August 2019 Accountability: Did We Reach The Target?
Disclaimer: Posts may contain affiliate links. We earn commissions if you shop through the links on this page. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. For more info, read our disclosure policy.
Alright, ladies and gents, it’s that time of the month again and this post is particularly relevant to any new blogger because it contains our own goals and results, which you can use as examples of blog goals.
We were new once (heck, we’re still a bit new) so we get it. We know that it can be overwhelming when you’re trying to do all the things.
So, if you’re all about making a living off a blog, then you can use some of our August goals as part of your blogging strategy. Just remember that goals evolve so don’t feel like you have to stick with these if they’re not working for you.
Now, as you know, we use the last Friday of the month to circle back to see how we did with the goals we set in our Feel Good Friday post on the first Friday of August.
This is why, as you can imagine, this has become a very long post because we’ll be checking in and telling you how we did (and how and why we got our results).
To be honest, we’re excited and terrified at the same time.
Do you know the feeling?
When you know that you’re doing well but impostor’s syndrome is rearing its ugly head and you think that maybe, you’re wrong and you’re actually not doing pretty well at all?
Yeah, that feeling.
Anyway, I think the only way to get rid of that feeling is to start ticking off boxes from our list.
Shall we get to it?
Yeah!
Blogging goals for August 2019
1. Publish 12 blog posts (one every Monday, Wednesday and Friday)
This one is a definite success.
We published three times a week on the first two weeks of August but then went on to do a challenge by embarking on an accelerated publishing schedule.
From the 19th onwards, we are now publishing a post daily.
Most of these posts are brand new posts.
Some are completely revamped old and neglected posts that really needed some love and attention.
In other words, we are now totalling 20 posts published in August, with 17 brand new ones and 3 republished ones.
Starting next week, we’ll be showcasing a few guest posts too and we’re thinking of perhaps scheduling one day a week just for guest posts.
We’ll see on the kind of pitches we get.
If you’re interested, definitely check out our submission guidelines.
Side Note: So, if you’re asking yourself “how much should I blog?” (in other words – how often should I blog to make money?), this is our answer. When you’re just starting out, you need content. Generate as much as you possibly can. Churn content like the world’s running out of butter.
2. Write and publish 3 other guest posts
Okay.
So, as you can probably guess from point number one, we failed spectacularly on point number two.
Hah!
Because we’re publishing daily and we only have a total of 6 hours a day (max) to work on the blog, we don’t have much time to spare on writing guest posts.
We do have our feelers out though so we’ll be sending a few pitches to relevant publications soon.
Just, not now.
By the end of next week, we should be able to add more posts to our schedule and that should free some of our time so that we can write a post meant for another site.
We’ll, of course, keep you posted. 🙂
3. Work with a reputable ad network that will allow us to monetise our blog but not inundate us with annoying ads (yeah, you know what we mean)
We are now the proud members of Google AdSense and Media.net.
Yes, we’re using both.
The good thing about working with these two is the fact that you can actually combine them and they work pretty well together.
Google AdSense relies mostly on images. Media.net, on the other hand, is in-text.
Together, they enable us to monetise our site without too many in-your-face ads.
Of course, because we’re not monetising aggressively, our ad income isn’t very high but when you have to choose between user experience and income…well, we think that barraging our readers with too many ads will eventually lead to loss of interest, which is far more important for us than ad income.
Side Note: For those of you who are also running your own WordPress sites and are considering Google AdSense, keep in mind that not all themes will look good with Auto Ads.
Our site became a total nightmare to work with. Everything was off and there were ads that appeared and displaced my posts.
We had to turn auto ads off and started making our own ads, which now only appear within the posts and nowhere else. Again, this can lead to loss of revenue but we think that loss is worth it.
4. Double our blog traffic in general (we’ll reveal our numbers on the last Friday of the month so keep an eye out)
This one was also a fail – sort of.
I mean, when we wrote our goals on 9 August, we were at 11, 679 sessions and 13,879 pageviews.
We wanted to double this (because our goal was eventually to be making a living off a blog).
But we didn’t manage to (and we actually expected this).
What are our current stats?
As I type this post, we are at 12,782 sessions and 15,306 pageviews. We are improving, as you can see.
Nowhere near the double mark but we actually expected our traffic to tank this month, despite our goal of doubling it.
Why is that?
Because, a week or so ago, we decided to change our permalink structure.
For our eagle-eyed readers, you might have noticed that we used to include the month and the year on our URL. Now, we don’t.
After much deliberation, we realised that we didn’t actually need to put those dates in our permalink.
We’re not a news site so it’s not at all relevant.
And most of our content, except these kinds of posts, are actually evergreen.
There’s also a question of the way the dates in the links impact potential readers that come across our site on search. What do we mean?
Well, now that we’re ranking on Google (hallelujah!), we don’t want to turn potential readers off because they think that our evergreen content is actually outdated because our link contains the month and the year.
I mean, if you came across two possible posts, which one would you choose – the one that says it was written in January 2018 or the one that doesn’t include a date?
If you need more information on why and how you may want to change your permalink structure, please check out Nathaniel Tower’s excellent post.
Our own process pretty much mirrored his and it only took us about an hour to do – except the changing all internal links. That’s taking a good long while – but also one of the reasons why we’re revamping all old blog posts.
Be warned though, changing a permalink structure is a major thing and best undertaken by someone who knows what they’re doing and preferably done before the site goes live.
If you’re an existing site and you really think it’s in your best interest to change your permalink structure, then realise that your traffic (especially organic Google traffic) will most likely take a hit.
Luckily for us, we were in the middle of publishing daily, so Googlebot was used to crawling us almost daily because it now knows that there are many changes afoot in our site every day.
Maybe that’s why our traffic remains steadily improving.
Who knows really?
Sometimes, you just get lucky. 🙂
5. Double the blog traffic that comes from Pinterest (currently 114 clicks per week, as per Google Analytics)
Speaking of lucky.
Remember how we said that we have a love-hate relationship with Pinterest?
Yes, well, we’re so totally back in love with it just now.
Like totally in love.
See?
Double the per week clicks so yay!
Now, if you’re one of those people who are getting thousands of views via Pinterest, you’re probably looking at our measly stats and going, “Poor girl, doesn’t know what she’s doing”.
But hey, trust us, this is a massive improvement to our stats then, which were so embarrassingly low that we’re not even going to put them up here (but think single digits, if you’re really interested).
Side Note: If you had to choose one among these many fine examples of blog goals and you already have some content, I would recommend this one: doubling your Pinterest traffic.
In order to make money (and let’s face it, this is one of the things that can make or break a blog), you need traffic. And to get that traffic when you’re so new, you need to be promoting the heck out of your blog posts.
It’s a very rare niche that won’t do well with Pinterest. For reasons why you need to rely on Pinterest instead of other forms of social media, read this.
6. Start posting every day on Instagram (again)
Another success right here.
Another love affair rekindled.
Yeah, we’re on an on-again-off-again relationship with IG.
But now, we’re scheduling once a day again and actually not hating it so we are so grateful!
We’re here if you want to take a look at our page.
7. Increase my Twitter followers by 10 (currently only have 26)
Our Twitter fanbase is so sad, isn’t it?
It reflects our own resistance to the platform.
We always associated Twitter with negativity, even though we personally have never been on it.
So, we created an account and then deactivated it, then reactivated it again. So many times we can’t even count anymore.
But, now we’re getting the hang of it.
Now, we’re actually enjoying it – engaging with a few people we respect and admire.
So, did we meet this goal?
You bet we did!
From 29 followers, we now have 41 followers!
So again, we are truly grateful.
If you’re new or, like us, can’t seem to come to grips with social media, there is hope. If we can do this, so can you!
8. Earn our fourth Amazon affiliate sale
Yes!
Most of our affiliate sales do not come from Amazon. They come from courses but yesterday, we checked our Amazon US store and lo and behold, our fourth Amazon affiliate sale is right there.
It’s not much, mind you, but this is the first purchase made on Amazon by someone who doesn’t know us personally so our revamped posts are definitely working.
Another success here and another thank you.
9. Get featured by another company
Now, this one is a little bit complicated because we’ve received word that we’ll be featured by another company but we don’t have any details yet.
We won’t jinx it by giving anything away yet but we’ll update this section once we’re more certain of the facts.
Fingers crossed for us!
10. Finish our Wealthy Affiliate training
At the time of writing, I’m sorry to say that we still have not finished our WA training so this is going to our goals for September (obvs) and this time, we’ll be prioritising it.
We’ll add it onto our planner and actually set a time for it.
Deal?
Deal!
Personal goals – Jade
We’ll be breezing through these goals so hang tight.
1. Start working out again – 3x a week for at least 30 minutes each
Check!
But its informal workout really so I don’t even notice I’m working out.
Our 3-year old now goes to nursery and to my chagrin, is so excited to be there.
I walk 40 minutes a day every day now so…win!
2. Finish a chapter of Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles
Actually finished 4 chapters so another win!
3. Declutter the kitchen (we have too much stuff!)
Work in progress because as I said, we have too much stuff!
But the big ones are now gone.
Another win!
4. Unlimited Abundance – finish the first 2 audio on the “Thorough Path”
Currently on my third audio so another win. 🙂
5. Love or Above – implement the Ball of Light every single day
Erm, I honestly forgot that I put this in as a goal so…not a win.
I’ll add this into next Friday’s goal-setting.
Personal goals – Kevin
Kevin is currently at his day job so he’ll be updating later when he gets home.
Stay tuned! 🙂
Final thoughts
And there you have it.
Overall, it’s been a successful month, hasn’t it?
We achieved most of our goals and we’re still surviving so yay!
What about you?
How was your August? Let us know in the comments section below.
Good job guys! One thing I learn more every day and month; all expands and grows over time. For the month, numbers may or may not reach certain thresholds we hold in mind as goals but every visitor is an extra visitor on last month’s totals, and every cent is an extra cent. We live in abundance so everything keeps going up, rising. Good deal on working out too. What a good feeling, right?
Hi Ryan, as usual, your perspective brings clarity. Thanks for stopping by. 🙂