Etsy.

Ina Coveney
That’s such a pivot.

Jen Osterhout
It is. The big lesson for me was not to put all my eggs in one basket. While I was good at SEO and Pinterest, I realized I needed other ways to drive traffic and monetize.

Ina Coveney
That’s a great insight.

Jen Osterhout
It’s been tough, but there are small wins. I got an email recently from someone in Maine who said she avoided ruining her brass hardware because of a blog post I wrote. She told me, “It felt like I had a friend guiding me.” That keeps me going.

Ina Coveney
That’s so heartwarming.

Jen Osterhout
It really is.

Ina Coveney
So if there are people out there who want to start a blog, let’s start with our lists. I’ll go first. My first tip is: blogging is a long game. You have to create a lot of content consistently. You’re not going to have a million-dollar blog with just five posts.

Jen Osterhout
Absolutely.

Ina Coveney
You need to think about what kind of content you’ll create, its frequency, and how it all ties together. When someone finds your blog, they should be able to dive into more of your content through links to related posts.

Jen Osterhout
That’s spot on, and it was my number one tip too! Blogging is a long-term game. It has to be a topic you love or know a lot about because it will take time to gain traction. I started blogging in 2017, but I didn’t make money for two years. You need something that will drive you to stay up late and wake up early to work on it.

Ina Coveney
So true.

Jen Osterhout
Also, you have to decide how broad or niche your topic will be. A few years ago, it was common to have blogs covering fashion, food, and travel. Now, the trend is to niche down.

Ina Coveney
That’s great advice. Okay, my second tip: learn about SEO. It’s not enough to write what you want to talk about. You have to think about how search engines work.

Jen Osterhout
Yes!

Ina Coveney
I worked on some SEO projects before, and I learned a lot. Things like using H2 tags, writing long-form content, and incorporating long-tail keywords are essential.

Jen Osterhout
Exactly. Long-tail keywords are specific phrases like “organic cat food for elderly cats.” They’re less competitive but target a specific audience. Tools like Keywords Everywhere or LowFruits can help find these.

Ina Coveney
LowFruits sounds amazing!

Jen Osterhout
It’s my favorite. It helps with keyword research, competition analysis, and finding content gaps.

Ina Coveney
That’s fantastic. What’s your next tip?

Jen Osterhout
Find support. Blogging can feel isolating, so join Facebook groups, masterminds, or other communities.

Ina Coveney
That’s so true.

Jen Osterhout
These groups can provide advice, motivation, and accountability. They’ve been invaluable for me.

Ina Coveney
I love that. My last tip: Pinterest is amazing for driving traffic.

Jen Osterhout
Yes! Pinterest is a long-term game, just like blogging. Pins I created years ago are still driving traffic. It’s a great platform for evergreen content.

Ina Coveney
So cool. Thank you so much for sharing all this wisdom. Where can people find your blog?

Jen Osterhout
EverydayOldHouse.com.

Ina Coveney
Perfect. I’ll link it below. Jen, thank you for being here.

Jen Osterhout
Thank you! This was so much fun.

Ina Coveney
Thanks for listening to the podcast. Be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss another super episode!