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
March -43,281
April – 46,250
May – 49,219
June – 52,188
July – 55,157
August – 58,126
September – 61,095
October – 64,064
November – 67,033
December – 70,000

Needless to say, I’m very happy with my January blog traffic. My December monthly page views total was just over 34,300, so January saw a significant increase. Although I averaged over 1,100 daily views in December, I still had days where the total was under 1,000. I cracked the 1,000 mark every single day in January, with an average of 1,380 views.

I also wanted to share my JetPack views graph from January because it more clearly illustrates how much of an increase I see on the weekends. You can see this a bit in the Google Analytics line graph but not as well as you see it in bar graph form. I’ve had strong traffics on weekends for months now. However, it was even moreso than usual in January. I’m curious if other bloggers experience this trend or not. (It should be noted that the Feb. 1 total at the end of the graph is so low because I took the screenshot in the middle of the day.)

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

Publish posts weekly with two evergreen posts per month. Check. I maintained a consistent three posts per week schedule with the following evergreen posts: Post-Christmas Winter Mantel Inspiration, My 2018 Reading List + Tips for Reading More Books, 10 Things Parents of Young Children Don’t Want You to Say to Them Anymore, My 5 Favorite Products for Dry Hands, How to Increase Your Reach and Visibility on Pinterest, Toddler Favorites: 18 Months, Living Coral Inspiration, 10 Ways to Let Birth Parents Know You Appreciate Them, and DIY Valentine’s Day Mason Jar Decor.
Maintain consistent social sharing, particularly for high traffic and seasonal posts. Check. I’ve kept up with social shares for all new posts and kept older posts in rotation. I already have my Valentine’s Day posts in full rotation on social media. Over the next month, I’ll start working on spring content shares, including St. Patrick’s Day and Easter. I’m staying about two months ahead for general shares of others’ content. I schedule all of my Pinterest content through Tailwind.

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
March – 4,691, 1.5
April – 4,948, 1.77
May – 5,205, 1.96
June – 5,462, 2
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 January 2019 with 4,296 Pinterest followers. I hit my Target of 4,177 followers on the 21st. Needless to say, after lagging behind on my Pinterest followers goal all of 2018, I’m very excited that I knocked out my first benchmark so solidly.

When I was calculating my monthly viewer targets for 2019, I accidentally kept January at 1.3 million, which was where I started for the year. So I unconsciously gave myself something of a grace period? I actually ended January 2019 at 1.58 million monthly viewers. I peaked around 1.63 million monthly viewers near the middle of the month and have since dropped back down a bit.

Finish and publish ebook #2.

My first priority with ebook #2 was to get everything updated, including the about me section, my camera equipment recommendations, and the list of additional resources with links to relevant blog posts. I got the updates done, reformatted the entire book with proper headers, and fleshed out the last few sections that I hadn’t written yet. I do have a little bit of writing left, but the vast majority of it is done. At this point, I don’t think I’ll add anything significant. I did add a few things as I fleshed it out but nothing major.

My second priority with the ebook was to make a list of photos I need to shoot. I actually made a list of all the photos I need for the book. Over the next month, I’m going to fill in as many photos as I can in the book. Since writing the initial draft, I’ve created nearly two years’ worth of content for this blog. I already have a lot of photos that work for it. From there, I’ll figure out what I have left to shoot and make a rough schedule for it.

Publish one article per week on Constant Content.

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

10 Common Home Decor Mistakes and How to Fix Them sold
Worst Mistakes People Make When Flying With Small Children
Get Your Home Ready to Sell on a Budget
The Biggest Tourist Mistakes to Make in Las Vegas
February Home Checklist sold
Tips for a Safe Winter Road Trip
How to Stay Relaxed While Hosting Overnight Guests

My January earnings total for the above sold articles was $111.80. After falling short on my Constant Content goal in 2018, I was very motivated to start 2019 strong. I’m happy with how much I got written in January.

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

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 editing, created and ordered a photo book.
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) Selected and ordered prints. Created and ordered photo book part 1. I want to include so many photos that I’m making two books. Started book part II.
September 2018 – Montana (haven’t finished editing) Made some progress with editing. Haven’t finished yet.
October 2018 – Washington D.C. (haven’t finished editing) Haven’t finished editing.

I didn’t plan to push ahead on so much vacation photo editing and book creating in January. But I go on a roll, and then Blurb ran a 30% off with free shipping promotion, which I used for the Montana 2016 and New Orleans 2016 books. When you order a book, you get a 15% off coupon, which I used for the Mediterranean cruise book. I may keep pushing ahead aggressively in February, as winter is a good time to get ahead on editing. We’ll see how it goes.

As for keeping up with current photo editing, I’ve competely finished out everything through early December 2018 (minus the above mentioned trips). I’ve finished editing everything through the end of 2018 (again, minus the trips). January was a pretty light shooting month, and I’ve already finished editing a few folders.

Read 40 books.

In January, I read the following books:

My 2019 reading total is 5 books, which is a great start for the year.

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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.

2019 Goals Update: January