It’s that time of year for reflection and resolutions. Whilst I’ve long given up my annual New Year’s Resolution to ‘lose weight and exercise more’ I have been thinking about some of the changes I’d like to implement across my blog in 2016. Do any of these match your blogging goals for the coming year?
1.Bring Back The Banter
In 2014 I wrote that I missed the random banter of the Twitter of old but this year I realised that the same can be said about blogging. I think there is a tendency as your audience grows to try and be more ‘on brand’, extra useful and authoritative, and sometimes that means that banter, randomness and wit gets watered down. In 2016 my goal is try and be more true to my natural tone of voice – mixing usefulness with sarcasm, telling funny stories as well as sharing tips.
2. Let’s Get Personal
A few of my favourite blogs launched end of year reader surveys and I realised as I answered them that my favourite posts were the most personal ones. Although I follow travel blogs for the overseas adventures I love knowing more about the people behind them. When Monica from The Travel Hack talks about her home renovation project, for example, I feel I get a fuller picture of the person behind the blog and that’s something I’d like to offer more of in my own content. I’ve read a couple of posts recently from other bloggers (here and here) who have vowed to do the same. They talk of brining back honesty into their blogging and talking about their interested outside of travel too. Perhaps 2016 is the year that blogging goes back to being personal?
3. Consistency Please
Offline I’m a pretty organised impulsive person and you’ll probably notice my blog schedule is similarly erratic. I make content schedules but then get inspired by something else and write that instead and I’m too impatient to save publishing it for another day. I don’t think it’s realistic for me to keep to a set posting schedule but what I do want to do is make sure that the content threads/themes are more consistent – so you get a wider spread of content and I don’t have categories which haven’t been updated since June (don’t judge me!). This means I need to do a bit of a content audit to see which bits to keep.
(FYI I’m thinking the weekly vlogs which turned monthly and then became once in a blue moon will probably have to go as they take so much time but I will be doing more live broadcasts on Periscope instead so you can always catch me on there if you like video content.)
4. Blog Smarter Not Harder
This year I noticed that I have a handful of posts which bring in the bulk of my monthly traffic. My tips for travelling in Ao Nang Krabi are a massive search traffic driver as are the various airline reviews I’ve done of Premium, Business and First class cabins. Although these may not be the most fun posts to write they are obviously proving helpful so my goal for 2016 is to really dig into my Google Analytics and use that to create posts that people want to read – alongside the randomness of point 1, of course.
5. Pretty Pictures
This year I invested in an Olympus Pen and it’s massively helped improve my photography (I think!). In 2016 I want to learn how to use professional photo editing tools and actually spend time sprucing up pics before posting. They say a picture paints a 1000 words; I want mine to say something pretty.
6. Wanna Meet Up?
I love meeting other bloggers and speaking to readers in real life. In London there was always lots of opportunities to do so at different events but I’ve found there are not so many tweet ups/blogger meet ups in Sydney (this is changing – London had just set the bar really high!). I recently held my first ever Insta Walk, showing bloggers around my favourite places to photograph Sydney, and it was a lot of fun. I’d love to do more events like this in 2016; it’s a great way to meet and socialise with others in the industry whilst creating content and having heaps of fun. If anyone lives or is planning to visit Sydney let me know if you’d like to come along!
What are your blogging resolutions for 2016?
Click here for a list of my travel blogging tips.
I had a little think about my resolutions this year and thought what’s the most important thing to me about my blog? It’s that it makes me happy…so my resolution is carry on being happy 🙂 I think the idea of writing more personal posts is something that fits in with that, I want to make sure I keep my passion alive in my blog.
Lots of love,
Angie
That’s exactly how I feel. Just want to keep on loving it! Happy new year x
Yes, yes and yes (well apart from the Sydney meet-ups, though I’d love another excuse to visit again!).
I’m with you on most of these points, but especially number 1.
Big up the banter 🙂
I really like your goals – one thing I realised from a year of travel is that I had to make my posts a lot more personal in order to keep the readers reading, because I didn’t have a lot of other content to go on (not being a travel blog!). I’m definitely using 2016 to put some lofty goals out there too – so thanks so much for sharing yours!
P.S. The PEN is totally on my list!
Re the PEN I just met a blogger who bought it and says it’s horrible for video. Not sure if you plan to vlog but just an FYI 🙂
I’ve noticed so many bloggers saying exactly the same thing about getting personal with their blogs. Isn’t it weird how we all got a bit magaziney for a while and stopped showing our personalities – when it was our personalities that initially attracted readers!
And I definitely noticed your gorgeous photos recently – I’m looking forward to seeing more!
Ah thanks Mon. And that’s so true about the magazine trend – hoping to see it flip back to more ramblings/personal essays this year
I hope 2016 is the year of the personal in blogging! We need stories more than anything else.
My trusy Olympus Pen (how good is that camera?!) broke down when we got caught in a rainstorm at Sculpture by the Sea, so my blogging goal is to get my camera fixed! 😉
And, yes, please do another meet up – I’d love to join the next one.
O awesome, I shall! Let me know when your camera is fixed and we can set a date haha
Brilliant goals, mine are very similar! I especially want to master the art of sprucing up pictures before posting! Happy new year and I hope you achieve your goals and more for 2016 🙂
Danielle / http://www.escapingessex.com
Same to you D!
Ah, so much of this rang true! I agree with them all! And yet I think I need to spend a little more time away from the screen too. Ah, decisions, decisions!
In short, I think I want to spend more time blogging and less responding to email. But how to do that?
Hi Jayne,
Point 4 I think I have discovered this year is the most important point. Like you say – we need to learn to work smarter, not harder!
Thanks again for a wonderful, insightful post.
Lovely goals! I need to set up mine too! Fancy organising an Instameet together soon? I’m in Sydney and used to organise brunch instameets in London (as well as Paris, Milan, Berlin and Tuscany!). I’m following you now on insta, I’m @the_storyteller and you can also find me on sabrina-andrea-sachs.com even though my domain is being re-direct as i’m writing this so it’s down! 🙁
Hi Jayne 🙂 I just discovered your blog, better to be late then never. I really enjoy reading it!
Love from Norway! Xx
Hi Pauline, thanks for stopping by. Hope you’re staying warm in Norway! J