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Blogging Goals for 2020

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I can’t believe it’s been a year since I wrote my blogging goals for 2019 post and yet here we are, one year down the line, at the end of another year. I am bit late to the party for my blogging goals for 2020 thanks to the past month being crazy due to my return to work after maternity leave, but finally here we are!

Like every year, this post will review the goals I set in 2018 and set some new targets for the year ahead.

I have now been blogging for over three years and the blog itself has grown bigger than I ever could have imagined.

As well as being a hobby, it provides me a small monthly income which has been invaluable this year due to being on maternity leave.

Review of 2019 goals

Reach Top 100 in TOTS

At the end of 2018 I was somewhere in the top 150 on the TOTS rankings and the highest I’ve reached this year has been 112. It’s a shame I got so close to the top 100 but didn’t meet my target, but I’m not going to worry too much about it as I’ve worked with TOTS on a few campaigns this year and I don’t believe this ranking impacts that much on the success of my blog. I have fallen over the last couple of months to the mid 200s due to an algorithm change. It will be interesting to see if I move again in the new year or if the top 300 will be my new home.

Achieve average 10,000 views per month

At the end of 2018, I was averaging 9000 page views per month and I’m pleased to say that this year I have averaged 15,300 page views a month thanks to working hard on a strategy to increase them.

After installing AMP on my site in March to try to improve Google rankings, I lost two months of data as I did not install analytics correctly in the AMP plugin, so in reality the numbers are even higher.

google analytics page views for 2019

Increasing page views has involved a lot of work on SEO of old posts, creation of new posts using keyword research, implementing a Pinterest strategy that involves pinning over 30 times a day, scheduling posts and running giveaways. I am really proud of the number of page views I’ve had this year and even prouder that I’ve reduced my bounce rate by 2.5% as well by increasing my internal links.

Grow social media

Growing social media is always an important goal for me and my aim was to get to 17,500 followers across all networks by achieving the following numbers:

Instagram 6000 (+1000)

Facebook 1500 (+280)

Pinterest 2500 (+700)

YouTube 500 (+170)

Twitter 7000 (+2000)

I managed to smash Instagram and Pinterest, but the others fell short by quite a bit. Overall though, my total follower number is now above 18,000 which I am so pleased about and I hope I can continue to grow this as we move into 2020.

Earn on average £500 per month

I smashed this goal this year by making on average £623 a month. Some months were obviously better than others and my worst month was March where I only earned £205. It’s been a great extra bit of income whilst being on maternity leave and we have used it to pay for the boys’ bedrooms, our trip away to Spain in the Summer and of course, I always put some away for the end of the tax year!

Grow Pinterest (without using Tailwind)

My aim was to increase my average monthly viewers to 300k and to increase engagement to 5%, all without using Tailwind…so how did I do? Well, I cracked in September and decided to try using Tailwind again and by October I decided to purchase the annual plan so I had unlimited pins.  My average monthly audience was 345,000 and my engagement rate was 5.34%, so it’s safe to say both targets were smashed. Page views from Pinterest increased by over 50% and I had 30,000 more page views from Pinterest this year than I did last year. Now, I just want to keep on growing this more and more using a new strategy I implemented in September to see where 2020 can take the blog using Pinterest!

Goals for 2020

1. Get to 25,000 monthly sessions

Mediavine is totally on my radar and I would love to reach the numbers required so I can make passive income from my blog. I am currently averaging around 17,000 sessions so have some work to do on increasing visits to my blog by using Pinterest, SEO and running some giveaways. If I can sign up to Mediavine by the end of 2020, I will be made up.

sessions google analytics 2019

2. Increase DA to 30+

DA is been a huge challenge this year. in February, I was finally at 30 before Moz decided to do a complete overhaul of their algorithm and I dropped down to 25. I have been working hard to increase ever since and have been as high as 29, although I am currently at 28. Being at 30 brings so much more work, so I’ll be looking to do whatever I can to increase it.

3. Increase earnings to £700+ per month

I am back at work full time in 2020, but I’d love to continue earning from my blog and even increase the amount I earn each month if possible. It does mean dedicating quite a bit of time to the blog outside of work, but the extra income is invaluable and will help us make regular overpayments on the mortgage and have lots of lovely days out.

4. Grow Pinterest monthly viewers and click throughs

Last year, I had over 116,000 clicks from Pinterest which I would like to grow to 150,000 and I’d like to grow my monthly viewers to 400k+ I am hoping my Tailwind strategy helps with this as well as writing more articles purely for Pinterest.

5. Grow social media

I would like to grow my social media following to over 26k by the end of 2020 and I plan to do this by growing numbers across the following platforms:

Instagram 10,000 (+3000)

Facebook 1600 (+135)

Twitter 10,000 (+4000)

YouTube 600 (+120)

Pinterest 5000 (+1400)

I think I have some pretty massive goals for 2020, which I know will be a big challenge, but a challenge I am fully prepared to undertake! Getting back into the swing of going back to work after maternity leave, as well as continuing to grow this blog will be hard, but I have the inclination and determination to do it, so I am not fazed by it, in the slightest!

Wish me luck!

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