12 Blogging Goals for 2020 | Actionable, measurable blogging goals for 2020 focussed on increasing page views, blog income, and social media/e-mail subscribers, and improving at SEO.
2019 was an exciting year for the RTC Blog, as the four years of effort began to show its potential.
New page view highs were reached nearly all year long, the e-mail subscriber and social media following continued to grow, and most of the blogging goals were achieved as well. In addition, the blog is currently on pace to have its highest month for page views yet.
I sincerely appreciate all of the comments, social media followers, and e-mail subscribers. It means a lot!
Blog Numbers
Since RTC’s inception in November 2015, the blog has received 123,364 page views all-time (Nov 1, 2015 to December 31, 2019).
During the first year of blogging, when I was off work, page views were typically in the 2,000 to 3,000 per month range. I had to really work to get 50 or 100 page views per day back then. I was publishing 10 to 20 posts per month (many of those posts are in draft mode now), and I was spending a lot more time on social media than I do now.
Then page views dipped after I went back to work, which was to be expected. I didn’t have as much time and my “elude the 9 to 5” story no longer seemed appropriate. In turn, I believe that transition temporarily hurt the blog’s following. Page views were in the 1,000 to 1,500 range back in 2017. Worse, going back to work caused me to be paranoid. I started to write like I was being observed by colleagues I worked with. I wrote safe rather than interesting. This carried on until mid 2018 when I realized I had no choice but to pursue blogging.
Since then, the blog’s traffic has been steadily increasing. The blog got back to posting 3,000+ page view months during the 2nd half of 2018. That was until a new record was achieved in January 2019—the RTC blog began to see 5,000+ page views per month.
If I had to pinpoint why, the dividend income updates seemed to be the primary driver for traffic. However, to my own surprise, some of the best performing content is original.
1. View the blog as a media outlet
Whether you like social media or not, it’s impossible to deny that it has allowed anyone to become their own media outlet.
One of the key concepts that has allowed me to grow the RTC social media accounts is that I view the blog as a media outlet.
This is not just one man’s blog. RTC is a media outlet about financial independence through blogging and investing. It’s a creative outlet on ways to add more time to life.
This media outlet perspective has allowed me to become a better distributor of similar content, and I’ve also been able to carve out my own niche. I’m not just another personal finance blogger sharing my dividend numbers, because I’m showcasing other options, such as taking a year off or working part-time, along the way.
2. Share an average of 30 to 50 pieces of content per day, or 100 on days off work.
Since I am a big supporter of Gary Vaynerchuk, I’ve adopted his views on using social media to promote RTC. This is why you can expect to see more active RTC social media accounts in 2020.
My goal is to share at least 30 pieces of content per day across my social media channels: Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. The timeframe is daily between 12:00 am to 11:59 pm.
On days that I’m off work and not spending time with family and friends, my goal is to share 100 pieces of content per day. Although this may sound a bit excessive, consider how much noise exists online in today’s world.
By sharing at least 30 pieces of content per day, I can generate a few hundred page views and make sure old and new content is accessible during all hours of the day.
3. Grow the Social Media and Subscriber Following
In addition to sharing 30 to 100 pieces of content per day, I want to continue to grow the social media following and e-mail subscriptions.
Before getting into it, I just want to thank every single follower and subscriber! I am sincerely grateful to anyone that takes the time to comment, follow, subscribe, or connect with me. It’s connecting with like-minds that makes blogging so rewarding.
As of now, the total RTC social media and e-mail subscriber following is up to 4,477.
Fortunately I was able to reach nearly all of my social media goals last year except Instagram. However, I don’t think I pushed my social media abilities enough last year. I mostly just shared content. This year I plan to be a lot more active following new accounts, engaging, and with sharing related content. I actually have a post I have been working on about how to market a blog on social media coming up. I am hoping to follow my own strategy to build up the social media channels. I believe the below targets are achievable if I make an effort everyday and continue to create valuable content.
In the meantime, you can check out last year’s blogging goals here.
Here is a summary of my social media goals for 2020:
Twitter Goal: 3,000 followers
Current: 2,640 followers
Pinterest Goal: 2,000 followers
Current: 1,227 followers
Instagram Goal: 1,000 followers
Current: 420 followers
Facebook Goal: 100 followers
Current: 42 followers
E-mail Subscriber Goal: 250 subscribers
Current: 148 subscribers
Total: 4,477
4. Improve at SEO
Although I’ve experienced some success with SEO, I realized that I still have much to learn.
Many of the bloggers I look up to have seemingly mastered Google Search Optimization, while I’ve tended to focus on blogging as more of a personal hobby over the years. I view blogging as a creative outlet and approach it as if it’s an art form. Whether or not that is apparent is up for debate.
But what is not up for debate is that I’m reaching a point where I want blogging to become more of a business, especially with the part-time job risk I took on in 2019. One of the main reasons I accepted the part-time job was to have more time for blogging.
For blogging to become more of a business, I must learn more about SEO and implement it to drive more traffic. Organic search traffic seems to be a necessary component for applying for a better ad network too, such as Monumetric or Mediavine. I am currently using Google Adsense and would like to apply for Monumetric once I consistently surpass 10,000 page views per month.
To learn more about SEO, I plan to study the various articles I’ve found on the topic, network with other bloggers that have experienced success with SEO, and I may even take a course.
5. Publish 75 New Posts
I am happy to report that I surpassed my goal to publish 60 blog posts in 2019. I ended up with 67 published post last year.
Since I’m working part-time now, and to incrementally improve over the 67 posts published last year, I am setting the target at 75 new posts in 2020.
I especially like this goal because it is actionable. It’s not subjective like my goal to improve at SEO is. I just need too put in enough work to publish 75 posts. It works out to just over 6 blog posts per month.
“Blogging is hard because of the grind required to stay interesting and relevant.” – Sufia Tippu
6. Work towards 10k page views per month
It’s no secret that I value blogging as a creative outlet. But obviously these goals have an underlying purpose—I want to make more money from blogging so I can eventually blog and live off dividends. Therefore I must increase page views.
Ultimately, I am working towards 10,000 page views per month this year so I can apply for Monumetric.
I must admit that I enjoy the challenge of creating content and marketing a blog. It’s this pursuit that keeps me going. Even though I value time for being idle, I love blogging because I always have something to work on. It has been an exciting challenge to grow the blog over the last few years. Now that I’m beginning to show some signs of potential, I am super excited to see if I can average 10,000 page views per month by the end of the year.
7. Increase Blog Income
Like I said, there is an underlying purpose to my blogging efforts, especially now that I’m part-time.
I’ll be honest, my absolute dream is to make a decent living from blogging. I want to be able to spend enough time on blogging to write all of the philosophies out of my head, and I want to earn enough to grow the dividend business.
In a perfect world, I could earn an extra 10k to 20k from blogging on top of my part-time job. My part-time job, dividend investing, and blogging is the triple income stream I want to live on.
I also think making money from blogging is becoming more of a focus because I am maturing. I seem to be reaching an age where money has become the goal. And this is partially because I am happy in the other aspects of my life. There is no longer anything else to prove.
In turn, my goal is to increase blog income over last year. To be more specific, I would be satisfied with a low 4-figure income from blogging in 2020. I set the goal to earn $500 last year, even though I wasn’t able to chase income from blogging while I was working at a bank. However, I managed to come close to this figure in only the last few months of the year: I earned $70 from an affiliate in December 2019, $106.62 from advertisements in October 2019, $86.88 from a sponsorship in August 2019, and I also was paid for an Amazon review last year.
This year I want to earn more from advertisements, since this method allows me to focus on content and avoid sketchier sponsorships.
Related Post: A Blog Post about Sponsored Content that’s not full of S–t
8. Utilize all the Best Affiliate Options
At present, the RTC affiliate list includes Questrade, Amazon, and Bluehost.
The good news is that these are all services I know and use, or at least I have used in the past. However, there are other suitable affiliates out there that I could be using. Perhaps additional affiliates are the key to my income goals for the blog…
Anyways, my goal is to utilize all applicable affiliates in 2020. I want to present the affiliates better in the blog’s side bar, and I plan to begin including other bank account options as well since this is a personal finance blog after all.
Furthermore, I’ve already done the research and have a good idea of what affiliates would work. In fact, I already have an account with Share-A-Sale. I just need to take the time to implement the most suitable affiliates.
Improvement Goals: Blogging Goals for 2020
The 2nd portion of blogging goals for 2020 is dedicated to areas I want to improve. Here’s the plan for 2020:
9. Update Recommendations and About page
Over time this blog has evolved and my journey has changed.
For those that don’t know, this blog started at the end of 2015 as a way to track my day trades. I never expected that blogging would become such a central focus back then. But 4 months into day trading, my focus completely shifted to blogging.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough money or the know how to blog full-time at that point. So I went back to work and kept blogging as a personal project on the side.
Related Post: Ultimate Reflections on Mini-Retirement
After almost 3 years of full-time work, I had once again saved up enough money to have options. Since my goal was to spend more time on blogging, I pursued a high paying part-time job that offered the flexibility I was looking for.
The point is that a lot has changed over my four year blogging journey. My goal is to update the About page to reflect this progression, and I want to update the Recommendations to discuss my improved understanding of the services I recommend.
10. Improve the E-mail Subscription Newsletter
I was recently featured in The Fioneer’s Newsletters about Slow FI, which was an absolute honor.
This led to becoming interested in updating the RTC Newsletter. It’s a long overdue upgrade, to be honest.
My plan is to upgrade the logo, add to the message, update the social media and subscriber numbers, and include the services I recommend.
This is a simple goal on the list that shouldn’t require too much time.
11. Update the Top Performing Posts and Pages
As I mentioned above, one of my main blogging goals for 2020 is to improve at SEO.
Since Google appreciates content that is up to date, my plan is to update and improve the top performing pages and posts on the blog.
Essentially, I will use Google Search Console and Google Analytics to determine the top performing pages and posts. Then I’ll update the pages with newer, more relevant information, improve them aesthetically, and edit the writing so it’s easier to read.
Ultimately, this should help the posts rank higher in Google search. Otherwise it will make the articles become more helpful and easier to read.
“What you do after you create your content is what truly counts.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
12. Improve at Sales
Despite the fact that I’ve had successful sales experience in my career, I have never applied any of these skills to blogging.
I more or less copy and paste the same Questrade affiliate advertisement in each post, or I’ll add an Amazon link for a book here and there.
Frankly, I’m not the best at affiliate marketing, and I’m sure this is why I haven’t had the most success with it. I’ve had some success with Questrade and only a couple sales with Bluehost. Further, I’m not even utilizing all the best affiliate opportunities, as I mentioned earlier.
In short, my goal for this year is to begin asking for the sale. I must put in as much effort with selling as I do at writing new posts.
I plan to include the right affiliates and ask for the sale in posts, and I also want to add books to the blog’s sidebar.
Concluding Thoughts – Blogging Goals for 2020
For the most part, I attempted to focus on actionable, measurable blogging goals for 2020.
With the exception of a few of the goals on the list, I believe most are actionable items that just require more effort. Therefore they are achievable goals.
In terms of less measurable blogging goals for 2020, I am aiming to become more positive and helpful overall. I’ll admit that I mostly write for my own entertainment, but I’ve been making an effort to share my own experiences in a more educational way.
Moreover, this journey is really beginning to come together over the last year. Yes, I am a dividend investor that is documenting his journey to financial independence. But I am also trying to show that saving money is not the only way to acquire more time. You can take a year off, earn side hustle income through blogging, or you can even consider a part-time job.
Now that I’ve found my own way to add more time, and since I’ve discovered my passion for blogging, I am excited to get to work on the challenges I’ve set.
Questions for the readers: Would you like to see more blog analytics posts? Would you like to see more on the social media numbers? Do you think a posting schedule is important to grow a blog? What blog goals do you have in mind for 2020?
I am not a licensed investment or tax adviser. All opinions are my own. This post contains advertisements by Google Adsense. This post also contains internal links, affiliate links, links to external sites, and links to RTC social media accounts.
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