2019 Goals Update: June

2019 Goals Update: June | https://www.roseclearfield.com

In an effort to keep myself accountable, I’m sharing monthly progress updates for my 2019 goals.

Reach 70,000 monthly blog page views.

Here are my 2019 benchmarks and progress to reach my monthly blog page views goal.

January – target: 37,343, actual: 42,806
February – 40,312, actual: 43,398
March -43,281, actual: 51,102
April – 46,250, actual: 65,303
May – 49,219, actual: 33,309
June – 52,188, actual: 47,864
July – 55,157
August – 58,126
September – 61,095
October – 64,064
November – 67,033
December – 70,000

June 2019 Google Analytics roseclearfield.com | https://www.roseclearfield.com

As you can see just from the numbers alone, June was a considerably better month for the blog than May. It was much more in line with the traffic I had in January and February. I had my best traffic day to date very early in the month and then another traffic spike mid-month, thanks to the widespread success of some new pins for my Pinterest cleaning hacks post. Of course, I had another drop off from Pinterest at the end of the month, similar to what I saw in May. But overall, it was still a considerably improved month.

I’ve been extremely hard on myself with my traffic these last two months. After crushing it in April, it’s been tough to see the numbers drop, even though I knew that would happen. No, I didn’t quite hit my June benchmark, but I was close. I’ve still made enormous gains in 2019. Last June, I wasn’t hitting 10K monthly viewers. Now I’m often hitting 8-10K viewers per week. It’s always important to keep that perspective.

Page view tactics

There are two primary methods I’m using to achieve my page views goal, which are as follows.

Reach 7,000 Pinterest followers with three million monthly viewers.

Here are my 2019 benchmarks and progress to reach my Pinterest followers and viewers goal.

January – target: 4,177, 1.3, actual: 4,296, 1.58
February – 4,434, 1.44, actual: 4,630, 1.66
March – 4,691, 1.5, actual: 4,980, 1.82
April – 4,948, 1.77, actual: 5,356, 2.38
May – 5,205, 1.96, actual: 5,598, 1.43
June – 5,462, 2, actual: 5,936, 1.98
July – 5,719, 2.14
August – 5,976, 2.28
September – 6,233, 2.42
October – 6,490, 2.56
November – 6,747, 2.7
December – 7,000, 3

I ended June 2019 with 5,936 Pinterest followers. My Pinterest growth was up again a bit in June. It wasn’t as high as what I’ve seen through most of 2019, but it was significantly higher than May, so definitely a positive improvement. Clearly, it’s still plenty high to keep staying ahead of my benchmarks, which is great. My Pinterest engagement also rose significantly in June, bringing me back much closer to my target, which is even better.

Until May, my 2019 Pinterest strategies had been as follows:

I am still using all of these strategies. In May, I also started implementing the following Pinterest tactics.

  • Create at least two Pinterest graphics for all new evergreen posts and share them both right from the start.
  • Create at least one new Pinterest graphic for all older evergreen posts and use it for new social shares.
  • Pin blog content shares on older posts right from the blog as opposed to re-pinning from Pinterest. (I’m still experimenting with this technique. I’ve heard conflicting advice on the topic.)
  • Manual pinning daily. I still schedule the vast majority of my Pinterest content. I used to pin manually daily, and it did help. But I got away from it and am making it a regular routine again.

Blog Photography Hacks! Learn how to create stunning, magazine-worthy blog photos on a limited budget with simple, straightforward hacks. #blogphotography #blogginghacks #takebetterpictures | https://www.roseclearfield.com

Finish and publish ebook #2.

Blog Photography Hacks went live on April 1! Please pick up your copy if you haven’t already. I really appreciate your support for this new project.

I’m slowing working away on ebook #3 and did make a little more progress in June. My goal is still to finish all of the photography by the end of 2019. We’ll see how things go over the next few months before I establish a more firm writing/publishing schedule.

Publish one article per week on Constant Content.

In June, I published the following articles on Constant Content.

I didn’t have any Constant Content sales in June, which was a first for 2019.

Finish out all 2018 and earlier vacation photos and keep up with current photo editing.

Vacation photos

Currently, I have the following sets of vacation photos not yet finished that I’d like to wrap up in 2019. The notes in parenthesis are my progress at the end of 2018. The notes following the parenthesis in bold text are my progress thus far in 2019.

  • November 2015 – Hawaii (haven’t finished editing) Finished editing.
  • August 2016 – Montana (haven’t finished editing) Finished out completely. Created and ordered a photo book, backed up edited photos, cleared out all RAW files.
  • October 2016 – New Orleans (finished editing, need to make a photo book) Finished out completely. Created and ordered a photo book, backed up edited photos, cleared out all RAW files.
  • May/June 2017 – Mediterranean cruise (finished editing, need to make a photo book and order prints) Finished out completely. Created and ordered a photo book, ordered prints, backed up edited photos, cleared out all RAW files.
  • September 2018 – Montana (haven’t finished editing) Finished editing.
  • October 2018 – Washington D.C. (haven’t finished editing) Finished editing.

In June, I completely finished out my Mediterranean cruise pictures, which still feels pretty surreal. Even though I’d finished editing the photos in 2018, creating photo books, ordering prints, and creating an organized backup took a lot of time. In July and August, I need to create photo books for the remaining Hawaii, Montana, and DC trips.

Current editing

I am in a much better place with current editing at the end of June than I was at the end of May. I’m completely caught up through early May and am caught up with editing through mid-May. I already have about half of my June photos edited. We’ll see how things go with editing in July, as I’ll be taking a lot of pictures and won’t have as much time for editing.

Read 40 books.

In June, I read the following books:

My 2019 reading total is 34 books, which puts me ahead of schedule. I published my May/June reads post earlier this week, so go check it out if you haven’t already.

[Disclaimer: There are a few affiliate links in this post. Thanks for your support!]

Did you set 2019 goals?

If so, I’d love to hear how they’re going! Feel free to leave a link to a goals update post in the comments.

Previous goal update posts:

2019 Goals Update: March | https://www.roseclearfield.com

March 2019

2019 Goals Update: April | https://www.roseclearfield.com

April 2019

2019 Goals Update: May | https://www.roseclearfield.com

May 2019

 

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