Happy new year, and welcome to a year that is sure to be prosperous. I feel like this is going to be an interesting and exciting year, and I plan to achieve some challenging goals. Do you ever start a new year thinking “Well, here comes another one…” or “It’s just going to be more of the same.”? I think we all have. I’ve certainly started new years before where nothing seemed any different and my expectations didn’t change. I later realized that if you want your (or any) circumstances to change, then you must first change your expectations.
Have you also started a new year before and thought that something felt different and that good things were on the horizon? That’s how I feel right now, and I hope that you do too. There’s just something in the air. It’s a feeling of renewal and excitement.
We have the presidential election here in the states this year, with a race that has already heated up and is sure to provide interesting things for the next 11 months. Looming, of course, is the fact that many people believe that the world is going to end this year. I am not one of those people. However, I think we may witness some unusual events brought on by those who believe that. I think that this will be an unusual year overall. I also think that it will be a good year in many ways.
Personally, I am determined to actively do everything that I can to ensure that my family and I have a great year. It’s one thing to say that you’re going to do everything you can in order to have a good year. It’s another thing entirely to actually do it. If you’re the type of person who typically says that it’s going to be a good year, then does nothing differently to make it a good year (and wonders why it doesn’t turn out so good), then make a resolution now to actively do something to make this year good for you.
Here are some goals that I have set for this year:
Publish 75 new articles here on my website
I plan to do this by publishing one new post each week while including occasional mid-week posts.
Increase website traffic to 30,000 visits per month
I am more concerned with visits and page views per month than I am with the number of visitors, as I think they are more accurate indicators of the quality of my website. I plan to achieve this through continued SEO efforts as well as some marketing strategies that I have mapped out which I will be putting into place over the course of the year. It is my goal to reach 10,000 visits per month by the end of June and 30,000 visits per month by year end. Based on my schedule of posting new material, I expect my monthly visitor count to be around half of the number of visits. I am currently averaging about 2,500 visits per month.
Increase interaction and engagement with readers
My plans for this are to interact more with my Twitter followers and to add a forum/messageboard here to encourage interaction between readers as well as localize my interactions with readers. Currently, I expect to add the forum when the site reaches 5,000 visits per month. If readers start clamoring for a forum, then I may add it sooner. I simply wish to make sure that there will be ample activity in the forum so as to avoid adding it in vain. I estimate that 5,000 visits per month will translate to 2,500 visitors per month, and I expect to see forum registration in the range of 2-5% of readers which will yield 50-125 forum members. This should be enough to help the forum start strong. I’m concerned that adding the forum sooner than this could be setting it up for failure since readers may visit the forum with the intention of signing up, and then become discouraged to do so based on a lack of forum members and activity.
I realize that the goal regarding website traffic stands out and that it’s a big number. It’s not a number that I have chosen randomly; it is a calculated estimation based on what I expect the payoff to be for the ongoing SEO work as well as the other aforementioned marketing efforts that I will be employing. I feel that the number is attainable, and I plan to work hard to reach it.
As with everything that I write here, I hope that someone will find inspiration through reading my goals for this year. What are some of your goals for this year? Reply on Twitter @joshbellblog
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