2016 Review and 2017 Goals

January 10, 2017January 1, 201710 Comments

Happy New Year! I can’t believe 2016 has ended and 2017 is here already! This is going to be such a huge year for me! It’s my 10 year high school reunion year (although I don’t think my school does reunions anymore). It’s also the year that Nick and I get married and move into our house! And of course, what you are all here for, it’s another year of growing the blog and getting to know all you blog lovers!

2016 review

2016 was the first full year of posting on this blog. At the beginning of the year I was quite naive about how the blog was going to do. I didn’t want to be overly optimistic so I ended up setting goals that I thought were attainable. What I didn’t realize is that the goals were way too simple. I accomplished all of my 2016 goals within the first two months of the year. You can find all of my 2016 goals here.

The most notable successes from 2016 were completing my Media Kit, Increasing my post schedule to twice per week, and reaching 1000 followers on Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook. I also created a mid-year review for the end of the blog’s fiscal year.

2016 Top 6 Posts

How to Complete Your To Do List in 5 Steps – 3338 Views
BBQ Uglies Recipe Review – 1866 Views
How I Use Smart Things for Home Automation – 1248 Views
Say Goodbye to Living Paycheck to Paycheck: The Basics of Income – 1020 Views
10 Must Haves in My Next Home – 919 Views
The Ultimate List of Blogging Groups on Facebook – 789 Views

2016 Achievements

I completed the Say Goodbye to Living Paycheck to Paycheck book.
I created a blogging planner downloadable linked at the end of this post.
I began posting every other week on YouTube.
I increased my posting volume from once per week to twice per week.
I started using Pinterest with Tailwind.
I increased my following by over 700%.

I’ve been tracking my stats for income, pageviews, and followers since I started this blog. I recently added a trendline to each of the graphs. The trendline (pink dotted line) is a prediction of where my stats will be from now until the end of June. It will be interesting to see if I follow the trends. The teal line shows my monthly stats.

Last year, I was way off with my goals so my goals for this year are going to be a bit different. I am very clear on my goals for my blog but trying to split them apart into smaller chunks is a bit hard. Because of this, I am going to create broad goals that don’t necessarily need to be completed in 2017. As long as I’m making progress towards them, I’d call that a success. I will revisit the goals periodically and make changes as necessary.

Social FOllowing Goals

Reach 10,000 Cumulative Followers
Reach 5,000 Pinterest Followers
Reach 1,000 YouTube Subscribers
Reach 1,000 Blog Subscribers

BLOGGING GOALS

Obtain an average (over 3 months) of 10,000 Page Views per month
Earn an average (over 3 months) of $1000 per month
Gain traffic direct or through social channels without participating in Facebook threads

April 2016 Blog Income Report

May 7, 2016May 2, 2016Leave a comment

This Month’s Top Post: My Favorite Face Products – 317 Views – 2 Comments

This Month’s Runner Up: The Ultimate BLT – 279 Views – 21 Comments

April was great month for rest! I had my birthday, went on a trip, and took a pretty big break from blogging. I typically post in Facebook share groups on Saturday when I add new posts, and also on a few threads each day during the week. This month, I only posted on Saturdays with a few extra days, but not many. I was very impressed to see that my stats were about the same place they usually are but I did a lot less work. That shows improvement right?

I also started receiving direct views, search views, and Pinterest views this month. Until now, I rarely had a view from any source other than Facebook. I can only imagine if I create killer posts, share them on media daily, and post more often, how much the blog would grow.

This month, I did not do any freelance work and because I wasn’t participating in Facebook groups regularly, my Adsense total was lower than usual. This is quite all right though because the blog is more about having a fun hobby than making money. I won’t complain about any money though 😉

April 2016 Income Statement:

Revenue
Google Adsense – $44.84
Sponsored Posts – $5.00
Freelancing – $0.00
Personal Sales – $5.18
Total: $55.02

Expenses
Total: $0.00

NET INCOME: $55.02

View Previous Blog Income Statements here.

This month, I increased my total social following by 8% which I find extremely great because I didn’t participate in the follow threads that I usually do.

I also decided this month to take Guest Blog posts off of my goals for this year. There were a few reasons for this. If I create a post, I want to be able to use it on my blog. Also, I may not agree with every post written on another blog and I want to make sure to be involved in only what I agree with.

My focus for this month was to focus on editing my blog pages and old posts. I searched high and low and with a lot of coding, figured out how to do everything I wanted to do. I now have a new home page and have updated pages that auto-populate when I have a new post. I still have to go through some of the old posts and edit, but I did get about halfway through my archives.

Focus for Next Month
Next month, I plan to finalize the archived blog posts and learn more about scheduling pins for Pinterest.

March 2016 Blog Income Report

April 2, 2016May 2, 201626 Comments

This Month’s Top Post: How to Complete Your To-Do List in 5 Steps – 2588 Views – 9 Comments

This Month’s Runner Up: BBQ Uglies Recipe Review– 1547 Views – 17 Comments

This was a very different month for me. The first week and a half or so I worked very hard on freelancing projects. As soon as I finished the project I was working on, my BBQ Uglies post got more views than any post I’ve posted. I did a few sponsored tweets here and there but for the most part, took it easy this month.

I’m not sure how, but once the ride from my BBQ Uglies post ended, my To-Do list post got a lot of attention as well and completely crushed the stats I had just gotten for the BBQ Uglies recipe. Because of these two posts getting a lot of attention, I was able to surpass my goal of getting 5000 views in a one-month period during 2016.

March 2016 Income Statement:

Revenue
Google Adsense – $69.20
Sponsored Posts – $5.00
Freelancing – $310.00
Etsy Shop – $2.65
Total: $406.85

Expenses
Blogging Supplies: $31.57
Etsy Ads: $0.30
Total: $31.87

NET INCOME: $372.98

View Previous Blog Income Statements here.

This month, I increased my total social following by 13% and got a lot of projects in the works to help me complete some of my 2016 Blogging Goals.

My focus for this month was to complete my blog posts for the next month and plan some posts for future months. I am happy to say that I was able to succeed with this and have all of my posts for April ready to go and have a few great ideas and photos for future posts.

Focus for Next Month
Next month, I plan to focus on editing my blog pages and old posts. Somehow when I switched to self-hosted WordPress, my photos became blurry and need to be adjusted. I also know more about Pinterest now and want to create better images for some of my older posts.