I've really been reflecting over the past few months on personal and business goals. As I'm starting to creep up on 40, I'm really feeling some internal pressure to buckle down and get more serious about my pattern business and blogging. I've had this blog for a while and I'm sorry to admit that I've really been under-utilizing it's potential. So I've spent the past couple of weeks researching what makes a great blog, what a decent amount of traffic is, and basically what it is that really successful bloggers are doing.
The number one thing about successful blogs is that the people are passionate about what they do. Well, I think that I have that covered. I clearly love making and creating. So, beyond that what is is that a person needs to do to share that with their fellow crafters.
Successful bloggers post often and they are consistent. It's not just that they are posting great content. I think that comes along with being passionate about your craft. It's being consistent. Looking back through my blog, I found that I really work in spurts. I'll post every day for a week and then go dark for a month. I simply don't have time to blog every day. So, I spent the past two days creating a blog post planner. I plan to spend 1-2 days per week creating posts and then scheduling them to post. To help me get organized, I've created a printable blog planner. There are loads out there, but I wanted something specific to craft blogging. It was a bit tough for me to make a computerized version because I love bullet journaling. However, I decided that when it comes to something like blogging, a printed log would just be more efficient.
You can download it free here. Free Printable PDF Blog Planner.
I'm also making the Publisher version available here. This way you can edit it yourself if you want to add in topics, etc. Editable Blog Post Planner
The first thing I've done with this planner is to look at my blog stats. I've had 298,066 page views. I'm averaging about 4,000 a month. I want to set an achievable goal for myself, but something that it challenging. I decided to shoot for tripling my traffic. I feel like this is an achievable goal if I actually post on a regular basis.
I'm also tracking engagement on social media with the same table.
Next, I analyzed my top 10 most popular posts. Some of my posts are up to nearly 20,000 page views. The top 10 posts really fall into 2 categories - Round-ups and tutorials. It also looks like most of my traffic comes from Google and Pinterest. I set up a spot on the table to brainstorm similar post ideas.
Next I looked at what types of posts are most popular for crafting and sewing blogs and I broke them into 2 categories. First are posts that you should make less frequently. I'm calling them Quarterly Posts because I'd like to make 1-2 posts from each of these categories each quarter.
So I've put Fairs/Festivals (i.e. places I might sell my stuff or places I visit - kike the Sewing Expo).
Next, it's wish lists. This will be a roundup of things I'd love to get from other etsy shops, for my sewing studio, etc. I'm going to make these posts about once every 4 months. My ideas were to post around my birthday, Mother's Day, Christmas, and one other random time.
Next, I'm going to post about special discounts - i.e. quarterly sales or promotions I run in my etsy shop.
Giveaways - I plan on hosting a giveaway every few months.
Finally, personal and business goals. I want to track my progress and share with you.
Now, onto the more frequent topics. These are posts to make more often, but not necessarily every week. I call them monthly posts. It's broken down into features (1-2 a week), Work in Progress, Sneak Peaks, Inspiration, Personal Posts, Studio/Workspace posts, tutorials, freebies, advice, seeking feedback, book reviews, other crafting projects, Wordless Wednesday, Throwback Thursday, Resources, Treasuries, Recipes, Interviews, and Guest Blogger.
You can see how the combination of all these types of posts ends up making it so that I can make a post every day and cover most of these topics more than once throughout the month.
I also have a page for monthly themes - inspiration I want to use to drive my monthly posts. For example - getting organized is my theme for this month. I'm planning posts on how I organize my studio, how I budget and plan out cosplays, hacks for organizing different crafting supplies, etc. I'll probably also feature some organization related sewing patterns and tutorials.
I have worksheets for each of the topics to help brainstorm ideas and plot out when I will make the posts.
Finally, I have the Blog Post Planner. It's just a 1 page sheet where I plan out the posts.
IN A NUTSHELL
My goals for this year are:
- To post almost every day.
- To increase my blog traffic
- To post a better variety of posts
- To share each most on social media
- To be more consistent in my posting format
If you want to see how I organize my sewing projects, check out this post of my Sewing Project Planner.
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