2014 Blogging Goals Revisited!

Last year, I had three goals for my blog {post here}. Here is how the year stacked up and the status of these three goals:

Goal #1: Focus on consistency and frequency of blog posts.

Since starting my new job in November, my blogging has gone by the wayside. I want my readers to keep coming back for more and the only way to do that is to be more reliable. Now, to set an achievable goal, I would like to post at least two to three times a week.

Status: With the new job, my frequency and consistency did not really improve this year. I averaged 6 posts a month. My highest consisted of a month with 9 posts and some months were as low was 3 postings.

Goal #2: Engage new readership.

To help get the ball rolling with this, I would like to connect with more bloggers. I tend to read the same group of bloggers and only comment on their posts every now and then. To increase my readership, I hope to branch out, meet new faces, and converse/ leave comments on a more regular basis. This likely won’t be something that I can do every day but I hope to work on my engagement at least three days per week.

Status: I think this goes hand in hand with my first goal. With less frequency in posting in 2014, I was at least able to maintain my readership. So while that target was missed, I had a very successful year connecting with more Bloggers in person at events like Ragnar, Princess Half Marathon, ZOOMA Annapolis, and the Fitness Magazine Meet & Tweet. However, I did not branch out and read/comment on more blogs. I think that this went by the wayside with my work and family commitments this year. My job is more draining than I would like to admit and most days, I seriously just want to be a vegetable on the couch at night and not think about blogging/commenting/social media. A year ago, this would bother me but I am coming to understand that this is okay for me and my blog. I need to leave that self imposed pressure to comment, tweet, etc. all the time by the wayside and do what works for me.

Goal #3: Pay attention to my numbers.

I have to admit that I do not watch my analytics at all, especially since I made the move from Blogger to WordPress over the summer. Now, I don’t want to get wrapped up in the numbers but I would like to at least take note of which posts are performing well and which ones are not. That way, I can gauge what my followers are interested in reading. Want to see more or less of something, please shoot me a message.

Status: After a moving to WordPress, I still haven’t paid attention to my numbers. And, honestly, sometimes it catches me off guard when a company approaches me to work together and I don’t have numbers to give them. Okay, it’s not that I don’t have numbers; I use a few plugins to give me a rough estimate. And, it’s not that I don’t care about the growth of my blog. I am just not in a position where I hope to make this my full-time job right now. And, I don’t want numbers to be the driving force on my blog. I don’t want to get caught up in over analyzing everything. Having a background in clinical research, I know that I have the tendency to go crazy with trends, stats, etc. However, I will acknowledge that this is an industry standard for working with brands so I finally broke down and installed Google Analytics on January 1st. Hello, can we say a few years late to the party.

There you have it! My 2014 Blogging Goals Revisited! I love seeing growth over the course of a year. I have learned so much about myself and where I hope to see my blog this coming year. And, just because I didn’t really nail these goals doesn’t mean that I don’t see this year as a success. In fact, this year was very eye opening and I ended it feeling like I was being more true to myself and my blog than ever before.

Needless to say, I’m very excited for 2015! How about you? Do you write and revisit goals? What makes a year successful to you?
Lisa