My Online Goals For 2010, And A Look Back At 2009

It’s been a year since I wrote about my online goals for 2009. Let’s take a look at those goals and see what happened.

1. Earn at least $2,500 online. Nope, I didn’t make it, but I did make a little bit more than half, coming in at $1,384.65. I had 7 months over $100, including one month where I was over $225. I think I’ll need another year to see if history has anything to do with sales, as the last two months and the first two months of this year period were the worst for me.

2. Revamp my Services and Stuff site. I looked at it all year and in the end, just didn’t have my heart into changing it around. I did make some minor updates here and there, but nothing dramatic in any way.

3. Work my way up to 500 subscribers to my blog. In January I had 54 subscribers. My best day for subscribers was one day this month where the number showed I was up to 126 subscribers. That’s more than double of what I had, but far shorter than where I was. Oddly enough, things jumped drastically when I said I was going to start writing more personal posts than technical posts; I’ll take that to mean that folks were actually more engaged than they had been before, and I thank those of you who have subscribed to this blog.

4. Determine at least three series to write on this year. I ended up the year with only one new series, but I’m thinking about creating another one because I’ve talked about it enough, such that it’s probably going to be an upcoming post. The series I created was SEO, and the topic that might turn into one is Twitter. Twitter doesn’t quite fit as a series, yet I think by now I’ve written about it in some fashion at least 20 times.

5. Get into Technoratiā€™s top 60,000. This one I didn’t even have a chance to do because at some point this year Technorati totally changed how the numbers worked and looked.

That was a look at where my mind was last year at this time and what I had hoped to accomplish. My mind is in a much different place this year, and yet there are still some major goals I want to reach. I have been reading many other blogs lately that have talked about their 2010 goals, as well as how they did last year. I’m on the failed end, as I didn’t achieve a single one of my goals. And with what I’m about to put up, I’m not sure I’ll hit any of these goals, as they’re going to be somewhat audacious. Sometimes, it’s not hitting the goal that’s as important as the process for improvement. Let’s take a look at my five goals for 2010.

1. Earn at least $15,000 online. Yeah, I know, I didn’t even hit $2,500 last year, so what makes me think I can do even better this year? One has to have a goal, and one has to make plans towards that goal. I’m going to be changing some things up on this blog, and probably my other blogs. I know of some changes I’m going to make on at least one of my sites. In essence, I figure it’s time to set myself up for the possibility of making more money. I need to start putting together more of these things that I’ve learned rather than waiting around for the big epiphany to hit me. I’m not about to change up the frequency of my blogging, but I hope to make some of it better.

2. Reach those 500 subscribers. I had a nice increase this year, but it wasn’t my goal. When I wrote about that fine line between blogging success and failure I recognized that making small changes can sometimes have drastic results. This will be year three of having this blog, and I’ve got a lot of content that I might think is pretty good, but it’s not reaching as much audience as I feel it needs to reach. The same goes for my other blogs and websites, but I’m concentrating on this one for new subscribers.

3. Increase real visitors to this site to 3,000 a month on average. Yeah, that “real” word is there for a reason. If I believed the numbers that my host is telling me, I’m getting more than 25,000 hits a month on this blog. Well, hits aren’t actual visitors, and we all know that. My real visitors has come back up from the hit it took after I left town last year for a consulting assignment, and I need it to keep increasing. I’ve noticed, as many others have noticed, that when I write more, I get more visitors. However, now that I’m making a part of my living doing writing, I’m not sure I can get to a point where I can write two posts a day for this blog. In this past year I only had one month where I wrote fewer than 20 posts for the month, but I didn’t hit 30 once either. I’m going to be doing more of that, and if one of those two posts a day is a sales post of some type, well, that counts as well. I’ve noticed that there are some internet marketers who make sure they mention things more than once that they’re marketing in their blogs; heck, you see how this campaign for the Beyond Blogging book has gone. If I made even 3 sales I’m going to consider that a success for me; if I make more than 5, I’m going to consider it a lesson learned.

4. Get even more publicity this year by guest posting. In 2009, I did a lot of interviews and ended up in both print and online radio. What I haven’t figured out is how to turn any of that into major benefits for myself. The one thing I didn’t do in 2009 was any guest posts; I did my guest posts in 2008. I wasn’t asked, but I also didn’t put myself out there in saying that I would write any guest posts. I’m doing that now; anyone who wants guest posts, write me at the email address on my About page and let me know what you’d like me to write about. Heck, for that matter, if you’d like to write a guest post for my blog on any appropriate topic, let me know that as well.

5. Get my Alexa rank for two of my blogs into the top 100,000. This one is going to be harder than I think it is, but it’s got to get done. This blog is right now sitting at 142,467, which isn’t all that bad, but back in March it was 127,242. My Top Finance Blog was only created last December, and it’s got an Alexa rank of 361,787. My business blog is tied into my entire business website, and I’m not sure if the blog can help the entire website move any higher, but if it can, it’s sitting at 382, 865 as of today. With the two blogs, getting ranked into the top 100,000 means asking for advertising is a legitimate prospect, even though this blog has a 0 page rank because of previously having those nofollow Text Link Ads. I’ve asked Google to evaluate me, but I guess they have better things on their mind so I’m not pushing the issue.

Anyway, those are my 2010 online goals. What do you think, and what are you hoping to achieve in 2010? By the way, if you’d like some help in setting goals, download this free gift from Paul Myers on goals.

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21 thoughts on “My Online Goals For 2010, And A Look Back At 2009”

  1. Nothing wrong with lofty goals. Definitely something to strive for. I have not set such lofty goals as I am tending to keep things well within reach. I tend to get frustrated and want to give up so I am keeping things light and simple, but plan to add on month by month and adjust my goals as I go along.

    Now, in your quest to gain 500 subscribers, I can help. Since I do not believe I have yet subscribed [and completely meant to]! Not much, but it’s a start. Happy New Year! šŸ˜‰
    .-= AnneĀ“s last blog ..2010 Wish List ~ Non-Resolution Style =-.

    1. Well all right, Anne! One step at a time growth; I’m up for that. šŸ˜‰

      And I always make my goals relatively high, after I hit the very first goal I had within a couple of weeks. Not that it helped, since my wife talked me out of buying it.

  2. You have got some nice achievement on your blog, after all your earning is very high than me.

    Well my blog page rank and alexa rank is better than before. I have not set such particular goal for my blog. But it good for me if I can make one good living by blogging.

    I want to bring my blog top ten for keyword “work at home”, it is the target of my blogging.
    .-= chandanĀ“s last blog ..List of Edu blogs =-.

    1. Chandan, that’s a tough market to crack because so many people are already there. If you can do it, that will be quite an achievement. Good luck with it.

  3. I must say your first 4 goals for this year makes sense. That last one is completely pointless. If I am the advertiser, I want to do where my banner will be placed and how much traffic you have.
    .-= Deneil MerrittĀ“s last blog ..2010 Professional And Personal Goals =-.

    1. Deneil, I don’t know that telling someone that a goal they have for themselves is pointless is such a good thing. It can come across as insulting, if you know what I mean.

      In my case, it’s my goal, and I could pretty much care whether anyone else thinks its pointless or not. To me, it’s representative of the fact that my blog is in the top 60,000 ranked blogs in the world, as Alexa rankings have changed in the past year, and if being in the top 60,000 is pointless out of more than 110 million blogs, then I’ll just shoot for pointless and deal with it on my own terms.

      1. Mitch, I did not mean to come off rude. Alexa rank has and never will be on point. I learn how to play with my rank back in 2008 and know people that still play with their rank. I could easily get my blog to rank in the top 50k within a week or so. That’s why I called it pointless. It doesn’t help you grow more income from your online business. I much rather see you complete your first 4 goals.

        Your 3rd goal is easier than you make it out to be. You could complete that goal this month with the right title for your blog posts, some backlink building, and a little social media marketing.

        Whenever you get some time I would gladly help you with gaining traffic and subscribers.
        .-= Deneil MerrittĀ“s last blog ..2010 Professional And Personal Goals =-.

      2. I will have to take you up on that, Deneil. Truthfully, on a page with no page rank, which we both know some advertisers are still going to look at and wonder about (though we know it means nothing), the next best thing to offer to an advertiser, after visitor numbers, is the position on Alexa. I’d almost want to bet you that you couldn’t get your blog to rank in the top 50,000 within two weeks, and I’d put $100 on it; want to take me up on that one? It would be an interesting challenge to write about on our blogs. It might be easier for you than for me, since my blog titles match my content, and if I have to start thinking more about writing for what I’d call linkbait then it would kill my creative process, something I’d never want to do for this particular blog.

        As Wanda Sykes said, “I’m a be me.” šŸ™‚

        Overall, the top 3 are the main goals of the year; the last two are sidebar goals, and if I didn’t hit either one of them but progressed in some fashion I’d be a happy guy.

      3. lol, yeah I know what you mean. I have made a lot of money from advertisers that care about PR. (even though it means nothing) Im not saying advertisers will not look at PR, traffic, and alexa. I am saying its pointless for you to focus on alexa rank rather than completely focusing on getting targeted traffic that will make you money. lol 2 months ago, I would have gladly taken that challenge. It would be great to blog about, complete, and get $100 but these days its a waste of my time. I have no time to blog on my personal blog. All my time goes towards blogging on my poker blog, posting in my poker forum, playing poker, and researching domain names and keywords. As for you blogging, I am not saying do anything that will “hurt” your creative process. All I am saying is do more SEO research for your articles. When you write about products, pick keywords that will not only make sense for your readers but easy to rank in the top 3 in the search engines.

        Let’s stay focus on the goal in 2010. More money!
        .-= Deneil MerrittĀ“s last blog ..2010 Professional And Personal Goals =-.

      4. Deneil, I think I do okay with SEO whenever I write about products, but I don’t actually write about products all that often. I do probably need to start making sure I have as one of my tags the word “review”, however, which I’ve rarely done.

        The way I figure it, if the traffic numbers increase, the Alexa rank will increase as well, and thus I’ll have achieved that goal without looking to do too many other things. It’s just something I want for myself; sometimes, that’s got to be a good enough reason.

      5. Mitch, don’t just be happy with ok. Build backlinks for posts. Completely take over the first position on google and other search engines. Forget the tag words. Review should be in the title and in the content. Also, kill any noise about it being a scam in your content. You would be shocked at how much traffic you would get from keywords like “product name scam”

        Now that makes a lot more senses. As I was saying before. Focus on traffic. Well targeted traffic not just any traffic. Your income will grow for sure.
        .-= Deneil MerrittĀ“s last blog ..2010 Professional And Personal Goals =-.

      6. Deneil, one of my issues with the word “scam” is that often someone puts it ina title, then it turns out to be an article saying it’s not a scam. Yeah, I know, it draws people, but I’m going to be honest and forthright, period. It might not be good business sense, but it’s ethical.

        This thing about backlinks; I’ll own up that I’ve never quite understood the concept. I think I need someone to write a guest post on exactly what it is and exactly what it means. I hear people saying to do it all the time, but other than writing people and asking them to link to me, which I’m loathe to do, what other way is there other than commenting on other blogs and writing articles with links back to your site?

        As for tagging, that’s actually as important as the rest of what people do. Internal linking is something people forget about all the time, and if you do your internal linking for certain keywords, or topics so to speak, you enhance your site as well.

  4. lol its great business sense. I wouldn’t put it in the title but I would put it in the article. Most people google a product right before buying. I much rather draw someone. Explain that the product is great, not a scam, and get the sale than let someone else get the sale.

    Well you do get it but with a limited view on it. besides commenting on other blogs, and guest posting. You could do article marketing which is the same as guest posting but you submit the article to sites like ezinearticles. There’s forum posting with your link in your signature. There’s tons of dofollow bookmarking sites.

    I am all for internal linking posts. I just don’t see the need to use tags. No one ever clicks on them when you use a tag cloud and using a tag cloud adds so many links to your site which doesn’t look good.
    .-= Deneil MerrittĀ“s last blog ..2010 Professional And Personal Goals =-.

    1. Actually, initially I didn’t see the point of tags also. But I get it now; tags reinforce your topics, the things you talk about on your blog, and it groups everything in one place. It’s not the point of whether people click on them; it’s the point of reinforcing what you’re writing about.

      1. How does having tags reinforce a topic? If someone took the time to read my post. They would know what its all about.
        .-= Deneil MerrittĀ“s last blog ..2010 Professional And Personal Goals =-.

      2. Tags are the ultimate in SEO. Tags already have lots of articles listed under them, so, for instance, if I have a tag that says SEO and I happen to write SEO in my list and link to it, that reinforces the term for the search engines because SEO is in my link and in my address bar.

      3. lol it is far from the “ultimate” in SEO. Yes, it gives you another page on your wordpress site with a list of pages. Great for getting more internal links. However, doesn’t reinforce anything. It’s not going to help any of your posts rank better in the search engines.

        I can think of better things to do for on-site and 0ff-site SEO.
        .-= Deneil MerrittĀ“s last blog ..2010 Professional And Personal Goals =-.

      4. One of the best things about SEO is that it’s such an open field that we can all be right and wrong at the same time. I guess this is just something we’ll both be doing differently. When your site passes mine as far as the rankings go, maybe your way will work better. Or maybe we just go after what we go after, eh? šŸ™‚

      5. Indeed, my friend everybody does their SEO differently. lol I don’t think mine can pass yours or yours pass mine. Since we are not in the same niches.
        .-= Deneil MerrittĀ“s last blog ..2010 Professional And Personal Goals =-.

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