131: How to Conduct a Half Yearly Blog Review

Seven Areas on How to Conduct a Half Yearly Blog Review Many bloggers do an end of year review. It’s a logical time to do an audit of your blog and set goals. I also think that periodically checking in on those goals and setting new ones is a good idea. This being halfway through the year it is a logical time to do just that. This is a good time to just stop blogging for a day or just spend a few hours and do some analysis of your blog. How have you been traveling as a blogger? I’m going to run through one method I use to do a blog review, but I also have a second suggestion that ProBlogger Editor Stacey Roberts wrote in 2015 that a lot of readers found helpful. I was also thinking about the best way to conduct a blog review and I came up with seven different areas to focus on. In each of these seven areas there are four questions you  need to ask. Questions to Ask in Each of the Seven Blogging Areas What were my successes? What are the opportunities that come from those successes? What were the failures? What is my plan? I’ve also developed a worksheet that is a bit of a matrix that you can use to find the seven areas and ask the four questions within each one. In Today’s Episode: Seven Areas on How to Conduct a Half Yearly Blog Review Listen to this episode in the player above or on iTunes here. Content What did well? Posts, categories, topics, lengths, mediums etc. Did I meet deadlines? Plan - set an editorial plan - CoSchedule or Spreadsheet Traffic Traffic spikes and why - social network, blogs, seasonal Promote seasonal spikes and look for opportunities Dips and ways to minimize those dips Trending traffic - up, down, plateaus Promotional activities - guests posts, social, SEO, how did it go? Reader Engagement Health of your readership Are they engaging Comment numbers, share numbers, bounce rate Open rates on email newsletters Social media engagement What are you hearing from your readers? Have you delivered value? Giving more than taking Reader Survey - ask questions Run a community project or challenge to get engagement Monetization How is income trending? What has performed well? Where is income coming from - launches or long tail sales? Other monetization methods Plan What products to develop What sponsors to approach What affiliates Review media kit for sponsors Promotional calendar for products to launch or develop Set aside time to build a product or reach out to sponsors Tech Servers, outages, downtime Security, updates, plugins, vulnerabilities Broken features, new tools or plugins Design - Overhaul, review, is it dated or need tweaking Mobile responsive Tools - email, landing pages, do my tools still serve my needs? Do I need and get value from paid tools? Productivity How do you use your time? Workflows What takes the most time? Time tool like RescueTime You How are you traveling? How are you going? Do we ask ourselves this question? How are you going with your blogging, but your life as well? Physical, spiritual, mental, your energy levels and passion Do you need a break or to change direction? It’s important to ask deeper more personal questions Are you filling your cup? Professional development - solo entrepreneurs need to do this for themselves If you are not learning and developing your blog may suffer Further Resources on How to Conduct a Half Yearly Blog Review How to Do an End of 2015 Blog Audit: Take Stock of What You’ve Achieved and Where You’re Headed by Stacey Roberts Download the Worksheet Create Content - Content is the cornerstone of your blog. Here you’ll find everything to help you create great blog content. CoSchedule Promotion - How to Get More Eyeballs on Your Blog Find Readers - If you need to know how to find rea...