How Hilary Erickson Merged Nursing with Blogging

Welcome to our interview with Hilary Erickson, the dynamic force behind Pulling Curls – a thriving blog and podcast that untangles the complexities of pregnancy, parenting, home management, and travel. As a seasoned nurse and a dedicated mother, Hilary brings a wealth of knowledge and personal experience to her audience. In this conversation, we delve into the journey of Pulling Curls, exploring the challenges, triumphs, and wisdom garnered from running a successful online platform. Join us as we uncover the strategies and motivations that have shaped Pulling Curls into the influential resource it is today.

The Birth of Pulling Curls®

SBS – What was the idea behind Pulling Curls®? 

Hilary – Pulling Curls® started as a basic mom blog in 2005, and I just wrote about what was going on with my family. Every once in a while, I would include tips, but the 2000s were ruled out by Google Reader. People would subscribe to your blog, and they would subscribe to your family.

Then, in 2014, I saw what Pinterest could do for a website. I always wanted my blog to be bigger but didn’t know how to market it. I had a Facebook page that wasn’t going anywhere, so I got on Pinterest, and it changed what I was writing towards. Everything is tips now; it’s not about my family anymore. When I started, my second kid was one year old, and he’s now in college. Those kids have grown up with the website, but almost everything about them is taken off it now. I just grew it to mostly target Pinterest.

Then, I worked more on SEO and organic search. I’m also having luck with TikTok. I have a podcast, too, and courses that I’ve branched off of Pulling Curls®. Most articles I write for Pulling Curls® now point to those courses. I have a prenatal class. I have a home organization class. I have a family routines course, which is more about organizing family systems and structures.

Major Challenges and Triumphs

SBS – What were the major challenges that you faced during your career, and how have you overcome them?

Hilary – I don’t use paid traffic, though I have tried ads and stuff like that. Now, I mostly live at the whims of algorithms with Google, Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms. It’s about learning to bend and flex. I see many people getting mad about what that company is doing, but I’m using that company to get my thing out. They’re also using me to get content. I have to learn to bend and flex with what they want, and I know they could change at any point.

I’m making as much proprietary content as I can, building my newsletter and podcast. I own it, and it goes out on my own whims. I try to enhance the stuff that I own and have control over, but I also realize that I have to use those networking systems to get the information out, be seen by new people, and stuff like that.

My second site, The Pregnancy Nurse®, dropped 80% in Google traffic in September. I went from about 2,000 to 3,000 hits a day to about 500, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You need to realize that you can only control what you own. I can try fixing things, but nobody knows how to fix a content update. I shouldn’t be freaking out about the stuff I don’t have control over.

Luckily, social media has come in. I’ve gotten much more Pinterest traffic lately and have a blossoming Facebook page. I’m using those things to my advantage. I see people struggling and spending so much time trying to get a mark, but we don’t even know where the mark is. No one’s seen success, so I’ve told people, “Why don’t you pivot more to social?” They tell me social is not going to work. Well, we know Google’s not working. So what can you make work? It’s all about diversification, having a website, social media, videos, and a podcast. I love writing the most. If I could just sit down and write, that’s probably what I would do, but by doing the other things, you learn how to enjoy them.

Finding Podcast and Blog Topics

SBS – How do you find the topics for the podcast and the blog?

Hilary – I write mostly about pregnancy. Since I have been a labor nurse for 20 years, I have always had new topics to discuss. I have thousands of articles now, and I still have a list. I’ll ask on my Facebook page what people are interested in, or they’ll ask me to write articles on stuff, and I just pick what seems the most in my wheelhouse, the most fun to write, and then go from there.

Monetization Magic

SBS – Can you share some tips for monetizing a blog? 

Hilary – It’s really important to know that there’s no easy out. You see the Google and Facebook ads everywhere saying, “This is an easy way to make courses” or “You’re going to make six figures every month just because you have a course.” That’s just not true.

I use the four legs of my chair. I have ad income, affiliate income, sponsored content, and online courses. I found affiliate products that I’ve always loved and that I’m able to promote. Companies are emailing me all the time, asking me to promote their affiliate stuff, and that doesn’t work. It only works to promote products I previously loved, or like the idea of. I do some sponsored content, but not as much as before.

For me, everything funnels back to the online courses because I think they’re the ultimate solution for my people’s problems (especially my prenatal class). I truly believe that class will change their pregnancy or labor for them. Early on, when I was writing pregnancy articles, I wished there was a prenatal class to send people to, and there just wasn’t. There wasn’t even teachable back when I was starting, around 2014. I was one of the first prenatal classes online because I knew it was the solution many people needed. I was teaching from my hospital, and I knew Tuesday at 6pm didn’t work for families. They were tired and starving, and they hated the chairs.

Podcasting Journey

SBS – How did you start your podcast and what was the motivation behind it? 

Hilary – I just hated video content, and I thought that podcasting would be a way to get my message out and have people connect more with me as a person. I know that’s difficult just by reading an article. Of course, our podcast is video, so that didn’t work out. But initially, it was because I didn’t want to get ready and put makeup on before I recorded; I just wanted to record.

A podcast has a connection with people that you don’t even get with video. It’s like you’re on a walk with me, chatting about things, and you’re focused on what I’m saying. I love it. The good news is it’s taken the place of me having to film YouTube videos because I still don’t love a long-form video, especially editing it. Still, it’s just a part of the business now, and luckily, there are so many great tools out there to make it easy. I started using Descript, which will take out all my “Ums,” so that’s nice.

Crafting Online Courses

SBS – How did you develop your online courses and how do you market them to people?

Hilary – The prenatal class was easy because I had already taught it for my hospital, and I had rearranged their curriculum according to what I wanted anyway, so I just took that and put it online. It was a slow transfer.

I initially wrote a book, and then stuff started coming. There was Teachable and other platforms that you could put on your website. Then, I made short videos. Again, I wasn’t a huge video fan initially, but I ultimately filmed the entire course. There’s still the text because people learn in many different ways. There are also outside resources and all these different things.

I launched it in 2015, and it’s progressed since then. The good news with a course is you can always update it, and the beauty is that the person who bought it early on still has access to what it is today. With my prenatal class, I took the original videos and added things with my last run-through this past year. Because I own it, I can make changes to it and enhance it all the time. I’m always adding new resources that I find. I teach the basics, but if people have specific issues, I have other resources I’ve vetted that they can look to. I understand that I’m not the be-all and end-all of pregnancy education, and there are so many great resources out there, so I’m pointing people to those as well.

Once I had the prenatal class down, I knew how creating an online course worked, and it was then easy to apply that to another subject. Creating the organized home class was easy, but there was some revamping because I hadn’t taught it before. Since then, I’ve created many courses. I have one on what to watch out for postpartum, so that’s a mini-class (of course, it’s included with the prenatal class).

Regarding marketing, people can get a free chapter of the prenatal class from me. I hope they see me online because I’m the same person everywhere. When you see me on TikTok, that’s the same way I talk in prenatal classes. People get used to me and like my easy, straightforward way. That’s how I try to market — I’m a real person with lots of knowledge and will make it easy for you to prepare — and it seems to work.

Juggling Personal and Professional Life

SBS – How do you balance your personal life and your working life, especially with blogging?

Hilary – I get lots of people with very tiny kids asking me how to do it, and I tell them there is a reason that I did not get successful till my daughter (my youngest kid) was in preschool. I wasn’t a mom that could divide my attention very well. For me, it was tough to do it when my kids were in school. Many people think they can devote an hour to it, and it will be wildly successful. That may be the case for some people, but for me, it is a six- to eight-hour job every day.

There are times when there is no balance, like rewriting my pregnancy newsletter. It’s one big jumble, and it just takes hours and hours. But after that, I go on vacation, and I can just put it to the side. I think balance is a myth. It’s an everyday struggle, and it’s never going to be 50:50. It’s just going to look different every day.

My husband left work and now works for me for the most part. He teaches adjunct at a junior college, but in general, this is our family’s income, so they’re all used to it, and we make it work. They understand that there are going to be times when things are crazy, and then they know that usually, I can come to school when they need me to and stuff like that.

Effective Strategies in the Blogging Niche

SBS – What strategies regarding SEO did you find the most effective in your niche?

Hilary – I think the biggest thing that I’ve had luck with is making silos of information, having several similar topics, and then slowly branching out from those topics. That’s the only thing that shows Google that I have any knowledge in a specific area, but honestly, I have no idea now.

I’m still updating posts on Pulling Curls®, but for The Pregnancy Nurse®, I haven’t had any luck updating posts, so I’ve just taken a freeze. I’m writing new things, mostly social-based, and just keeping an eye on things and an ear to the ground. I have listened to a few podcasts about SEO, but I’ve been frustrated by the people who act like they know what will fix these recent updates but have no idea. They do it just for marketing, to get clicks, or to sell courses. I don’t believe them anymore, and I’ve been disheartened by the people selling courses to fix the helpful content update when nobody knows what will fix it. I’m a nurse, and it’s similar to early COVID if we said we knew what would solve COVID. We didn’t know. We were like Googling things. The most annoying thing lately has been people lying about what they know they can do.

Collaborations and Networking

SBS – How do you approach collaborations with other bloggers? Do you believe that networking is important? Do you go to conferences or fairs in your niche? 

Hilary – I loved conferences before COVID. I haven’t seen the ones that I liked as much coming back. Networking is super important. I’m going to a conference in April called Mom 2.0, which is perfect because that’s my demographic. There are a lot of conferences that skew out of my demographic, so I’m always wondering if that will be worthwhile. However, I have found great people at Mom 2.0 who are in my niche.

One of my best friends does baby development, so that’s a great person to send people to after seeing me. She talks to many young moms so she can send them back to me when they’re pregnant again.

I love networking. I love talking with other people. I do Disneyland tips as a hobby on my site, and I love meeting Disneyland bloggers, too. We can all learn something from each other. They know that I’m a pregnancy nurse, and they’ll send pregnant women to me.

As far as collaborations with businesses, there are some that I found to be helpful, and then I would use their affiliate link if it’s something that I love. With my prenatal class, I have had some people kind enough to film segments with me that are a brief portion of their full class. For example, a pregnancy nutrition lady gave a half-hour class about pregnancy nutrition. Then I say, “If you want to know more about pregnancy, join McKenzie at her full course here.” It adds value to my class and also introduces people to somebody else. I’ve enjoyed that, and my people have, too. I’m also very clear that it can’t just be a thing that sells their class. I need to be providing my people with great value in my class.

Advice for Aspiring Bloggers

SBS – What advice would you give someone who wants to start something similar?

Hilary – You have to love whatever it is you’re doing. Many people want to start a blog, and I say, “That’s awesome. Do you love writing and graphic design?” They say, “No, I absolutely hate it.” I tell them, “I just don’t think it’s the business for you then.” I love graphic design and writing, so it is the perfect job for me. That isn’t to say I don’t get tired of doing those things, and I don’t feel some burnout. If you love making videos, you can still make a go of this on TikTok and maybe have a very small website that you don’t write or do a lot of graphic design on. But if you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, people will be able to tell. That’s why when I pick a project, I look for one that seems the most fun because those tend to be the ones that I do the best at, and they’re successful for my people.

It’s difficult because many people think there’s free money and use AI. I think that’s going to play out that people can tell. They can tell that I’m Hilary, the pregnancy nurse, and that’s very different than pregnancytips.info, where somebody’s just used AI to write. Social media is going to play into that even more. Again, moving forward, I’m using social media to benefit my sites. I’m always working to become a brand. Both of my sites are trademarked, so hopefully, that shows that this is real with a real person behind it.

The other thing I encourage people to do is try to use their content everywhere they can. I posted my TikToks to Instagram but wasn’t posting them to YouTube and Facebook reels. Somebody mentioned I should try Facebook reels. I first thought that was insane because Facebook has never worked for me. Still, I gave those reels a try.

It only adds a minute to your day. Once you download the reel, shoving it to all the places is super easy. You can do Facebook and Instagram at the same place online. So, I uploaded it to Facebook and suddenly had this huge Facebook page. I enjoy being on there and giving people advice (and it was a network I thought was dead).

I take successful things on the blog and make TikToks about them. I don’t have to come up with new ideas. I’m just using things that are already successful and pivoting them (or even just reusing them). I film everything in TikTok format, but I download the videos without the watermark and upload them to YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. When I film 30 minutes of TikToks, I’m good for two weeks and have videos on every platform. Also, if a video does well, I could write about it. It’s all about reusing things, using things, seeing what does well, pivoting it, and making it work on another platform. That’s my favorite thing lately.

Many people think social media won’t work for them, but what’s the bother of uploading it? You never know if you can have a viral video or find a new client because a course is sold one person at a time. If Betty finds a video on Instagram that relates to her and purchases it, that is worth uploading that video for me, even if only Betty sees it.

Future Horizons

SBS – What are the future plans for you? Are you planning to expand to different social media?

Hilary – I don’t know of any other social media I want to join. There’s Lemon8, and I never got into that. It took me a bit to go on to TikTok, but I was probably an early-ish TikToker. But again, I don’t share my family on social media for the most part, so I have had some issues. I don’t have young kids anymore, so some things on social media may be a setback. I’ve been stuck at about 65,000 on TikTok for years. If I see a new social platform that I think will work for me, I will definitely try it.

I feel like Pinterest is revamping back up. I’m always looking at how things are working. I’m big into stats. I have a huge income spreadsheet that shows me where income is coming from, and where it is compared to other years, and stuff like that.

My ultimate goal with The Pregnancy Nurse®, because it is just a branded site, is probably to sell it in 10 years with all the content. Hopefully, somebody will pay me some good money for all the content or the prenatal class. I’m probably not going to be interested in pregnancy forever. Sometimes, I don’t know what else to write about your water breaking, but people are still interested. So that is the ultimate goal, especially with The Pregnancy Nurse®, because Pulling Curls® is me, but The Pregnancy Nurse® could be any nurse.

Stay connected with Hilary Erickson and the vibrant Pulling Curls community across various social media platforms. For a mix of informative and engaging content, follow her on these channels:

• TikTok: Dive into quick, insightful tips on pregnancy and parenting at PregnancyNurse on TikTok.
• Facebook: Join the conversation and community updates at PregnancyNurse on Facebook.
• Instagram: Get a behind-the-scenes look and daily inspiration from Pulling Curls on Instagram.
• Pinterest: Explore a wealth of ideas and resources at Pulling Curls on Pinterest.
• YouTube: Watch informative videos and tutorials on Pulling Curls YouTube Channel.
• Twitter: Stay updated with the latest insights and tweets from Pulling Curls on Twitter.