Earlier in the week I celebrated my third anniversary for 100 Word Anime. For me, that was really exciting because each year I kind of feel like I’m learning more and figuring things out and I also feel like my posts are written a little better than they used to be. Okay, there’s still typos and the like, but I feel like my posts are a little clearer and more focused than they used to be (for the most part, there’s still the occasional ramble that gets through).
Today though I want to look at how the third year went on the blog and then set a few goals for the new year. If this is anything like previous years, other than the goal of ‘have a great time blogging’ I will probably fall short of most of these, but I’m still going to set them anyway. I love having something to work towards. Besides, I think as long as I keep kicking the goal of having fun I’m still coming out ahead.
2018 ended up being a very solid year for my blog. I wrote over 1000 posts and the number of comments and likes increased in general. of course, the length of my posts just keeps getting longer though I think I’ve kind of found the right length for my episode reviews so they don’t go on too long but also give enough information. Occasionally an episode needs more words and sometimes there just isn’t that much to say so I think it all kind of works out in the end.
April of 2019 is quite literally the only month since starting the blog that a post didn’t come out everyday. Even July last year where I took a mini-break still had one post a day scheduled for the week. And in terms of views, it is very clear that I wasn’t posting in April as it is one of the worst months I’ve had in the last two years. However, I’m really proud of the fact that I’ve managed to maintain daily posting for all but one month out of the last three years and I’m really happy with the growth my blog has had.
Still, over the last 12 months I’ve had 4 months where I hit the target, or exceeded it, of 10,000 views in the month, so that goal was well and truly smashed and I can not express how excited that made me. I know it is just a number but it just kind of made me feel like I really can build this blog into something more sustainable long term.
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But now we need to set some goals.
Number One: Continue to have fun with the blog and anime.
This goal is pretty self-explanatory and is pretty much the same as every other year.
Number Two: I’m going to tentatively set a goal of 20,000 views in a month. It will probably be a couple of years before I hit that, but it still seems like a nice target.
While I get views aren’t everything, realistically, the more people who visit or follow my site, the more chance there is of generating revenue through either ads, affiliate links, donations, or people choosing to become patrons and supporting the site. I’m very grateful to those who have financially supported the blog over the last year and this financial year at least the blog is on track to have earned enough to cover all blog related expenses.
Number Three: Learn more about social media.
Over the last six months I’ve been reading a whole range of websites and guides about how to effectively use social media and while I just don’t have the time to put a lot of the advice into practice, I’ve been working on Twitter at least to build up the number of people who actually follow links back to my blog and that has worked fairly well (let’s not talk about April though). I’d like to continue to explore ways to use various social media sites to bring visitors to my blog and just learn more about what I could be doing.
Number Four: This one is a very tentative goal, but I think I’m at the point where I need to expand beyond being a solo-blogger and need to look at bringing in some other writers to the site.
Over the last six months I’ve really been thinking about what I can do to improve and increase content and broaden the range of content on offer to readers but the reality is I’m doing as much as I can already. In order to do any more I am going to need to look at having other contributors in one form or another. This one is tricky because clearly the blog isn’t earning enough to pay anyone decently for their contribution, yet, and also because I do not want to lose what makes my site what it is so I have no intention of just opening the doors or rushing to expand at the expense of what I love about my blog.
Still, the first baby steps toward this goal are already in motion so keep your eyes open.
And that’s it. That’s the current state of the blog after three years with some vague plans for the fourth year. I’d also like to throw in there that I’d also love to collaborate with other bloggers when I have the time for it as it is great fun reviewing a show with someone else and I also want to find more anime related blogs to read as I always enjoying finding more content. Hopefully everyone enjoys the next twelve months and as always, if you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to use the contact to send me a message or DM me on Twitter.
Reminder also there’s a couple of days left to enter the raffle for the giveaway if you haven’t already. Really looking forward to seeing who wins. The winner will be contacted shortly after the raffle closes and I’ll hopefully get the prizes in the mail soon after I get the mailing addresses.
Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James
Great job! You’ve definitely been doing awesome at increasing your blog consistency and getting in users. Publishing a post every day is definitely not easy at all so managing that for pretty much the whole year is awesome. It’s something I haven’t been able to do in years prior, but have just started like a month or two ago. Especially with how new your site is and you’re already hitting 10K I think you’ve definitely got a long-term hit here. Keep up the good work 🙂
Thank you and best of luck with your blog.
1,000 posts in one year, and such incredible reception, too! Truly, you continue to outdo yourself, and I really look forward to how far you’ll fly in the coming years.
Congrats again!
Thanks so much.
You’ve had such fantastic growth of content and readership, I’m glad everything is working so well for you. It means all your hard work is paying off
Congrats on three years and hope you continue on for at least another three!
The plan is hopefully to keep the blog going strong and I’d love to be able to say in three years time that blogging was my main gig (though that might be overly ambitious).
You never know 😁. It could happen!
Great goals! If I may offer one word of advice: Pinterest. The number of followers I have on Pinterest is significantly lower than my number of Twitter followers, but Pinterest consistently pushes the same or more traffic to my site. Some days, it’s not even close.
If you want to explore paid advertising, Facebook is the lowest price per click. For US $30 I typically see 300 or 400 extra visits. Thing is, they don’t seem to stick around. After the promotional period, there’s not an uptick in routine traffic.
Thanks for sharing some of your stats! It’s fun seeing how you’re becoming even more successful!
Irina suggest Pinterest to me last year and I’ve started an account. I do get one or two views via it but for me Twitter is my biggest traffic driver outside of the reader and searches, probably because I’ve spent the most time with it. Pinterest will probably be good when I can spend some decent time learning how to actually use it properly.
I did run a very brief Facebook ad toward the end of last year because a friend offered to sponsor it and I agree with what you said. During the promotion, it drove extra visits but there didn’t seem to be any ongoing benefit from it.
“Twitter is my biggest traffic driver outside of the reader and searches, probably because I’ve spent the most time with it.”
I suspect that’s because of your re-tweeting of old(er) articles more than anything else. I know I’ve clicked through a time of two to see if anything has been added in the comments.
I’m pretty sure that’s it as well. Of all my other accounts, I spend the most time playing with and looking at advice on how to use twitter to drive traffic and for the most part it does actually send traffic to my blog.
2019 has been a rough year for me so far, blog-wise.
I hope once I get a stable job, and have my IDs and stuff, I can start writing normally again.
I think a lot of us have had a bit of a rough time so far this year judging from the number of people I follow who’ve gone on mini-breaks or hiatus in order to deal with stuff.
Hopefully things settle for you soon. I’m certainly hoping for a calmer rest of the year.
Thank you, that’s honestly really appreciated.