Hello peeps. I’m here with my blog + biz goals for the month!
It’s hard enough to set goals by myself, let alone put them into writing! I figured I might as well blog about it to share my August goals with y’all if I’m already writing these bad boys out 🙂
So yeah, this isn’t a “proper post” per say, but more of a post to consolidate my thoughts!
I only have 2 big objectives for this blog + biz, which is to GROW and SELL.
Grow
Increase my rankings with Google
My first priority would be to increase my site speed (currently, it’s sooo slow, because I insist on creating so many pretty graphics to make your experience so much better)! Slow sites are dinged down by Google.
You can check your own site speed here. Mine ranges from 5 seconds to 9 seconds.. it’s driving me nuts.
To do this, I would have to:
- Compress all my images to the appropriate size, especially those on my home page
- Delete any images not in use on my site
- Look into deleting wordpress plugins that are slowing my site down
I also have to write more well-optimized articles, of course. I aim to write another 8 posts next month. Currently, I am writing 1 post every week – so this would be a significant jump!
Due to my OCD perfectionistic nature and a commitment to only publish high quality articles (you’ve no idea how many articles are currently rotting in my drafts because they failed to make the cut), I’ve been writing stuff really slowly.
Of these 8 articles, 4 will be related to my launch in August (more information below), 1 about SEO for newbies, 2 will be more personal posts (you’re reading 1 of them now), and probably another 1 will be on finding a profitable niche.
Tentatively, these are the dates that I hope to publish my blogposts:
- 1st Aug (this post), 4th (email marketing 101, my experience with email service providers)
- 8th (reasons why you need traffic + a list), 10th (how to get traffic – 3Bs), 12th (what to send your subscribers), 17th (myths that are stopping you from building traffic and subscribers)
- 24th (SEO 101)
- 30th (Finding your niche)
(Update on May ’17: You can read the above-mentioned blog posts that I managed to write here: Email marketing 101 | My experience with email service providers | What to send your subscribers | SEO 101 | Finding a profitable niche)
I would also have to continue sourcing for backlinks from more authoritative sources – already on it, but one step at a time.
Get more love from Pinterest
I’ve been getting a lot of Pinterest love! My posts about the 101 best blogging tools (3.76k 10.5k repins currently) & how to write an about me page (2k 28.1k repins) are doing fantastically well on Pinterest. There are also many other posts of mine with hundreds and thousands of repins.
This month, my goal is to find 2-3 Pinterest warrior buddies so that we can pin each other’s stuff and give each other more Pinterest love.
Although I use tailwind (aff link) (update May ’17: I’ve since switched to Boardbooster (aff) and have gotten amazing results from it) (Update Mar ’21: I’ve since switched back to Tailwind, LOL… Boardbooster closed down and Tailwind is now the best) to schedule my pins (thank God for it!), I do pin random stuff periodically, so committing to pin someone else’s stuff regularly may pose to be a problem.
To combat this, I would start the partnerships really small – I am hoping to get them to agree to pinning my stuff 10 times (can be the same article or multiple articles) per day.
If I find 3 buddies, that would mean that on 3 days of the week I have to pin their stuff 10 times each. I think that’s doable for me.
Y’know, the phrase I scratch your back, you scratch mine comes to mind… This is because I can’t be pinning my stuff all the time – Pinterest likes it when you pin other people’s stuff too!
Turn more random browsers into loving community members
If you’ve been around long enough, you might have noticed that I’ve made some changes to how things are arranged on my blog.
Some examples:
- Removing that SumoMe social sharing plugin (I use Social Warfare (aff) now) that was causing my images to become really tiny and blurry on Pinterest (the plugin was also slowing down my site)
- Adding a more obvious social sharing plugin that looks good (check it out, it’s on the left, if you’re on desktop!)
- Adding mobile social sharing buttons
- Changing the layout of how excerpts are displayed on my home page
- Adding horizontal images to all posts (check it out, it’s nice right? *sheepish face*)
- Changing things up on my sidebar to make my website less cluttered, such as removing my “as seen on” logos (basically logos from getting published on sites like The Huffington Post that I’ve wrote in/ been mentioned on)
User experience is very important for me, and should be for you too.
Another thing: My articles as of now may verge on being boring and being too informative. I have to look into creating more engaging content with more personality.
While having a few information-filled posts like my latest post (101 Tips From Top Experts On How To Start A Successful Blog) is good, having too many of such posts will turn my blog into an encyclopedia.
To combat this issue, I would have to:
- Edit my last 5 posts to make them sound more interesting (currently they sound a tad too boring for my liking, although the tips are good)
- Write more personal posts (like this one!) – perhaps write about more personal topics like mindset and confidence. Basically, to add more soul into my writing.
Sell
This August, I will be launching a new digital course (Traffic, Subscribers, Yours Update Mar ’21: It’s now been upgraded and you can get List Building Incubator instead), which is a combined traffic and list building course for beginner bloggers & business owners.
I’m creating this digital course because I’ve spotted a problem that most bloggers face in the market.
They are invisible and don’t have a thriving community to sell to.
We all know how important it is to build a list of potential buyers.
However, most list building courses assume that you already have a blog with tons of traffic and engagement. Obviously, the list building strategies taught would not work for people that don’t already have a ton of readers.
Traffic, Subscribers, Yours will cover BOTH – how to get more traffic via various strategies I’ve tried myself AND how to get more subscribers because they come together.
My course will be about the exact strategies that took me from 0 to 1000 subscribers in a few months… from 0 eyeballs!
VIP pricing will start at $97, and by the end of the launch it will be $197. The next launch, I will be increasing the price even more because it’s worth so much more! A Pinterest course alone is already $197, LOL. And that’s just ONE of the modules in my course.
Well, I intend to keep prices relatively low for this course because I want it to make a big splash and generate big results for a ton of people – that’ll give me sufficient word of mouth power for my next launch.
If that sounds like something that you need, keep your ears peeled here! (or check your inbox if you’re subscribed to my newsletter).
Alright, back to those goals…
Sales Page
For this launch, I will have to get the sales page ready. This includes:
- Crafting compelling copy
- Designing my sales page
Bonuses
I will be offering some awesome bonuses for people that sign up as an early bird this launch. I already have some idea of what they would be – but I won’t be mentioning them here as it’ll be a surprise!
- Finalize and create 3-4 amazing bonuses
Webinar
As part of the launch, I’ll be hosting an online webinar (topic not confirmed – but I’ll be serving out some of the best content I have).
- Prepare webinar slides
- Test out webinar set up beforehand
- Write out webinar reminder emails
Marketing my course
Obviously, I’ll have to get the word out for my new digital course.
- 9x emails and social media posts
The actual course
Class does not start until the 22nd of August, but I will be preparing the course content from like, next week. Lol. From past experience, those modules will take a heck load of time to create and prepare… so I’d better start early.
- Tidy up my course platform
- Create the actual product
- Create accompanying workbook and progress tracker
And that’s all folks. Sounds like a TON of stuff to do.. heading off to compress those pictures on my homepage now!
P.S. Want to get more subscribers? Sign up for my newly updated list building workshop now:
How could I not comment? 🙂 I’ve just written up my goals for the month, saw your email and couldn’t resist checking out what you’re up to. Sounds like it will be a busy month for both of us!
I also just realized today that my site is a lot slower than I thought it was 🙁 I’ve been compressing all afternoon XD. I’m going to check out that link and see if there’s any improvement.
Hey Cath, I know right.. those pictures sure load real slowly 🙂
Let me know how your site speed goes! I’ve my home page pics done now but still have tons of pictures everywhere on my blog, haha
Still super slow! Argh. I ran my image compression plug in again and still no improvement.
I don’t really even have that many images :s Might have to get ruthless with the plugins.
I’d love to know which ones you keep – I installed the Upprev plugin after reading your post about decreasing your bounce rate, but I notice its not popping up anymore.
Have you considered using a CDN (Content Distribution Network)? It sounds fantastic, though out of my budget at the moment.
Are you using WP Smush? 🙂
Try going to google’s pagespeed insight and see if there are any images you need to resize. For instance, if your image displays only as 500×500 but you uploaded it as a 1000×1000 picture, delete that 1000×1000 pic and upload a 500×500 one. I did that for everything on my homepage and my site is much faster!
I did look into CDN, but cloudfare required me to change my preferred url to http://www.raelyntan.com (as opposed to https://raelyntan.com) and that messed up my social shares for some reason, so I’m leaving that alone for now 😉
I’ve been using Ewwww (or however many w’s it has). Might try Smush. Love the names lol.
I’ll have a look at Google Insights too and see what it says. I think I noticed the speed improvement on your homepage 🙂 so changing image sizes might be something I need to do.
Oh, I never would’ve expected them to need you to change your url 😮 What a pain!
Let me know how it goes! 😉
Yes it made a big difference.
I think it applies only to cloudflare via Siteground though – others will be fine 🙂
Hi Raelyn, how many times do you pin a day (both scheduled and manually)?
Many thanks!
~ Alvin
83! I go through what I do exactly using Pinterest in my Traffic Subscribers Yours. 😉
That’s quite a lot. I get mixed opinions on how many times to pin. #conflicted
Yes. I’ve done lots of testing on my end