My one year blogging anniversary

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One year blogging anniversary

Happy birthday to us! Today is our one year blogging anniversary. I’m not quite sure how a whole year has gone by so fast but time does fly when you are having fun.

Apparently, most bloggers quit before they get to the year point so it’s a big deal to celebrate your one year blogging anniversary. So, I’m going to take a minute to take stock and celebrate. I dare say I’ll open a bottle of bubbles tonight.

My initial expectations

I’m really proud of the progress I’ve made to date. When I started out, I didn’t really know what to expect. I was clueless and naive. I did have a couple of objectives with the blog that does still drive my posts though – write something that people will find informative, or make them feel better. Whether that’s through sharing my experiences or trying to make you laugh that’s what I aim to do with each post.

Why I love blogging

I kind of expected that I would enjoy blogging and I was right. I bloody love it. I find it so cathartic to pour my heart out on here.

Sometimes when I’ve been really upset about something I’ve blogged about it and you guys have told me you’ve been there and it’s helped me so much. When I wrote about Arlo not doing well at school you gave us so much great advice that even Papa Ginge told me later that night that reading your comments helped him to feel better. You also gave us lots of real practical tips that we were able to put into practice.

A kind comment from one of you makes it all worthwhile. Especially as the blog/vlog is really warts and all – we don’t hold back and we show you pretty much every facet of our lives. That you support us (in spite of that) means so much to us.

Becoming a pro-blogger is my (pipe) dream

When I began blogging, I just wanted to have a blog. Now I passionately want this to become my full time job. I want to get better and bigger and really make this into something that can sustain me financially.

All my life I’ve never really known what I wanted to do for a career until now.  Nothing ever felt right until this and now I realise, this is what I want to do. I finally have a dream that I can work on achieving. Just by reading this you are helping me to achieve it. I don’t know if it’s a realistic dream. Whether I can make it in such a highly saturated and competitive market but I’m going to give it a bloody good go.

I’m over the moon to be a finalist in the parenting category at the UK Blog Awards this April, it’s such a big achievement for me. I’m obviously really hoping to win as that would help me to achieve my blogging goals.

Progress against my 6 month goals

I mentioned some goals in my 6 month ‘bloggerversary’ post, so how did I go achieving against those?

• I did launch my new blog design and logo. I hope you guys like it.
• I did not learn how to use my DSLR and start editing all my photos. This is my top 2017 goal. I did do a session with a photographer friend but I have a long long way to go here and its not something that comes naturally to me.
• I kind of started scheduling more. I’m ok at scheduling on Facebook but I need to join a paid for scheduler for twitter.
• Lena still nurses on demand so I haven’t made it to any blogging/vlogging conferences yet but I’m going to UK Blog Awards in April and Blog On in September.
• I have spent more time reading other blogs, watching other vlogs and networking but want to increase this further.
• I got my first sponsored blog post, and then a further 5. Plus I turned down more than double that in opportunities that I didn’t feel fit my blog or where I would have had to compromise my integrity.
• I need to grow my social media networks further. If you like what I write then please share my pages with your friends! I’ve grown a lot but obviously this is another big target of mine for 2017.
• Generally, I need to keep at what I’ve been doing, develop my style and voice further and get more confident when it comes to blogging, and especially vlogging. I feel like I have made some progress on this but I’m still learning.

My stats at a year

• Total blog posts published on nomipalony – 80
• Overall blog views – 27,300
• Overall blog users – 20,000
• Overall Youtube views – 154,780
• DA – 24
• Klout – 69
• Facebook – 1026
• Twitter – 1921
• Instagram – 1206
• YouTube – 376 subs
• Pinterest – 630 followers
• Snapchat – 618
• Rise parenting score – 55
• Tots 100 score – 276

Goals to reach by the end of my second year blogging

1. Improve my photography
2. Double my following on all social media and improve engagement
3. Increase monthly page views to 10,000 per month
4. Increase the amount I’m earning significantly
5. Increase my DA to 30

Thank you

So to any of you reading this – thank you! Thanks for taking the time to read my posts, to follow me on social media. Thanks for liking, commenting, sharing and retweeting my posts.

Thanks for every time you’ve taken time out of your busy and stressful days to interact with me. You have no idea how much it means to me.

I’ve finally found my dream job (its only taken me 33 years) and you guys are helping me turn my pipe-dream into a reality one click at a time. I might fail in the end, but at least I know I’ll have given it a bloody good shot and if I’ve helped even one of you along the way then its been worth it.

So, let’s see what adventures await us all in year two!

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