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We are going to talk about the goals I set for Q1 in last year’s business plan. These Q1 goals are broken down for two different blogs.
Blog #1 Mom Wife and Everyday Life
Q1 2022
| Content Creation | Promotion | Traffic | Products | Income |
| 1 Article per Week (Wed) | Pinterest 5 Pins Daily | 1000 Pageview Month | None Start Brainstorming Ideas | $50 Total for Q1 Ads Affiliates |
| Constant Pin Creation | Start Gathering Email Subscribers (5 Subs) | 60 K Impression Pinterest Month | ||
| 20 PDFs in Posts |
Content Creation
Q1 Goals:
| 1 Article Per Week | Completed |
| Constant Pin Creation | Completed |
| 20 PDFs in Posts | Completed |
During Q1 I stayed true to my goal of publishing one post a week. This was not a problem at all for me. I find that I work very well with my schedule and batching content in advance. I will take a week and work on 5-7 posts. This is a great way to set yourself up for success.
I was constantly creating pins for Pinterest. This is not my favorite task. I hate that Pinterest requires new, fresh pins constantly. I did however continue making pins regularly.
My final piece of content creation was creating a placing freebie PDFs into blog posts. The goal here is to gain email subscribers.
During Q1 I finally got the hang of Convertkit. I learned how to more easily create and link PDFs in articles on my blog.
During all of Q1, I accomplished my goal of placing 20 PDFs into articles. I wasn’t the greatest at tracking this but I do know that by 2/11/22 I had placed 9 PDFs. As I am now writing this report I have 13 different PDFs placed in a total of 39 articles on my website.
I quickly started to realize making specialized PDFs for individual articles is not the best use of time. I started creating more general PDFs say one about breastfeeding and one about toddler milestones. These PDFs could then be used in multiple articles.
I also came to realize that I want people on my email list to only be interested in a few topics. It will be more difficult to understand their interest if I have a large number of unique PDF freebies.
Promotion
Q1 Goals:
| Pinterest Publish 5 Pins Daily | Completed |
| Start Gathering Email Subscribers (5 Total Subscribers) | Failed |
I was successful in keeping up on my Pinterest pinning. Again Pinterest is not my favorite use of time, but I am dedicated to staying on my schedule. I use the free scheduling software on the Pinterest platform. I try to stay ahead on pinning as much as possible.
I create pin images in advance. I create what I call Quick Pin Templates where I store titles, pre-written descriptions, the URL, and appropriate boards. When I go to publish pins I can do so quite quickly because of the efforts I make to be prepared in advance. If you want to hear more about how I manage to create and publish pins check out my Helpful Guide to Publishing Your First Pin on Pinterest.
I was very proud of my efforts at email marketing. I got a lot of PDFs placed into articles to start gaining subscribers. I was only able to get 1 email subscriber during Q1 this year. I am going to keep working to improve my current PDFs and well as creating more that will be useful and of interest to my audience.
Traffic
Q1 Goals:
| 1000 Pageview Month | Completed |
| 60 K Pinterest Impression Month | Completed |
My traffic was great in Q1. My goal was to have a single month with 1000 pageviews. I was able to accomplish this goal all three months. I hope at this point to of course continue to grow. I really don’t ever want to see a month fall below 1000 pageviews ever again.
I have 60 K impressions on Pinterest for both January and March. February was definitely my weakest month of the quarter. I would like to see growth in my Pinterest account.
Traffic is essential in getting ad revenue, amazon affiliate clicks, gaining email subscribers, and overall moving my business forward.
Products
Q1 Goals:
| Brainstorm Product Idea | Completed |
I spent time in Q 1 brainstorming the product I intend to make and sell. I realize it may or may not be successful, but I need to push myself to try.
Selling a product is a huge opportunity to be successful with blogging.
I went beyond brainstorming and did build a rough draft of my product in Canva. It ended up being about 45 pages. There are going to be a lot of tweaks, but it is a good start.
Income
Q1 Goals:
| $50 Total from Ads and Affiliates | Failed |
| Jan | Feb | Mar | |
| Ads | $4.40 | $3.45 | $4.81 |
| Affiliates | $0.65 | $0 | $0 |
This came out to a grand total of $13.31.
This is very much short of my goal of $50. I would like to see more income from affiliates. I don’t know how to get people to better convert.
My clicks on links for Amazon for the three months were 36, 24, and 36. I would like to see this number higher and therefore increase my chances of making income.
Ads I realize are out of my control and completely based on traffic. This is why more traffic is important. I technically could place more ads into my articles, but feel it is already too much. I honestly don’t like the look of ads and if I were making money in other ways would seriously decrease the number of ads placed or remove them altogether.
This also makes me believe creating and selling my own digital products is the way to go in the future. I hope to learn this area more with the launch of my first product.
Quarter 1 for Blog #1 Conclusion
I completed every goal I set except gaining 5 email subscribers and earning $50 of income. These were goals I could not 100% control. I of course would like to be 100% in my goals, but also want to strive for progress and push myself. I will not set easy goals just to get the win every time.
If you would like to see the goals I set for the full year of 2022 you can check that out here, Comprehensive Business Plan and Strategy to Grow My Blog During Year 2.
Blog #2 Blogging with Amanda
Q1 2022
| Content Creation | Promotion | Traffic | Products | Income |
| 1 Article per Week (Wed) | Pinterest 5 Pins Daily | 100 Pageview Month | None Start Brainstorming Ideas | $50 Total for Q1 Ads Affiliates |
| Constant Pin Creation | Start Gathering Email Subscribers (5 Subs) | 10 K Impression Pinterest Month | ||
| 2 PDFs in Posts |
Content Creation
Q 1 Goals:
| 1 Article Published Per Week | Completed |
| Constant Pin Creation | Completed |
| 2 PDFs in Posts | Completed |
I did great during Q1 on content creation. I batch my content and get it scheduled early to maintain my schedule. I am always working on pin creation to stay ahead on Pinterest.
I did not give blog #2 as much focus when it comes to placing freebie PDFs. I created one that was about tracking your monthly income and traffic for your blog and placed it into 20 different posts.
I need to make more of an effort here.
Promotion
Q1 Goals:
| Pinterest Publish 5 Pins Daily | Completed |
| Start Gathering Email Subscribers ( 5 Total Subscribers) | Failed |
I stayed up on my Pinterest pins for Q1. Again I batch my creations and use my Quick Pin Templates to stay ahead. It is very important to me to prioritize traffic via the Pinterest platform. I realize Pinterest is time-consuming and not my favorite, so in the future, I need to focus more on SEO efforts.
When it comes to gathering email subscribers I should have made a better effort with my PDF placements and creations. I did not get any email subscribers during Q1 unfortunately.
Traffic
Q1 Goals:
| 100 Pageview Month | Completed |
| 10 K Pinterest Impression Month | Failed |
Both January and February were over 100 pageview months. March was just shy at 99 pageviews. I want to continue to see progress and growth with this blog moving forward.
As far as Pinterest, it has been a slow start and slow growth. I did not even come close to my goal. My best month was March with 1.62K impressions. I am however seeing positive growth in April already.
I am changing to posting a single pin image to only a single board. Then that pin is retired. This is a lot of work and constant pin creation, but apparently, it is what Pinterest wants.
I doubt this Pinterest account will see the growth I am hoping to get with my goals this year, but will continue to do my best.
Products
Q1 Goals:
| Start Brainstorming Ideas | Completed |
I put most of my product focus on my first blog and product over there. I spent very little time on my product plan for blog #2. I did however do some brainstorming and drafting of ideas for this blog so I consider it completed.
Income
Q1 Goals:
| $50 Total with Ads and Affiliates | Failed |
I did not make a single penny with this blog during Q1. I never was able to make time to get ads placed on this blog. My only affiliate is Bluehost. I don’t have any other blogging resources that I am an affiliate for at this point. No one has decided to use my Bluehost link at this point.
All I needed was one sale to hit my goal, but it didn’t happen. I am not exactly sure how to get someone to use my link. I possibly need to post more about Bluehost, or setting up a blog from the beginning. I guess I was hoping this would simply happen without much effort.
I am excited about being a Bluehost affiliate because all it takes is a few sales to make pretty good money. At least in comparison to Amazon affiliate commissions.
Quarter 1 Blog #2 Conclusion
This Quarter I was successful in everything except gaining my 5 email subscribers, hitting 10 K Pinterest Impressions, and making $50 in total revenue.
These were all goals I didn’t have complete control over.
I failed at three goals with this blog and only two with blog #1. I think this is because blog #1 has been the priority since the beginning.
It is very difficult to run two blogs and give each of them enough love and attention.
You can my goals for blog #2 for the full year by clicking Build this Blogging Business in 2022 with a Comprehensive Business Plan.
Quarter 1 Conclusion
I think for both of my blogs I set some realistic and challenging goals. Some were unfortunately out of reach, but I do want to push myself. I think it is going to be quite difficult to achieve some of the goals I set for Q2 based on my performance in Q1.
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