Welcome to my first post of 2018! I hope you've all had a wonderful Holiday season and that the new year is treating you right. Like many of you, I've spent the last few weeks thinking about 2017 and how I'd like to make 2018 even better. Most of us make resolutions for the new year but how many of us are great at keeping them? I'm hoping that by writing down my blogging goals, and putting them out there for the world to see will help keep me focused and motivated. And I had an aha moment when I found a secret formula for success when it comes to reaching my goals. Keep reading all the way to the end to see what that formula is. Plus I'm going to need your help to reach some of these goals. You'll see what I mean by that later on in my post.
I've taken a look back at the goals I set for myself for 2017 and realized that I didn't really set hard defined goals. I was just hoping to find my blogging mojo with all the major changes that my like took this year. I think I may have done that around November. Better late than never right!
As I mentioned in my Leadlight Floral manicure I want to focus on more nail art. Nail art is what started my journey into the polish community and I need to get back to it. We all need to visit our roots from time to time don't you think?
We all know that posting consistently has been the biggest downfall of my blogging career. That's why my number 1 goal this year is to stay consistent with posting. My life had gotten busy enough that posting 3 times a week isn't really an option. I'm hoping that by focusing on only 2 posts a week will be a more attainable schedule. That means at the very least I need to have 104 posts this year. How am I going to do this?
My Plan is to write posts ahead of time instead of trying to pump one out the night before.
Making use of my editorial calendar will help to plan out my month in advance, help keep me on schedule and help keep a balance of swatch posts and nail art posts. I plan to continue working on the different blog series posts I've started like the stamping comparison posts and the Put Up Your Dupes posts. My big hurdle is to stop comparing myself to other bloggers and focus on me. That means I need to stop measuring my success based on other bloggers success. And lastly I'm going to try new techniques and get creative, maybe join a nail art challenge.
Making use of my editorial calendar will help to plan out my month in advance, help keep me on schedule and help keep a balance of swatch posts and nail art posts. I plan to continue working on the different blog series posts I've started like the stamping comparison posts and the Put Up Your Dupes posts. My big hurdle is to stop comparing myself to other bloggers and focus on me. That means I need to stop measuring my success based on other bloggers success. And lastly I'm going to try new techniques and get creative, maybe join a nail art challenge.
 |
| 40 Great Nail Art Looks Challenge Day 2 |
My second goal I've already done. I wanted to give my blog a makeover.Yay for being ahead of the game! I realized that even though I thought my theme was a responsive one it really wasn't and I needed to fix that. Why my blog fit onto my cell phone screen and no one else's is a mystery to me. I'm not sure this new look is quite right though. The color scheme is a lot different than my original vision. This is where I need your help. Really look at my new design and tell me what you think. Are the social media icons too light? Are there too many colors? Do I have a broken link anywhere? I tried to test them all myself but there are a lot and I may have missed one. Please tell me what you think works and what needs a little work. I know my blog is mainly for me, but it's also for you. I want you to have an enjoyable experience while you're here.
My next goal is one that I set for myself every year but this time I'm going to make it happen. I want to work through more of my untried polishes with a minor focus on all of the mainstream polishes I collected 3 or 4 years ago. I have a plan for this and I'd love for you to join me.
This year I've decided to do an ABC's of untried polishes event. It's a 52-weeklong event and people can do as many or as few weeks as they'd like. Basically every other week I will blog about an untried polish in my collection starting with the letter A and ending with Z. All the details can be found in the event on my Facebook page if you're looking for more information. I hope to see you there! We will be starting the week of January 8th.
 |
| ABC's of Untired's event |
The rest of my goals are more of the behind the scenes variety. I'd like to lower my bounce rate by 10%, I'm hoping to get my new vs. returning visitors to be about 50/50 and my big goal is to get 10,000 page views a month 3 times in 2018. These things all depend on keeping up with the other goals that I've set.
I didn't want to go too big with my goals this year because I'm the kind of person that get's easily discouraged. When I set my goals I thought long and hard about what end results I wanted, and then broke that down into smaller goals, 8 to be exact. So what was that secret formula for success I mentioned above? If you noticed when I work on reaching 1 goal it will help to reach another one as well. Posting consistently will help me reach my page view goal and my returning traffic goal. Continuing with my "series" posts will help with my bounce rate, getting 104 posts done this year and, my returning traffic goal. See how each goal is intertwined with the other? This should help me find success, stay motivated and make 2018 a great year for blogging.
I know this was a long post, and I didn't have a lot of nail art to share with you so I thank you for sticking around to the end. I hope you will share with me some of the goals you've set for yourself this year. As always, thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
