A few weeks ago I shared some of my personal goals for the upcoming year, but today I want to share some of my blogging goals with you all! Since starting my blog in 2011, Life With Emily has come a long, long way! A little background in case you’re a newer reader of my blog, I first started blogging when I was a sophomore in college. I began my blog as a way to document my college life and my current interests. I never once thought for a second that I would continue my blog after college, that amazing opportunities would come from it, or that it would turn into a passion of mine. Once I graduated college (and life wasn’t nearly as fun) I shifted the focus of my blog more to my personal style and took my life out of it for the most part. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved sharing my personal life here (and loved going back to read it), but it is a little scary sharing details of your life on the world wide web and some people (both family and friends) didn’t necessarily want themselves plastered all over the internet. This shift in blogging has definitely been a learning experience for the last few years for sure. It has brought a lot of growth to me personally and here on this blog. All of this being said, each year I like to set goals for this blog so that I can continue to share my passion with you all. I decided to share them with you all so that a) I can be held accountable (and will likely share updates) b) so that maybe it will inspire someone to start or grow their own blog.
Increase my page views: This one is pretty straightforward. I want to increase my monthly page views and my unique page views on my blog. This in turn, will bring more social interaction to my blog.
Gain more followers across my social platforms: My social platforms are basically an extension of my blog. While I will sometimes post personal tidbits on there, they are more so a branch of Life With Emily. I love interacting with readers, but it’s not always easy to do on the blog (especially if they are set up as no-reply bloggers). Being able to interact with readers and other bloggers on social platforms is so important to me & I would like to keep building that following so that I can meet new people to interact with!
Attend 1-2 blog conferences: Last year I attended the Southern Blog Society conference and had a wonderful time meeting new bloggers, connecting with brands, and learning more about blogging. I couldn’t attend the rewardStyle conference last year due to scheduling conflicts, but I am so excited to attend this year. Both of these conference offer different sessions, brands, and bloggers and I know I will benefit from them both.
Learn more about my cameras: With a DSLR you can never really learn enough! Every day I feel like I learn about a new setting on my camera and I love that. I want to make time to watch youtube videos, take a class or two, and really learn the ins and outs of it more than I already do. For Christmas I got a Samsung NX300m and am loving it so far. It’s built in wifi definitely sold me on this. I use it a lot for instagram, but just like my Canon, there is still a lot to learn with this camera!
Reply to emails more quickly: I try my best to reply to emails quickly, but sometimes they pile up…I get overwhelmed…and then bam 200 emails later I have carpel tunnel. (maybe I’m kidding…maybe I’m not…) I know how important emails are, so I need to be better at treating them that way and not letting them drown in my email inbox!
Be more organized: I am finally getting my office space all set up, so it’s a start, but I am still working on finding the most effective way to organize everything from notebooks, contracts, etc. If anyone has any good ideas or advice for how you stay organized send them my way!
Schedule all of my posts a week before they go live: I have a confession to make….I literally suck at scheduling my posts. I have all of these great intentions of having my posts scheduled for the week and suddenly it’s 10:45 the night before the post is set to go live and I’m slaving over my laptop (…) I don’t like the feeling of being rushed so I want to start setting a schedule and scheduling them all out.
I feel like I could go on and on (and on) about my blogging goals, but those are the ones that are most important to me! Do any of you have blogging goals for 2015? If so I would love to hear them!
This is a great post Emily!! Thanks for sharing your blogging goals. I have been thinking a lot about blogging goals as well and I have a lot of the same ones for my blog. I actually wrote about some reasons why setting goals for your blog is important, if you want to check it out it's on my blog! 🙂
xo Jessica
http://www.afternoonstyle.com
I know I need to work on going to blog conferences –Hanna Lei
Awesome goals friend! I would love to try and schedule posts a week before they go live. That would make things so much easier!
I love this post Emily! I agree with the last one 100% if I could help myself from slaving over my laptop each night and stick to a schedule it would be so nice! Great tips and goals!
xo, Emma
http://www.defineddesignsblog.com
Great post. I just started reading your blog and I love it!
Nikki Ann
http://nikkann.blogspot.com/
I love reading about your blog goals!! I have some of the same ones, my blog is pretty new but I love seeing how someone who has been blogging for a while is still striving for the same things!! Thanks so much for sharing!
Emily
Dimples of Dixie
Scheduled posts have really been a good thing for me this year – such a way to save time and be more organised. Good luck for 2015 – you have a great blog girl x
These are great goals! I definitely want to start scheduling my posts in advance as well. It's so much easier when you're not scrambling late at night to get something together.
prosecco in the park
These are such great goals!! I really want to attend a blogging conference–I feel like it would not only be so helpful but fun aws well 🙂
Tori
FashionBlingGirlyThings
I don't blog about fashion but I do blog about productivity and work habits. Today I did a post on achieving resolutions! I'd like to get better about adding visuals to my posts. I think that would really help break up the information and make my posts more engaging to read. I'm interested in learning more about blogging from people who have been doing it longer (like you, Emily) and also learning from people who blog about a wide variety of topics. Looking forward to more in 2015!
Jess
http://www.theproductivelibrarian.com
I'm the same way about staying up late and scrambling to finish a post. That's one of my goals as well!! I love reading your blog and keep up the good work!!
Kristina
medicineandmanicures.com
Cool and challenging! Great goals Emily!
♥♥♥
Jeanne
http://fashionmusingsdiary.com
These are great ideas and inspirational to those of us trying to accomplish more this year as well!
Thanks,
Teffa
http://www.theKicksintheCity.com