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
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

February was another great traffic month, especially considering that it was a short month. Although I did have a handful of days below 1,000 views, I averaged 1,550 daily views, significantly higher than my average of 1,100 daily views in January.

My traffic dropped off the last couple of days in the month significantly. I updated my hosting plan, due to my growing traffic. Inevitably, there was a glitch that resulted in a security issue for about 12 hours. Thankfully, I got it fixed quickly, and my traffic for March is back to anticipated levels.

Otherwise, across the month, traffic was pretty steady. My new post 30 Healthy Dinner Recipes for Two has had a great start. Free Spring Printables Roundup and April Showers Bring May Flowers Baby Shower are already doing well. Literally the day after Valentine’s Day, I saw an uptick on Easter Dinner Menu Ideas. It doesn’t get a lot of traffic yet, but it is getting daily traffic. It’s one of my most popular posts to date, and I’m hoping it’ll do well again this year.

Page view tactics

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. In February, I maintained a consistent three posts per week schedule with the following evergreen posts: Valentine’s Day Target Gift Basket: For Her, 10 Books to Get You Started with Audio Books, 30 Healthy Dinner Recipes for Two, 10 Things NOT to Include in an Adoption Profile, 10 Photography Projects To Do From Home, and Braces as an Adult: Month 23.
Maintain consistent social sharing, particularly for high traffic and seasonal posts. Check. I’ve kept up with social sharing for new posts. I have my St. Patrick’s Day shares scheduled. Starting this week, I need to get going on spring post shares and start working on Easter shares. I’ve stayed about two months ahead on my general shares of others’ content via 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, actual: 4,630, 1.66
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 February 2019 with 4,630 Pinterest followers. I’m not sure when I hit my February target, but it was even earlier in the month than I hit my January target. After having months in 2018 where I didn’t even get 100 new followers all month, it feels amazing to be averaging 80 new followers per week. It’s also amazing to see engagement keep growing with more followers.

I forgot to recap by 2019 Pinterest strategies in the January update. They are as follows:

Schedule content from other bloggers via Tailwind.
Schedule my own content via Tailwind.
Manage my photography group board.

Finish and publish ebook #2.

My primary goals for ebook #2 this month were to finish the writing component and fill in as many photos as I could for the book. Between photos I’d already shot for the book and photos I’ve created for blog posts over the past few years, I had all but about a dozen photos that I’d needed at the beginning of February. I knocked out another half dozen or so in February. In late Februrary through early March, I filled it all the photos I had completed.

In March, my priorities are to finish up the photos including the cover, proofread the book, finalize the pre-order and release dates, and start contacting fellow bloggers about providing feedback and writing blog reviews and/or Amazon reviews in exchange for free advance copies. Bloggers who write reviews will get backlinks and will have an early opportunity for affiliate earnings through pre-orders. If you are interested, please leave a comment or send me a message! I’ll be providing a lot more information about this offer later in March.

Publish one article per week on Constant Content.

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

I had one sale in February, Home Decorating Tips for Families with Young Kids, which was a December 2018 title, for a total of $53.30.

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 and 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) Ordered and received prints and photo book part I. In progress on 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) Made some progress with editing. Haven’t finished yet.

Current editing

After the crazy amount of trip editing and book creating I did in January, it feels like I didn’t do any editing in February, even though I did. As I’ve already completely finished out two trips, I’m way ahead of schedule on this part of the goal (I only needed to finish out one trip by the end of February to be on track).

As far as keeping up with current editing, I’ve cleared out everything from 2018 except the previously mentioned still in progress trips. With the exception of one set of DIY photos, I’ve finished editing everything from January and a handful of February folders. February was a heavier shooting month, as I have a lot of DIY projects in the works, and I’m working hard to keep my in progress folder count under control.

Read 40 books.

In February, I read the following books:

Opening Belle by Maureen Sherry
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (audiobook)
In Pieces by Sally Field (audiobook)

My 2019 reading total is 8 books, which puts me ahead of schedule.

I actually published my January/February reads already, so check it out if you didn’t last week!

[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: January

2019 Goals Update: February