I don’t know how many people in the rightosphere take time to write out goals for their blog, but last year I did. I thought it was important that I look at where I was going, and why, if I was going to be a top tier blogger.
I still think goals are important, which is why I just finished writing my goals for 2010. But first, let’s review the goals for 2009 and see how I did.
2009 Goals
- 1,500 RSS Subscribers
- Average 2,000 Unique Visitors a Day
- Get Published
- Generate $250 Monthly Revenue
- 52 Original Articles
- Improve Community on Forum
- Publish an E-book
Goal #1: 1,500 RSS Subscribers
This is the one goal I feel I actually put some effort into achieving. I read quite a few articles on increasing subscribers and implemented some of the strategies. For example, I had Andrew add the “SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE VIA RSS OR EMAIL” graphic to the header. The graphic also asks the reader if they understand was RSS is, and tells them where they can learn if they don’t.
I thought it was important that readers who might not be as tech savvy as others understood RSS subscriptions were free. I even wrote a guest post on it for Liz Strauss’s blog.
Another thing I did to increase subscriptions was encourage Right WIng News readers to visit All American Blogger and subscribe. I did this by ending my cross postings there with, “This post was cross posted at All American Blogger, where you can find other great original articles. While you are there, subscribe to the free RSS feed. Don’t know what RSS is? Click here to find out.”
John Hawkins is generous enough not only allow me to put that on the posts, but encourages me to put it there.
Finally, the 2009 All American Christmas Contest made it mandatory you be a subscriber to see the link to the post. While my social networking efforts really sabotaged that plan, it did result in new subscribers from when the contest was announced to when it was closed.
In the end, I did get close. As of right now, my Feedburner widget shows 1225 subscribers. Not bad.
While I didn’t meet my goal, had I not set it I think my current numbers would be far lower.
Goal #2: Average 2,000 Unique Visitors Per Day
Not even close.
While my numbers aren’t terrible, they are no where near where I wanted them to be now. I think it has to do with the lack of original content. No, I don’t mean I’m scraping content from other people. Everything I put on here I created. What I mean is, I find myself generally writing a comment or two, quoting what someone else has written, then ending with another comment or two.
That’s not original content in my book. That’s saying, “Look what someone else wrote.”
Original content is stuff like, “I Bought A Gallon of Milk Today” or “Gun Free Zones and the Ketchup Bottle.” Those you can’t find anywhere else. And articles like that get linked to by other bloggers. Most bloggers aren’t going to link to a simple link post like I can churn out in ten minutes. Oh, they may Hat Tip me, but that doesn’t result in a lot of unique visitors.
But if another blogger reads an original articles, quotes it and adds a link, you will get more and more visitors. Only a few will return, but that little bit helps your overall numbers.
There are many reasons why I didn’t write a lot of original posts for AAB this year, one of them being the completion of the next goal.
Goal #3; Get Published
When the American Issues Project started its column and blog section this year, I was approached to contribute an article a week. It was a huge milestone in my writing career. I was now going to be a paid columnist.
The topic, fiscal policy, was a little intimidating to me. I felt I could do the job though and I relied heavily on my editor for advice. She came through when I needed her, and I wrote quite a few original pieces for AIP. If you want, you can read them here.
I also spent a bit of time marketing these articles, not only here, but on StumbleUpon, Free Republic, Twitter and Facebook. Because of that, I found my articles featured in the “Most Read” section of the site quite often.
Unfortunately, the site just wasn’t bringing in the numbers some felt were necessary and the contract was ended. It was a good run however, and helped me become a better writer.
Goal #4: Generate $250 Monthly Revenue
I don’t even think I thought about this goal when I set it. I pretty much pulled the number out of my hind end. $250 a month comes out to $3,000 a year. In order to do that, I would have to average $58 a week, or $8 a day.
Look at the site today. The only ad on it is the big Adsense 250×250, which readers rarely, if ever, click on. I think most have it filtered out by their browsers anyway. My Topspots brings in a little change, but I never see that as it get funneled back into the blog, I think (Andrew maintains that.)
The only affiliate link on the site is the “What Duane’s Reading” graphic in the sidebar. It gets a few hits now and then, but it seems people aren’t buying much.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not whining. While I would love to get to the point where I am making some money on this blog, right now it just isn’t happening and that is totally my fault. I just have not taken the action.
But in 2010, I will.
Goal #5: 52 Original Articles
The idea here was simple. I would update the blog daily with stories as they happened, but each week would feature an original article to bring in the traffic. I intended to have it be around 750-1000 words, heavy in information, much like the posts you find in the “Best Of” section.
Something like “The 10 Most Outrageous Terrorists of the Right Wing Mob.” That brought in a lot of traffic via tweets and links.
It didn’t work out that way. I started the year out with a bang, but found it easy to sluff off and rely on the link posts and such. This failure did the most damage to the other goals in my opinion. Had I worked harder on this, I feel it would have had a positive impact on not only the other goals, but the blog, my reputation and my brand.
So why didn’t I do it? It’s hard. It’s that simple. I have a full time job, working 12 hour days on a rotating schedule. Some weeks I work nights, some weeks I work days. That’s a tough row to hoe as it is. Then you factor in a wife and five kids, a house and five acres to maintain and other personal obligations and I found myself stretched pretty thin. Sitting down to write, I’d just want to pound out four or five quick posts and go to bed.
That’s where I find myself now.
Again, not whining, but being realistic. Can I even achieve this goal? It is hard, but I think I can do it, so expect to see it on my list for 2010. I mean, reading 100 books in a year was hard too, but I did that.
Goal #6: Improve Community on Forum
Forum? What forum?
The blog did have a forum at one time. But when it was rebooted earlier in the year, it was removed. People just weren’t using it.
Again, I blame myself. I wasn’t directing readers there enough, nor was I participating in it enough. I’d like to see a robust forum operating on the blog, as none of the other conservative blogs have one, but I don’t know if it will work.
I mean, there’s probably a reason none of the other blogs have one, right? Still, I’d love to have a community of people adding their own content and opinions on the site. Is this something you think you’d participate in?
Goal #7: Write an E-Book
I did quite a bit of research for an e-book, both on how to write and publish one successfully and one the topic of the book. I just never took the first step in writing it.
I think it is mainly because of what I wrote about before. Lack of time, or rather, lack of organizing my time. I found myself focused on getting content on the blog and not working on the book.
Because of that focus, I didn’t write the first word of the book.
Plan on seeing this on the 2010 list as well.
So, looking at them as a whole, I didn’t achieve any of my goals for 2009. Why not?
I wasn’t focused on them. I wrote them down in my Moleskin.
But I never reviewed them. I didn’t have them in a place where I could stay focused on them. And being out of my sight, they were out of my mind.
Looking to 2010, I have a new set of goals for All American Blogger and myself. You already know some of them, but I want to go over the rest with you as well. I also have a plan on how I am going to keep them fresh in my mind and how I am going to set myself up for success, rather than allow myself to drown in my own disorganization.
Did you set any goals for 2009, blogging or otherwise? Care to share them in the comments?
