Blog goals: January 2017 and December 2016 blog review.
Hey y’all, for the foreseeable future I will be writing monthly blog goals and reviews. I will be publishing every first week of the month . I’m doing this because I am trying to hold myself accountable and I thought I could share with other bloggers. Plus, It’s so important to have goals otherwise you aimlessly walk through life. All throughout high school and college I had a planner, I wrote my assignments and my to-dos, and daily goals. And to be honest, if I don’t have daily, weekly, or monthly goals I pretty much fall apart. Have goals so you can have a target to shoot for.
December Review
So, in december I began my first blog post on my goals and I found it quite helpful to steer me on the right path. Its nice to see where I was then and where I am now. I stated that I was going to focus all my energy on blogging instead of my Etsy shop (hyperlink) and of course, I get more orders in the month of December than any month (most likely because of Christmas). Doesn’t it always seem that when you stop trying so hard things magically come together, well maybe not always. But, this month has been good financial wise, so I won’t complain.
Traffic: 892 page views.
I was hoping to break 1,000 page views for the month of December, but missed it again. In November my page view was 955, so close, yet so far away.
My 3 most popular posts in December:
5 reasons why family and friends don’t support you.
Why its ok to cry in front of your kids
December: Blog goals
*5 reasons why family and friends don’t support you is where most of my traffic came from this month. I shared it in a few Etsy groups I’m a part of (I got my inspiration from the ladies there) and I got some really good feedback on it.
*In December I personally contacted a few Pinterest boards to become a contributing member and I got accepted to one of them in January! #Win. For those of you who aren’t too familiar with blogging, (I give you props for still reading this) it means that I am sharing a Pinterest board with a popular user and now some of my pins will have further reach because this person has thousands of followers. Thousands of followers equals a bigger potential from my blog posts to be read. ::happy dance::
JANUARY GOALS:
So, a few things were kind of a bust in December, Pinterest, my newsletter, and affiliate disclosures. So, I will try again this month and attempt to knock out at LEAST one, but shooting for 2.
Learning:
Pinterest: My number one priority for the next few months will be Learning to navigate the Pinterest waters and their algorithms. I’ve been on Pinterest for years now. I go on Pinterest more than any other social media site, well besides my own blog. But now, rather than pinning the things that I like, I am going to be focusing on strategically using Pinterest to gain a wider audience. The audience in my niche. Hopefully I can become a contributor to another Pinterest board.
Newsletter: I didn’t even log into my site provider in December ::yikes:: this will go a lot slower than I thought. I am currently looking at a few different site providers, since I’ve heard not so wonderful things about my current site provider.
DOING:
Affiliate disclosures: This is the one thing in January I know I can accomplish out of the 3 (pinterest, newsletter, affiliate disclosures). It’s just too easy, I just need to sit down and create the darn page.
Facebook: Be more consistent in growing my Ledyliz Blog page and update it more regularly than I have been doing in the past.
Side stuff: I will start a series sometime this year about “How to start a blog” I’ve already begun writing on many topics and maybe in the next few months I can release it. On a personal note, I am working on weight loss with a friend, we’ve been keeping each other accountable for about a week and a half now. Here goes another year of trying to change my lifestyle through better habits, cheers!
Well, that’s it for this month. what kind of goals do you have for your blog?
I would be totally interested in reading your “How to start a blog” series! I’m just starting out and I have a pretty tight niche audience. What do you recommend as far as networking with other bloggers in your niche? I feel like that’s something I should be doing but am still figuring out how to go about it. I see that you have mentioned becoming a contributor on popular Pinterest boards. I don’t know much about that, but I think I’ll do a little research on it. Thanks for sharing your insight! 🙂
Thanks Shanna!☺I’m still working on the series, I will keep you posted as soon as I publish it! I am no pro at this, yet;) but as far as networking with other niches, especially a very specific niche, join group pages related to your niche on Facebook and ask the admin if you can share some related posts. And if that doesn’t work out or you can’t find a decent group then why not create one? Create a blogging networking group for your specific niche, especially if you are passionate about your niche topic!
I’ve become a contributor to Pinterest boards by joining different “blogging networking groups” I’m mainly a part of parenting or mommy blogging groups or just blogging groups in general. If you join plain ol blogging groups you may be able to find others who write similarly to you. I can add you to add you to a few if you’d like?
Sure thing! It can’t hurt, and I fan do a little exploring that way. I’m on Pinterest as Pulmonary Princess. Thanks girl!