2017 Blogging Goals

My blog has had quite the journey since I created it just over 3 years ago. I launched Real Mum Reviews whilst on maternity leave with my first child, as a way to keep myself semi-sane whilst away from the office. I soon became somewhat obsessed with blogging, and have been actively writing and chatting ever since! 🙂

Unfortunately for me, I made a fair few rookie mistakes, one of which included not making any back ups 🙁 – When my third party host went AWOL in 2016, I was unable to get into the dashboard of my wordpress site, meaning my content was lost and I was unable to retrieve it. Despite numerous attempts to get my content back, I had to eventually admit defeat and take it as a lesson learnt. Not one to give up however, I rebuilt my site from scratch in May, buying a new theme, and giving my blog a fresh new face for 2016.

I have had some great successes with my blog so far, however having 3 years of links and content lost means that my Domain Authority has suffered as a result. At the time of writing here are my current social media stats:

Facebook – 6065
Twitter – 2239
Instagram – 439 – I only launched my Instagram this summer, as I had never really used it before.
You Tube – Abismal – I have yet to do much vlogging as I hate the sight of my own face!! I heard the camera adds 10 pounds… and I could do with losing about 20!! Ha ha!

My 2017 Blogging Goals

I have set myself a number of goals for 2017, that I feel are, in theory, challenging but manageable. SMART objectives if you will! 🙂

1. Social Following – This may sound like an obvious one, but I would love to continue to increase my social following and readership stats. By the end of 2017 I would like 5000+ on Twitter, 8,000+ on Facebook, and 2000+ on Instagram. I think Facebook will be the biggest challenge of these, and 8000 may be on the side of wishful thinking, but I will continue to work to increase engagement to help with Facebook algorithms. I would also like to see my monthly readership views increase by around 30% by the end of 2017. In order to do this, I HAVE to write good content – content that people will actually want to read.
2. Increase my domain authority to become a more trusted source with brands and press. I am starting on the back foot here, with 3 years worth of backlinks to rebuild before my DA improves, but I am stubborn, and I will get there. I aim to do this by writing good quality content that hopefully others would like to link to. I will also take part in more linkies, write some guest posts and comment more on others posts as I read them.
3. Pinterest – I have not made use of Pinterest at all to date – and would love to start using this as an additional source of traffic. A big crafter, I’d like to think there is scope for this to be reasonably successful.
4. Take better quality photographs –  in order to achieve 1 and 3, I would like to improve the quality of my images, using my actual camera more and using backdrops to avoid my messy house being the star of the show. That said, I also want to make sure I don’t spend my entire life through a lens – its a difficult balance!
5. Get a strong balance between sponsored and evergreen content on my blog. I love to write about current affairs, but also parenting support that is relevant all year around. My reviews are my bread and butter, but I would love to be involved in more collaborative posts or secure an ambassador role in 2017.
6. Plan and Schedule – I aim to blog at least 3 times a week, and more at key times of the year. I do not currently schedule posts however, and therefore miss out on potential promotional activity. This year, I will start scheduling posts, particularly on Twitter, where the average life of a tweet is pretty short.
7. Build up my #nightfeednatter community. At the moment, there are only a few people engaging under the hashtag, and I want it to become a bustling Twitter Chat for lonely parents doing the night feed!

I am sure I will have more as the months go by, but those are my initial goals for now!

I’d love to hear from other bloggers about their goals for 2017? Please feel free to share your link in the comments below! 🙂 x