blog goals

3 Ways to Achieve Your Blog Goals

As I sat writing this blog post this morning, I felt a bit like a fraud. I feel like I've written this sentence multiple times already, but: March was a bit of a rough month for me. The very first Friday of the month, I got the flu and was sick for a solid 3.5 weeks. Just as I started to feel 100% better, I woke up this morning with a sore throat again. How's that for getting better? As a result of being sick, a lot of things have fallen to the wayside, the main one being this blog. 

So, yeah, I feel a bit like a fraud writing this post knowing I won't have hit my goals for March in terms of page views and growth. But, that's life, isn't it? Some months you do everything right and have a great month (January); some months you achieve your goals even when you aren't sure why (February); and some months, you really want to try, but you just can't (March). 

Anyway, what I'm saying is: blogging should, at the end of the day, be about passion. If it's taking it away from you, you need to adjust what you're doing. I know a lot of people start blogs in the hopes of doing it full time, but I highly discourage this behavior. We've seen multiple "blog bubble bursts" in the last few years--the first round of very famous Mommy Bloggers are currently in the process of downsizing their homes, selling off all the trendy furniture they bought, and locking down real jobs. I'm not kidding. All I'm saying is: don't put all your eggs in one blogging basket. Be realistic: blogging is, at most, a supplemental side gig. Use it to supplement a full time position. 

Ok, that's my only little PSA/soapbox. Let's get onto some tips for actually hitting those blog goals. 

1. Actually Set (Realistic) Goals

I mean, duh-est of duhs, but you should actually set blog goals. Every month, on my editorial calendar, I write a few little goals: usually a page view increase of 3-5% (nothing crazy), and a certain number of Twitter or Instagram followers. The most important thing is to set realistic goals. You might see some people claiming to gain 2,000 Instagram followers in a month, and not to doubt those people, but buying followers doesn't count. Using hashtags and an increased Instagram strategy, I've gotten about 150 followers in 4 months or so. Yeah, that's realistic. My goal every month is 10 engaged followers on Instagram. 

2. Strategize Social Media, but Don't Go Overboard

Here's the thing about social media: it's easy to let it drive you crazy. When you're trying to schedule posts for Facebook, for Instagram, for Twitter, for Pinterest, and more, it gets really overwhelming, especially if you're also a full time student, or parent, or worker. The truth is, you probably just don't have time to do all that managing. I decided to stop scheduling Twitter posts recently (unless something really tickles my fancy). Instead, I focus on scheduling posts for Facebook and that's it. I get a higher return from Facebook, so that's where my energy should go. My goal for Instagram is two posts a day (one around 10am-1pm, and then one after 6pm). 

Ok, but what about Pinterest? Every day, I spend about 20 minutes pinning 5 of my blog posts to two group boards. That's it. And I get a ton of traffic from Pinterest by repinning, by creating dedicated boards to specific topics that are popular on Pinterest, and by creating graphics that look good on Pinterest. You don't need to pay a whole heap of money for a fancy Pinterest scheduler, I swear. I do most of my Pinterest work from my phone while my son sleeps. 

3. Join Facebook groups. 

I really groaned about including this one tip. Because it feels a bit like cheating, doesn't it? Facebook groups dedicated to blogging are great places to promote your blog posts, join threads where people share your most recent post (and you share theirs), and learn how to optimize and improve your blog. It can be really time consuming to try to do everything though. I am only a member of three groups and I participate in maybe one thread a week. That's my goal for the moment! For some good Facebook groups to join, I really like this blog post. 

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2016 Blog Goals

It’s good to have goals. I love writing goals, but I have to be honest: my way of expressing my anxiety is to get really, really lazy. I find myself paralyzed by the fear that I will do badly, that I won’t meet my goal, and therefore, that I shouldn’t even try. I experience the static, hand-wringing kind of anxiety. Some people have to follow a schedule, have to complete tasks, have to always be working. My anxiety turns me into, essentially, a sloth. 

I’ve been planning a post for ages on my process of setting very small goals to break myself out of my anxiety and depression loop, but for now, a simple explanation is that I often choose one thing to do every week and then build on it. For example, a few weeks after I had Forrest, I set the goal that I would change my clothes every day; then the next week, if I succeeded, I would try to shower every day; and then the next week, if I succeeded in both of those goals, I would try to leave the house 2-3 times a week. This sounds like the lamest form of baby steps ever, but I find these kinds goals much easier to digest, personally. 

For my blog, you may have noticed that I’ve recently started posting a lot more. That was a goal I set for myself in August: I wanted to post every week day. Once August was done and I’d successfully kept up blogging every day (usually writing everything in advance the week before), I set the goal that in September, I would keep up a process of scheduling tweets alongside blog posts a week in advance. In October, my goal is to start cleaning up my Instagram feed (a process I’ve already somewhat started) to better promote my blog. 

To be completely transparent, I want to share my goals for the last few months of 2016, so that I, the anxiety sloth, can stay accountable. 

October

As I said, my goal for October to clean up my Instagram feed to better promote my blog. I will, obviously, still share photos of Forrest because he is my number 1 main man. However, I want to start posting, at most, 3 times a day, plus Instagram stories. Here’s my content plan for Instagram: 

  • 0-1 Forrest post per day (this is entirely selfish & for my family) 
  • 1 blog-related post per day
  • 1 personal post per day (dinner, walking, thoughts, etc.) 

Hopefully, this will clean up my feed and allow my Instagram to be more than just a shrine to a baby named Forrest. 

November

I will share more about my goals for November later, but I’m going to be looking into switching from Squarespace to Wordpress. My Squarespace subscription renews in September, so I will keep Squarespace for at least another year. However, Squarespace is very expensive. Way more expensive than I really enjoy paying. That being said, Wordpress seems to be kind of a fight for me, especially with my insecure internet. I need to do some more research on the process. A breakdown of my goals for November: 

  • Keep up blogging, Twitter, & Instagram schedule 
  • Research Wordpress

December

My goal for December is entirely growth-based: I want to start sharing my posts on Pinterest more consistently and I want to see an increase in my traffic of at least 25%. I have a few ways that I want to do this, but they mostly include using my existing social media to better push traffic to my blog, participating in those Twitter chats that I know are important. 

January

Ok, not in 2016, but in January, I want to do something I’ve written about for a while now: I’m going to launch a newsletter. I’m going to change how I was originally going to do this, but I think it will work out really nicely. And hopefully, as my blog and brand grows, I can make positive changes in the direction I want to go. 

I’ll be checking in on these goals periodically in the coming months. Keep my accountable, ok?