It was my WordPress Anniversary in March 2019. WordPress greeted me for being “registered on WordPress.com 7 years ago.”
In the past, I have only disregarded these greetings from WordPress. This year, however, I use the anniversary greeting as a milestone. I look back on what I achieved in the past blogging year.
The WordPress Anniversary is a reminder to reflect on my blogging experience.
Privately, I measure three indicators monthly: number of posts, number of views for the month, and number of new followers. However, these statistics have not been published as a post.
Here, I reflect publicly on the past blogging year and share my plans for the next one.
Background
This site started as my attempt to try blogging as a passive income source. I was waiting for job applications and needed to do personal branding. However, I was hesitant to buy my own domain and host a site, knowing of my lack of self-discipline and follow-through.
So, I opted for a free WordPress site while I establish a writing routine and study the multiple ways of attracting traffic into the site.
Accomplishments
I published ten posts!
In the past blogging year, I published 10 posts. My most popular posts last year were about my experience in taking the environmental planning exam.
These were the posts I published in Year 7:
- My First Year of Teaching: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3
- Instagram Highlights of the Bacacay, Albay Trip
- What Eight Years of Adulting Taught Me
- Taking the Environmental Planning Board Exam: Part 1; Part 2
- Paper available online! (about my first journal publication)
- January and Solid Waste
- Here are Five Websites You Should Follow on Feedly
263 people visited the site!
In Blog Year 7, a total of 263 visitors went to the site, making a total of 375 views. These statistics translate to an average of 20 visitors and 28 views monthly.
The most visitors and views occurred in August 2018, when I published my series about my first year of teaching. With these statistics, a visitor views an average of 1.37 posts.
Also, this post on the themes of the movie Passengers got 12 views despite being written in March 2017 and not being actively promoted.
With these statistics, a visitor views an average of 1.37 posts.
I am happy, though, because of random views from Google searches and passive visits. I promote posts on Buffer, but visitors on days without post promotion gives me a smile.
I also received emails from strangers who request for more information and data sources, particularly waste management data I used in posts two years ago.
Plans
Improve landing page
I seldom get views on my landing page, which shows that the front-end of the site is not too visual to searches. I hope to modify the landing page to ensure that it shows up on searches about Environmental Planning and Waste Management.
I also plan to integrate all my professional information in the blog, towards making it a consultancy landing page and knowledge hub for solid waste management and environmental planning.
My only reservation is the security issues that I will encounter with publishing my professional identity on the Internet.
Promote content better
Besides writing, a sole author like me is also responsible for promotion. Batch writing and promotion is a critical a strategy advocated by many of the bloggers, so I aim to do this strategy also.
I started putting my blog site in my email signature, but I am not confident yet to start an email newsletter. I have also made a professional Facebook Page to help in promoting the blog.
The challenge will be maintaining a good system of writing and promoting content. I aim to publish one post every month, but I know I can do better than that!
The blog is also an avenue for sharing my faith. If you are curious about the “Give this a read…” button, click it! It will change your life!
Conclusion
The blog has only broken 100 month views in May 2017. I hope to reach 100 monthly views again before my next WordPress anniversary.
With just 45 existing posts over seven years, I know I can do better!
I also hope to sustain at least a regular monthly posting routine.