ProBlogger: PB174: An Alternate New Year’s Resolution That Will Transform Your Blogging for 2017

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PB174: An Alternate New Year’s Resolution That Will Transform Your Blogging for 2017 Posted: 02 Jan 2017 12:00 AM PST An Alternate Resolution to Transform Your Blogging in 2017   In today's lesson I want to talk about New Year's Resolutions and Goals and want to suggest setting a goal that I think will help to set your blogging up for a great year of blogging. In fact – I'm really excited about this episode because it's an alternative way of thinking about New Year's goals and resolutions – something I've never really considered before that I am really excited to try myself. So if you're looking at the new year and are wondering how to make it the best year ever for your blog – this episode is for you! Further Resources on An Alternate New Year's Resolution That Will Transform Your Blogging for 2017 How to Set Blog Changing Goals for the New Year Start The New Year off Right with Jeff Goins' Three Secrets to Full Time Blogging Setting Goals: Why You Need Them, and How to Write Them How to Do an End of 2015 Blog Audit: Take Stock of What You've Achieved and Where You're Headed Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to episode 174 of the ProBlogger Podcast and a very Happy New Year to you. My name is Darren Rowse and I'm the blogger behind www.problogger.com, a blog podcast event job board, a series of eBooks, and a real-life paper book, one of those old fashioned ones, all designed to help you as a blogger to grow your audience and to make money from your blog. You can find out more about all of those things that we do at ProBlogger at www.problogger.com. In today's lesson, I want to talk about New Year's resolutions and goals being the 2nd of January. I want to suggest setting a goal that I think will help to set your blogging up for a great year of blogging. In fact, I'm really excited about this episode because it's an alternative way of thinking about New Year's goals or New Year's resolutions. It's something that until today, while I was out of my walk, I'd never really considered before. I'm really excited to share it with you and to try it myself. If you're looking at the New Year, 2017, and wondering how to make it the best year for your blog, I hope this episode will help you do just that. You can find today's shownotes with some links to some further reading that I've got for you at www.problogger.com/podcast/174. Happy New Year! This podcast should go out on the 2nd of January 2017. I'm actually recording it though on the 27th of December from a little bit few days ago and I'm currently recovering from a very hot Christmas. It's summer here in Australia and Christmas Day for us was 36 degrees Celsius which was about 97 F for those of you who aren't used to Celsius. We spent most of the day, on Christmas Day, swimming in a swimming pool, my mother-in-law's swimming pool. It was a bit of a hot day, a little bit different too. I know how many of you who celebrated the day and spending your time at this time of year because I've been watching some of you who are snowed in on Instagram at the moment. But now that Christmas is over and preparations at our house are turning towards New Year's Eve. We actually will be celebrating and staying in the New Year with five other families who are coming over for the evening. We tend to get together with the same families every year. This year, there are 10 or I think about 15 kids should be pretty noisy and a lot of fun. Every year, as part of that celebration, the conversation tends to turn to New Year's resolutions and goals for the coming year. Over the last few days, I've been pondering my own goals and resolutions, my own plans for 2017. Now I'm not huge on resolutions but I always do set a few goals for my personal life, my health, my relationships, as well as my business, as well as my blogging. I've talked a lot about goals in the past. In fact, if you want to go back and listen to episode 77 after you finish this one, I suggest the whole process for making goals for your blog that I do think is well worth listening to. It's episode 77: How to Set Blog Challenging Goals for The New Year. But it struck me today while I was out on my walk that many of the goals that I tend to develop for my blogs every year are a little bit, I hate to use the word, but they're a little bit selfish. Let me explain, often as bloggers, we set ourselves goals like, "I want to double my traffic in the year ahead." Or "I want to publish five posts a week because I needed three this year." Or "I want to create a new eBook, a new product for my blog. I want to start something new. I want to start a podcast." Or "I want to start doing Facebook Live. I want to grow my list, my email list." Or "I want to update my old blog design into a new one." All these goals are completely worthy. They're all good. They all tend to be about making gain in some area, achieving some sort of goal that we have or eliminating some kind of problem or bad habit that we have. All of those things are good. However, they're all about what we want as bloggers and I wonder as I look at those goals and was thinking today about my own blogging goals, if perhaps they all have some missing element and that is our readers. As I was walking today, I was wondering if a much better starting point for thinking about our goals for our blogs and businesses might be if we set New Year's resolutions for our readers. What would happen if we set goals for our readers? What do we want to achieve for our readers in the year ahead? Rather than what we want to achieve for our blog. Here's my little challenge for you. I want to challenge you to set a goal or a resolution for your readers in 2017. What kind of pain do you want to help eliminate in your reader's lives in the year ahead? What kind of bad habit do you want to help them to get rid off in the year ahead? What kind of mistake do you want to help them to stop making in the year ahead? What kind of obstacle do you want them to overcome in the year ahead that you want to be a part of? That's the negative way of looking at it. What pain do you want to eliminate? What bad habit do you want to eliminate? What mistake, what obstacle? But also, you can flip it around. What gain do you want to help your readers to achieve in the year ahead? What good habit do you want to help to develop in your readers in the year ahead? What change, positive change, do you want to help bring about in their lives? What achievement do you want to help them to make? Think about your readers. Who are they? What are their pains, their obstacles, their problems, and what are the gains, the hopes, the dreams that they have? Identify one of those things that you can help your readers to work on in the year ahead. There's nothing wrong with setting goals for more traffic and more income and more comments and engagement with your readers but as I was walking today, it struck me that if we instead flip it around and put the focus on the change that we want to see in our readers in the year ahead, then perhaps some of those things will look after themselves. If you can identify the thing that you want to help you readers with, this year, that will help you to work out what content to produce, what products to create for your blog, will help you to work ahead and promote your blog better and how to attract new readers. How will your blog make a difference to your readers in the year ahead? Think about it, what is your goal for your readers in 2017? Try and get it into a sentence. If you're struggling with that, ask your readers. I just did exactly that on my Facebook page and I'm already starting to see some of my readers tell me about the things that they want to achieve in the year ahead as it pertains to my topic. Once you've identified what are these that you want your year to be about in helping your readers, put it in somewhere that you'll see everyday. Try and get it into a sentence and write it down. Put it next to your computer. Put it on the office wall in front of you so that everyday when you sit down to write content, you've got that change that you're trying to bring to your readers in mind. Maybe, it could even become a weekly post that you do that really tackles that problem or that thing that you're trying to achieve or maybe it could be an extended series or maybe it could help you to have some discussion on your social media, or maybe you could even start a Facebook group to help you readers to achieve that particular goal. Maybe it could become part of your monetization strategy. Maybe you have to create a course or an eBook or a membership that site that's based around that change you're trying to bring to your readers. You may even want to announce it to your readers. You might want to say, "I've surveyed you. I've thought a lot about what I want to achieve with this blog this year and this year, I want to help you to whatever it is that you want to achieve." Flip the New Year's Resolution about this year. Don't just come up with your own goals for what you want to achieve with your blog but think about what you want your readers to achieve. What is a New Year's resolution, a goal, for them? Once you've done that, I would love to hear what you've come up with, I'd love to hear what your goals are for your readers in the year ahead. I'm going to ponder that particular question for myself and I'll let you know what I come up with in the weeks ahead as well. You can find today's shownotes and I do have a little bit of further reading for you at www.problogger.com/podcast/174. Once you've come up with that goal for your readers for 2017, you might want to go and listen to episode 77 which is also about setting goals for the year. Those goals I would do tend to be more about the goals for your own blog. I do encourage you to start with the question of today, what's the goal for your readers, and then you might want to go and listen to episode 77 which I think is a good companion to today's episode. Hope you do have a good New Year's and exciting start to 2017 and I'll be in touch with you in the coming weeks with the next episode of the ProBlogger Podcast. How did you go with today's episode? Enjoy this podcast? Sign up to our ProBloggerPLUS newsletter to get notified of all new tutorials and podcasts below. Click Here to Subscribe to ProBloggerPLUS for Free The post PB174: An Alternate New Year’s Resolution That Will Transform Your Blogging for 2017 appeared first on ProBlogger Podcast.       Related Stories PB173: How to Use Quotes in Your Blog Content Legally and Ethically PB172: How to Build a Blogging Business Through Interviewing Others [An Interview with Michael Stelzner] PB170: 9 Ways to Stay Inspired and Avoid Bloggers Burn Out   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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ProBlogger: Your Epic End-of-Year Blog Audit Checklist: Where You’ve Been and Where You’re Headed!

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Your Epic End-of-Year Blog Audit Checklist: Where You’ve Been and Where You’re Headed! Posted: 30 Dec 2016 05:00 AM PST It’s time. There’s not a single day left of 2016 to blog on! You’ve done all you can, and you should be proud – no step, no matter how small, is too small. Had a gangbusters year? Good on you! Had a small year? I bet you’re further than you used to be! Now that’s progress. The best way to look over all you’ve done and gather your thoughts about where you’d rather be next year is to go through your blog and social media and audit your performance. What went right (and how can you replicate that)? What went wrong? What felt yuck and what are you excited about doing again in 2017? Last year’s audit checklist was so popular I thought I’d update it for this year and send you off on your merry way with a drink and a pen to revel in your year of blogging. May the force be with you! Feel free to download the PDF checklist if you’re a paper-and-pen kind of blogger – you can download it here: problogger-end-of-year-blog-audit-checklist. How to Do an End-of-2016 Blog Audit Grab a pen and notebook, a fresh Google Doc, a spreadsheet if you're into that sort of thing, or anything else you're happy to take notes on or in, and go through each section of your blog thoroughly. What worked, what didn't, what did you hate, what will you change for next year? As science historian James Burke said once "you can only know where you're going if you know where you've been". True dat. "You can only know where you're going if you know where you've been." – James Burke [Tweet That!] So let's get stuck in. Content: You're going to have to look at some stats for this, so open your WordPress Jetpack or Google Analytics and be prepared to dive in. First though, a look through the posts themselves: How long were posts? Did you have a variety of word lengths? All long? All short? Which performed better? What would you say your average post word count would be? What were the most popular posts? Overall, and for each category of your blog? What type of posts worked? What resonated with your audience? What fell flat, or just quite didn't make it? Did you write to your niche? Or did you branch out? Was that a wise choice? Were you helpful? What posts got the most comments/emails? Which one seemed to touch a nerve in your audience? What was shared most? What did you enjoy writing? Where are you sourcing images? Are you making or taking your own? Could you start? What other options are there (you can find a selection of places that have collections of free, no-attribution images here), what program are you using to create and personalise your images? Is it enough or should you try something new? What are your image sizes? Are they optimal? Have you changed blog layout and now some of them are poorly sized? Make a note of them so you can update later with a better image. Which day of the week got the most traffic? What were you publishing on those days? Was it consistent with your brand? Was your overarching theme this year consistent with your brand? What search terms got the most people to your blog? are you providing content for them? Does each post have a good image that's formatted correctly, a keyword-rich headline, and is it pleasant to the eye? Is there enough white space, and are there calls to action where necessary? Were you providing enough value? Back End The nitty-gritty that we usually ignore unless something has gone wrong. Do a cleanout! Are your plugins still working for you? What can you delete? What needs updating? What do you have as a 404 error message? Can you make it more useful to the reader who finds themselves there? Do you have broken links? (one way to find out is to use a broken link checker, or install a plugin that will do it for you). Can you update them? What is your SEO plan? Are you inserting key words in all the right places? If you have Yoast installed, is there a green light on the majority of your posts? What can you do to improve in the new year? (Moz has a pretty comprehensive post here on doing a full SEO audit if you feel you need that much depth, and a content audit here). Have you filled out the alt-text field on all your images with keyword-rich descriptions? (remember, this is what Pinterest pulls so make it user-friendly) What have you been using to track metrics/traffic? Is it working? Create a Google Analytics report about what has happened on your site, and who is reading it (and on what device!) Darren has a great tutorial here on how to find the most useful stats in Google Analtyics and use that knowledge to set up your next year of blogging on the right foot. Design We eat with our eyes, as they say, and readers will make snap judgements about you and your blog based on how it looks when they get there. What does your design say? Is it functional? Is it reader-friendly? Is it pleasing to the eye? Does it describe you and your blog at a glance? Have you stayed consistent with colours and fonts? Are there any widgets that need removing? How is your sidebar working? What can you shuffle around or delete entirely? Are you making the most of the bottom-of-the-blog real estate? Are the ads old? Can you write to the advertisers and offer them a new deal? Are you making the most of your design to point to where you could make an affiliate sale? Are there several points on the page where readers can follow you? Is your newsletter signup box prominent? Do you have more than one? Is that pop-up box worth it? Are your social media icons in the right order (you might want to put your most popular sites at the front). Are they linked to the right place? Are they the right size or colour? Do all the links on your homepage work? What can you remove from the design to enhance the look of your blog? What are you using for social sharing? Do you like it? are people using it? Can you find something that works better? Personal branding: is it recognisable? Have you been using the same branding techniques on your post images? Pages/Topics The umbrella of what you're about. How's that workin' for ya? Are the pages and topics you've sorted your content into still relevant? Have you moved onto other things? Can you merge some? Nest them? Did you share content equally across all or did you find you wrote on a particular topic the most? Is the navigation streamlined and user-friendly? Are your pages and topics easily accessed? Social Media Our home away from home! On what platform did you see the biggest growth? Where was the most engagement? What did you enjoy the most? Have you changed profile pictures and bios lately? How current are they? What brought most return for your efforts? Where would you like try in the new year? Is it obvious on all of these platforms what you're about? What you can offer people? Do all your platforms link to your blog, and are these options obvious and easy to find? Your promotional strategy You can't just "build it and they will come". Because they're busy reading someone else. How did you get your blog in front of new readers? How successful was that? What wasn't worth the time invested? Where will you invest your time next year? What have you got as an opt-in? Does it need upgrading? How are you offering your newsletter or mailing list? Have you been consistent with it, have you been tracking open rates etc? Did you guest post anywhere? Was that worth your time? Where could you try this year? Did you try to get some traditional media coverage? Did you try any collaborations or cross-promotions? Who could you work with in 2016? Did you do any giveaways? How successful were they? Monetization What has been your strategy this year? What monetization models were you using? What has been the most lucrative? What hasn't been worth your time? What will you spend your resources on next year? What programs, ebooks or courses need updating? Can you bundle them together and do a quick lead-up to christmas sale? Can you release something quick in time for christmas or new year? How has your audience reacted to each monetisation strategy? What model have you most enjoyed using? What would you consider for the future? Your goals Did you create any? did you meet them? Were you too ambitious? Or not enough? What did you have in mind for next year? Have you written your future goals and a plan for how to get there? How could you learn from the mistakes you've made this year to help you reach your goals now? Your feelings How did you feel overall? What did you excel at? Where did you feel you could have done better? Did you enjoy blogging? Do you still enjoy it? Have you thought about quitting, moving on to something else (like podcasting, for example), do you want to write a book, open an online store… did you think about expanding or moving on? What would you like to do on your blog for next year? What will you be leaving behind? Ahhhh that’s better. Pens down, New Year’s celebratory drinks up! That’s you in a snapshot. May your 2017 be even more amazing. The post Your Epic End-of-Year Blog Audit Checklist: Where You’ve Been and Where You’re Headed! appeared first on ProBlogger.

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