2020 Blogging Wrap-up

2021 marks the end of my third year of blogging. My blog is three years old and still going strong. I was able to maintain a consistent blogging schedule and received a few paid jobs for posts and photos. Unlike my second year of blogging, I wasn’t able to travel or cover any events. I’m hopeful that next year I’ll be able to maybe one or two. With it being the beginning of the new year, I wanted to take a moment to look back at my third year of blogging.

Shifting my Blogging Focus

When I first started blogging, I had no plans to try and turn it into a career. It wasn’t until my second year of blogging my plans started to change and I started taking blogging seriously and saw it as a possible career. So I started working towards making blogging a career. In my third year of blogging things changed again and I realized that I enjoyed blogging as a hobby. There was less pressure to adhere to deadlines or look for paid writing jobs. I could return to sharing some of my life with others and connect with readers. When I made the decision to shift back to hobby blogging I felt a weight being lifted. Instead of making blogging a career, I’m returning back to school to pressure a career in Lifestyle Medicine instead.

Improvements

There’s always room to improve, and every year I look for ways to improve my blog by doing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. After doing my analysis I identity the areas I can improve in and make a plan. My improvements in 2020 included creating a subscriber freebie to improve my email list, updated my media kit, and better managing my time.

Building an Email list

In growing my traffic I forgot to focus on creating a growing my subscribers. It’s one thing when people visit your blog, but you also want to keep coming back. During the stay at home order, I worked on growing my subscriber list. I ditched Jetpack’s subscription service and started using Mailchimp to manage my subscribers. Then I made a printable monthly planner to send those who subscribed. I advertised it across my social media and saw my email list begin to grow.

Updating my Media kit

My media kit was outdated. When I created it I didn’t really know what I was going for, so it was kind of all over the place. I also rushed it so when I made my new media kit I took my time with it. I’m happy with how it turned out, it looks more professional compared to my old one. And those who read it gives a clear message of what my blog is and the services I offer. When I updated my media kit, I also updated my contact form to match my media kit.

Managing my time

I have a bad habit of trying to do too much at one time, so I did a time audit to find out where I was wasting time. Turns out it was social media. It doesn’t do much for my blog. Most of my traffic comes from SEO or Pinterest and Ill see a few viewers here are there from Instagram or Twitter. Instagram was the biggest time waster out of the two. Between setting aside time to take photos, edit them, posting content, and return comments. I was spending hours a day building my account. And those hours could be spent on other projects. So I let social media take a back seat and directed my time and energy into other things. Since doing that my traffic hasn’t dropped, and I find myself less overwhelmed.

What I learned in 2020

2020 will forever be known as the year that broke. Depression hit me hard, and I struggled to keep it together. I learned that I am stronger than I think. When I was feeling my absolute lowest I still got out of bed and tried even though I was battling with negative thoughts. When life threw lemons at me, I didn’t give up. Even though I felt like I didn’t have it in me to continue on. I picked myself up and keep going. I’m really hard on myself and I don’t give myself much credit. So the biggest lesson I learned in 2020 is to be nicer to myself. I’ve been working on quieting negative self-talk and not being so hard on myself when I mess up. I’m a work in progress and my good is good enough.

What’s next for 2021?

My goals for blogging have changed. Before deciding to go back to school for Lifestyle Medicine I was working towards becoming a full-time blogger. With the spring semester starting in a few weeks, blogging is going to take a backseat. I’ll still be posting content but on a different schedule. Instead of posting weekly, I’m switching to posting biweekly. My end goal is to find a balance between being a student and a blogger, and I’m hoping fewer blog posts will help. With the new posting schedule, I also plan on starting a monthly newsletter. Right now I send out an email once a week to my subscribers with my latest post. Instead, I’d like to do a monthly newsletter that ties into the posts for that month. Lastly, I’d like to add workbooks to my subscriber freebie vault.

I’m not sure how 2021 is going to go as far as blogging and school. My goal is to balance the two and stick to a consistent posting schedule. While also improving my blogging and offering more to my readers.

Related post: 2019 Blogging Wrap-up