Goals for January 2016

[Ryuzaki]

By now, we all probably have fantasized about our year-long BIG goals.

The monthly threads are where we break them down into actionable "SMART" goals so we can actually see the completion of the big goals by December.

What do you guys have in store as you bust out of the gates into 2016? The energy is high, let's use it!

 

[builder]

I had a very slow start to the year so far. Need to catch up fast.

I haven't assessed the SMART-ness of these tasks, but the list below is pretty much what I want to do in January.

• Publish four posts (authority/pillar content) for two of my sites
• Publish one evergreen post and one authority post for my career site
• Continue with my BuSo journal to keep track of what I am doing. Reassess every week.
• Ignore everything negative (except constructive criticism) posted in my journal as well as everything negative seen/heard in real life. Minimize negative news consumption (media/online). Have absolute focus on building.
• Follow up with an existing project partner at BuSo who is having his hands full at present and see if we can finish the project. Otherwise, postpone it for a period of time.
• For the journal, work on the "ten sites" as well. Finish design and first "content" for all of them by the end of the month.

 

[stackcash]

Here's what's on my list:

• Increase revenue by 20% over last January
• Finish up our new client submission form / backend
• Hire new & train new writers to handle subscription business
• Update internal documents and create new content templates for writers

...and for my sites:

• Sell our oldest site with FEI
• Get two more sites that have been sitting on the second page for 100+ terms ranked on the first page and earning
• Start 2-3 more sites for 2016
• Begin my all-whitehat project

 

[Potatoe]

For sure stuff:

• Start my BuSo case study where I run through most of the Crash Course and journal it.
• Get to 25k+ likes on the main FB page for that site. (Currently at 20 cents per like, trying to figure out how to bring this down...) Goal is 300k if I can get it down to a few cents per like.
• Make a spreadsheet with all of my articles for this site and other important info, tidy up any that aren't up to par.
• Start my SEO campaign and obtain at least 10 quality links.
• Make a list of the 100 most influential pinners that could post my content, bribe at least 20 of them.
• Tailor an article to a large subreddit to get some vanity traffic and hopefully some news coverage if I angle it right. This has worked wonders in the past for boosting newer sites.
• More on all of this in my case study that's coming up...

Wouldn't mind doing this stuff, too:

• Drop 10lbs of holiday weight.
• Continue getting my new place setup real nice, organized, etc.
• Stick to the better sleep schedule I'm on lately, but I don't stress anymore if I pull an all-nighter either.
• Re-brand my business, looking for a killer domain name. Not a huge priority because I don't really use the name for anything nor promote it, this is mostly for vanity's sake. I could use a number and it wouldn't make a difference at this point.
• Get a couple dozen new posts up on a small JV affiliate site that I started with a partner late last year.

 

[Ryuzaki]

For my main project and 95% focus this month:

• Publish at least 30 pieces of content w/ Social promotion
• Score at least 10 contextual links on big sites
• Push a specific ranking to page one (next month to top 3)
• Promote and Leak to gain 50+ lower powered links and traffic

That's it. Simple and narrow. Publish content daily and get links and social signals. It's time to start getting this organic traffic.

 

[built]

• 20 pieces of targeted content
• Grow twitter by 100 followers
• Grow email by 100 subscribers
• Grow Facebook page by 100 likes
• 100k views

Time to build this shit back up again

 

[CCarter]

Just gotta grind this out above all else...

January Goals:

1. Finalize v3. (46/84 Complete)

 

[Philip J. Fry]

Pass my B1 German proficiency test. Its on 29 January 2016.

from http://www.goethe.de/lrn/prj/pba/bes/gzb/enindex.htm :

Passing the (B1) test shows that the participant can...

• understand key points of information about work, school and leisure time when standard language is being used.
• handle most situations that one would encounter when traveling in German-speaking countries.
• express oneself simply and coherently on familiar topics and areas of personal interest.
• talk about experiences and events, describe dreams, hopes and goals, and provide brief explanations and statements of purpose.

 

[NickEubanks]

Goals that aren't written down are just dreams

• Finalize new hire on-boarding for IFTF
• Launch private beta for keyword matrix web app
• Hook up Postmark (H/T @CCarter) and launch invite system for naro-pr.com
• Package up lead gate wp plugin (and come up with a freaking name for it)
• Achieve minimum 75% success rate on leak software
• Finalize agency partnerships in progress
• Buy-back SEO leads business
• Get newly purchased digital newspaper and web design portfolio sites running as independent traffic sources.

 

[Phenom]

• Add 20 videos to new proj YouTube
• Finish wireframe for app
• Start Objective-C book
• Spend 1 day this month doing something I am not comfortable doing.

 

[animalstyle]

Better late than never:

• Complete the functionality and design for my Crash Course Project.
• Learn CRO through my client work. This means setting up tests, executing and reporting on them. Reach a level where I could go and confidently repeat this for myself or other clients.
• Exercise/walk every day.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Revisiting the goals I set for myself:

Publish at least 30 pieces of content w/ Social promotion

I think I got up to about 25 pieces of content. Not all of it needed to go out to social and I got a huge fill of that from a viral post. I'm going to call this one a success. It's a little early to worry about daily posts. Every other day seems a little more reasonable for a one-man operation at this point.

Score at least 10 contextual links on big sites

I had a certain set of operations in mind when I made this goal. Those were semi-fruitless due to a couple flubs and underestimated hurdles. I did score a ton of links from the viral article and other promotions but they weren't the ones I intended. I'm by passing some of those hurdles with a little persuasion.

Push a specific ranking to page one (next month to top 3)

I wanted this bad. My flubs above were targeted at this so it didn't move at all. However, I have put some action in motion that's entirely aimed at this that should move the needle and get me on page 1, if not shoot me up to top 3. I'm hoping at least for top 5. Not sure what the time frame for this to be done will be. Might be a month to complete, and a month for results. Which is fine because I'll be grinding on a thousand other things in the meantime. Time is never wasted or lost over here.

Promote and Leak to gain 50+ lower powered links and traffic

Done! Slayed it. At least 50+ links, 1000+ Facebook likes and shares, 6000+ Reddit upvotes, tons of twitters, some pinterest, stumbleupons, and all that. It went!

We'll what February brings. I consider January a success all in all, even if my specific goals didn't get nailed in. Huge month for the main site.​

 

[animalstyle]

I'll wrap mine up here too:

Complete the functionality and design for my Crash Course Project.

I am SO close for this. The timeline for my new project gives me till Feb 15th to cross this off, wanted to get ahead of my timeline early in the project.

I managed to create the necessary functionality for my project & start the design process. Done with the layout, and a good bit of the styling. Just need to touch on typography/colors/small tweaks which should be done by the end of the coming week.

Learn CRO through my client work. This means setting up tests, executing and reporting on them. Reach a level where I could go and confidently repeat this for myself or other clients.

Went through an entire round, creating a/b test ideas, implementing and tracking. Came up with a winner with a nice measured improvement to revenue. Really happy not just with the win, but more so with the discovery and round trip process. Continuing on with testing, each round I should get better - plus it's my day job. Fortunate to have the chance to gain personal skills while helping improve a site.

Exercise/walk every day.

Did well here, but lacked a real schedule. I do feel that I need to exercise a bit more now that I am spending 12+ hours a day in a chair. Going to make it happen at similar times every day to build a habit.

Pretty happy with my progress this month. Spent one week on vacation and the week after that recovering. I was not operating at optimal levels this month. Next month I want to set SMARTer goals and use the momentum I have to tackle more.

 

[CCarter]

January Goals:

1. Finalize v3. (Done)

Completed a version which is more than pretty awesome. Eventually as the week goes on I'll have to bring online some of the features still missing as users beta test the current system. Right in time for end of January thank god.

 

[Potatoe]

Dropped the bar on the better part of my goals for January. One of the issues is that I came up with some of them as I was commenting in the thread, rather than putting more time into actually thinking about needs to happen and what's realistic for the month. As such, these goals were missing some key things that I had to do in Jan that took up a lot of time, and they also included some things that didn't really matter.

For February, I'm going to spend more time planning out my goals instead of trying to just wing it, but I also won't hesitate to drop things off the list if bigger opportunities or more pressing issues present themselves. The second half of January was really tough for personal reasons, but I'm looking forward to hitting the ground running in Feb.