Tag: Blog

be brilliant neon light
Posted in Goal, Manifestation

3 Simple Blog Goals for Year 2

Posted on by tracydee

How can I know what to achieve if I don’t set blog goals?

First of all, if you started following along since the beginning of this blogventure or joined at any point along the way, many thanks and appreciation to you. I wrote my first post in February 2021 and I published 100 posts by January 1st, 2022. Thanks to my friend for guest writing Dear 2022 and my last push to get out 5 things to focus on for the new year:

  1. Time management
  2. Self-Love
  3. Learning a new skill
  4. Reflection and gratitude
  5. Building healthy relationships

The year was full of learning curves as well as inspiration striking at strange times. Through all my research I know I am supposed to “niche down”, but I am still writing posts that are a bit all over the place. Right now I have 25 posts in draft mode with random ideas I have had about topics I’m interested in writing about. So far, my strategy works well, albeit a bit inconsistent (even though I wrote about how consistency is important).

So what’s next for me in blog goals?

The first thing I need to define is my goals. What are my top blog goals for year 2?

  1. Continue to share content and write about the things that interest me
  2. Grow my blog to 10,000 monthly page views by learning marketing strategies and search engine optimization (SEO).
  3. Start earning money so that I can turn this into a full-time gig at some point in the next few years
author blog create creative. blog goals
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Now, how do I reach these blog goals?

Before I get too far into new content (which I will definitely keep putting out there), I need to go back through old posts. This is important to do because I have added many new posts that could be linked to older topics. Internal linking is something that is helpful for SEO.

I also plan to take an SEO course, either a free one I can find or pay for one that is highly recommended in the blogging community.

One of the tools I’ve been using for marketing is Tailwind App. I will continue to utilize this tool to create pins on Pinterest and easy to use visuals to share.

I think one opportunity to grow the blog that I need to utilize a bit more is the power of LinkedIn. As someone who enjoys talking about productivity and time management, I believe there is a strong market of people who may be interested in what I’m writing.

Affiliate Marketing

One of the easiest ways to earn money on blogs besides advertisements is through affiliate marketing. I already joined the Amazon affiliate program and regularly suggest products I like.

Because I also have a growing following on Tik Tok, I am eligible to apply for other affiliate programs. Recently, I applied for my favorite iPad accessory, the PaperLike screen protector. Anyone can join, but if you have 5000 followers or more, you can request a free item to try.

Another lesson I learned was to add legal pages to my blog. I didn’t realize initially that I needed them, but if I’m going to continue to grow this as a business then it’s a must-have. So if you are in need of some as well, I recommend the Legal Bundle from A Self Guru. And now, I’m part of the affiliate program for them as well.

Final Thoughts for Today

There is so much to learn about blogging and I’m ready to tackle the next steps and reach these blog goals! You might see some changes in design or advertisements and upgrades to some old posts. Thanks again for reading and the support!

Posted in Travel

Week 1 in Norway: Quarantine Edition

Posted on by tracydee

Well, I arrived in Norway on Saturday to a very efficient Covid testing protocol. I retrieved my bags, got my nose swabbed, and left after 15 minutes with my negative test results.

I am benefiting from the new guidance of quarantining for only 3 days. However, on the third day you have to get a PCR test, and it is day 5 and I still don’t have my results.

Thankfully, I can go on walks to get out of the house. Yesterday, I went to the park and walked around the statues. The day before I wandered throughout the city until I got tired and made it home just before it poured. It rains a lot here so far!

Food Options

I am impressed with the amount of food options in this city. Oslo is truly an international city and I can pretty much get any type of food I want here. When I got the Covid test done, the attendant gave me a suggestion on where to get a Philly cheesesteak ALMOST as good as Philly itself. So, I definitely plan to try that.

Food Delivery

Saturday afternoon, I was super tired from the 35 hours of travel leading to my arrival. Since I couldn’t go out, I used an app called Foodora to place a dinner order for delivery. It is very similar to Uber Eats or Door Dash.

I ordered Indian food and it was at my door within 30 minutes. It was piping hot and delicious. The delivery people pick up the food and deliver it on scooters in an insulated bag attached to the back of their scooter.

Another app I haven’t tried yet is Wolt, but I’ll be sure to check it out.

Grocery Delivery

After dinner, I placed an order for grocery delivery Sunday morning. I ordered groceries from Oda, which was convenient, quick, and fresh. On their website it says they have over 7,000 items to choose from. Truly, they did have a lot of choices! It was kind of overwhelming in my exhausted state.

I did pretty well for my first grocery haul, only making a couple small errors, such as ordering two bunches of bananas instead of 2 bananas.

So far, I cooked every meal since Sunday to save money. Also, I’m ready to treat myself when I finally get that green light from my Covid results and I can leave quarantine.

The food here is unbelievably fresh! Even the shredded cheese tastes like it was just grated right before it was delivered. The grapes are crisp and the avocados arrived in perfect condition ready to eat.

I made myself a yummy salmon dinner the first night with actual Norwegian salmon.

General Observations

The people are pretty nice. Literally, every car stops to let you cross the street even if they are the only one there and really you could walk right after they pass. It is very much a bike and pedestrian friendly city.

Interestingly, parallel parking seems to have no rules. Cars are parked on the street facing both directions so I guess it doesn’t matter which side you are on.

I have not seen a single person wearing heels, which is probably because of the cold weather and that you have to walk everywhere.

I passed this discount grocery store called Extra, but upon further examination, I realized that the prices were the same as Oda. So, it might just be easier for me to keep ordering groceries and have it delivered.

They take recycling and trash seriously here. I have to separate my food trash items into a green bag and all of the plastic wrappings into a blue bag. Then, plastic and glass bottles are recycled along with cardboard. Plain shopping bags are for generic trash. I’m getting used to that. I don’t like having the little bags on my counter, but I haven’t figured out what else to do with them yet.

I’m a little scared of my electric bill. The washing machine takes forever and you can’t even fit that much in it to begin with. And the dryer also takes a long time. I think I’m going to start hanging out my clothes. I see a lot of people doing this outside.

Productivity Level

If you have been following along this blogging journey, then you know I like to stay productive and keep up with my to-do lists. Being in quarantine sort of forced me to take some downtime, which turned out to be much needed. I read a lot of books, took walks, and adjusted to the time change.

I had a couple of meetings, but most of my time was for me. I thought about using it to complete some online jobs for extra money to help me with my debt reduction goal, but I decided rest and relaxation was best before things get really busy with travel and work.

My workshops are in review and orientation is not until next week. It’s rare that I get downtime like this!

So, I’ll be sure to pick back up on my time management tips and suggestions for moving toward goals soon!