My Blogging Goals 2017 – How did I do?

At the beginning of every new year, I like to set myself some Blogging Goals. Whilst many don’t like to do this, I personally feel that putting a goal down in writing is the first step towards trying to achieve it. By having my goals recorded, I feel like I have some kind of guide to try and aim for as the year goes by.

I set my 2017 blogging goals at the end of December last year, and here 12 months later, I thought it was time to have a look back and see how I got on. Did I achieve them? Which ones were my successes? What, if any, were my total failures? Which things got placed on the back burner and which things need to be rolled over till next year? Here’s the verdict.

I have also created a linky below so that other bloggers can share their own goals for 2018 or their 2017 goals review – I would LOVE to read them – please add the linky badge below so that others can come and join us! 🙂

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Social Media Following

I set myself an overall target of increasing my social following. The individual targets for each channel were set a bit high on this one t hough, and in hindsight, I may have taken for granted just how challenging it can be on certain channels. I initially stated that I would like 5000+ on Twitter (achieved!), 8,000+ on Facebook (NOPE!) and 2000+ on Instagram (NOPE).

Instagram I have found an INCREDIBLY hard channel to grow, and essentially I think a lot of this is down to the quality of my images and the fact that the overarching majority of my photos are of my children – there are only so many pictures of other peoples kids that regular people want to see!! 🙂 I can’t get my head round their algorithms at all, and as a blogger I don’t think I am alone on this one!

My Facebook channel is still my most effective channel and has grown by 15% this year which I am pleased with, and my Instagram has more than doubled since its early beginnings. Overall my social following has increased by 60% in 2017, so I am over the moon with that and taking that as an overall win. ACHEIVED

Views

I wanted to see my monthly readership views increase by around 30% by the end of 2017 – this has been achieved, and in fact my views have almost doubled in 2017. I have gone from around 10k views on average to 21k views in December 2017. Again, really pleased with this. ACHEIVED

Domain authority

After losing a lot of historical posts when my blog host went AWOL in 2016, my DA had taken a massive hit. I started the year with a DA of 17, and in December 2017, it currently sits at 35 (having reached 36 at its peak). I am again really pleased with this achievement, which has been done mostly via taking part in linkies, crowdsourcing, and working hard on creating content that people would like to share – I have had some great back links from sources with high DA’s this year that Moz is yet to pick up on, so hopefully that will help going forwards too. ACHIEVED

Pinterest

I wanted to start using this as an additional source of traffic. This is a total non starter – as I can honestly say I haven’t made a single pin in 2017!! 🙂 – I know it is something I need to look at eventually, but for now, I have placed on the back burner to focus on other things. #FAIL!!!

Take better quality photographs

I like to think that my image quality has improved at least a little. In the middle of the year I invested in a brand new camera (G7X) and have tried a lot harder to capture and edit shots with this as opposed to relying on my iPhone. That said, the iPhone in the right light can take an AMAZING photo – including this one which is one of my favourite pics from the whole year of Erin. ACHIEVED

Get a strong balance between sponsored and evergreen content on my blog 

I have done more sponsored posts this year than ever before, and earned a sum which I am happy with considering the blog is a part time hobby as opposed to a full time job. That said, I have still enjoyed writing my evergreen content, and had a few viral posts this year that have done really well in terms of readership. I still love my reviews, and many people have read my toy reviews in the run up to Christmas. ACHIEVED

Plan and Schedule

I still haven’t invested in a proper scheduling tool for Twitter, with the exception of sharing old posts – and this can be hit and miss as it sometimes shares things that I wished it hadn’t (like Easter crafts in Summer!). I will be looking at social oomph in the new year, as still feel I am missing out on potential sources of traffic as I don’t promote my posts enough once they have been published. Whilst I do try and write posts in advance, as a part time blogger, many of my posts are still written on the fly or when the moment takes me. #FAIL!!!

Build up my #nightfeednatter community

This one completely got parked – I had great hopes of creating an online community for mums who are up in the night with their little ones – but the reality was that I was simply too tired to keep it up. After 15 months of not having more than 5 hours sleep a night, I am exhausted and something had to give!! #FAIL!!!

Overall, not a bad year at all, and I am really pleased with my progress. I am hoping 2018 will be a great year for Real Mum Reviews, and am feeling inspired and motivated for the year ahead. You can check out my 2018 goals when I have written them HERE.

Thanks again for all your support this year!

Want to link up your own goals post? Please use the inlinkz link below! 🙂 Can’t wait to read them! x

Lucy x