Blogging Goals 2021

I cannot believe, after a pretty disastrous year, that we are finally at the end of 2020 and once again, I’m here looking back on my blogging goals of 2020 and planning my blogging goals for 2021.

It’s been a funny old year for us all, but despite the hardships of the pandemic, I’m pleased to report that it’s been a successful year for my blog which has continued to grow beyond my wildest dreams.

Although work has slowed down considerably, page views and visitors to my blog have grown drastically and my fourth year blogging has been the most successful yet.

As I always do, I’ll start this post by looking back on last year’s goals and seeing how I did, before writing about my blogging goals for 2021.

Blogging goals 2020

1. GET TO 25,000 MONTHLY SESSIONS

I hit 25,000 sessions in April of 2020 and immediately applied for Mediavine which was my main reason for wanting to hit this benchmark. Thank god I did, as only a few weeks later, Mediavine decided you needed 50k sessions to apply, so I really did make it in at the nick of time.

Over 2020, I have averaged 27,000 sessions per month, which has it course been helped by the pandemic. During the height of lockdown, I was averaging 1k sessions per day which eased off over the summer.

The biggest rise in sessions has come from Google which is now my biggest referrer of traffic, overtaking Pinterest. Considering I was only getting 1,000 Google sessions a month on 2019, it’s a huge achievement to now be getting close to 12,000 sessions a month now.

I am so proud of hitting this goal of 25k sessions!

2. INCREASE DA TO 30+

Sadly, I did not hit this goal. DA has been a huge struggle for many during 2020, it never seems to move! It will be interesting to see if I get more traction with moving it in 2021.

3. INCREASE EARNINGS TO £700+ PER MONTH

I am very thankful to say I reached this goal in 2020, despite a difficult year due to the pandemic. Fortunately, being accepted into Mediavine has boosted my income beyond my wildest dreams. With an average payout so far this year of £282 a month, it’s a far cry from the £30 I was earning previously with Google Adsense.

I have also continued to make money from my blog from sponsored posts, social media collaborations with brands and affiliate income.

4. GROW PINTEREST MONTHLY VIEWERS AND CLICK THROUGHS

I wanted to beat 116k click throughs for the year and have average monthly viewers of 400k+ so how did I do?

With 164k clicks at the end of November, I am projected to hit just shy of 180k clicks from Pinterest this year which I’m really pleased with.

My monthly viewers has been well above 400k throughout the year, with it peaking at 600k in April.

Pinterest has been a huge source of traffic for me throughout the year which has continued throughout autumn despite many others seeing huge drops in impressions and traffic.

5. GROW SOCIAL MEDIA

Instagram 10,000 (+3000) – didn’t happen. I grew by around 1000.

Facebook 1600 (+135) – Smashed it and am finishing the year on 1682 thanks to a couple of giveaways.

Twitter 10,000 (+4000) – Nowhere near!

YouTube 600 (+120) – Nope.

Pinterest 5000 (+1400) – No. Still around 400 off.

I think we can safely say social media was not my priority this year!

With last year’s goals reviewed, it’s now onto my blogging goals for 2021!

Blogging Goals 2021

1. Get to 35k sessions per month. 420k for the year

My ultimate goal now with my blog is to grow session numbers so I can increase the amount of passive income I earn through Mediavine.

I am currently averaging 27k sessions per month and I’d like to grow this to 35k sessions per month, hitting 420k sessions over the year. This would net me around 7k in passive income.

How am I looking to achieve this? Through:

150k sessions from Google
200k sessions from Pinterest
70k sessions from direct/referral/other social channels

2. Get DA/DR to 30

Growing my DA is back on the cards for this year, but I’m also going to be closely monitoring my Domain Rating too. I’d like to get both to above 30 and I’m going to do this by increasing my backlinking activity.

I’m going to aim to increase the number of linking domains by 120, finishing on 560 linking domains by the end of 2021.

3. Earn £1000 per month

My biggest goal of the year is to increase my sessions and therefore my ad income, so therefore I am going to be aiming to make on average £1000 a month from my blog.

This income will allow me to continue working part time at work (I am currently working four days a week instead of five), pay for us to get away on holiday a couple of times and boost the savings we have in the bank.

4. Create 50 new pieces of content

More quality content = more page views, it’s as simple as that.

My goal for 2021 is to produce a new piece of content per week including listicles and recipes.

This is going to be a tough goal as I work four days a week in a pretty demanding job, but no pain, no gain! If I want to hit my sessions and income goals, then this is going to be the way to do it!

I hope you enjoyed this post of my blogging goals 2021. I’d love to read your posts on the same subject so please leave links to them in the comments below.

Here’s to a healthy and prosperous 2021!