Blogging Goals for 2016

I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions, but I do believe in making goals for yourself.  It's been close to a year since I started blogging almost exclusively about traveling (with a food post thrown in here and there).  I've had time to figure out that I want to approach travel blogging in a casual but informative way.

I'm not looking to be the next version of a travel guide book, but I want to offer more than a short photo essay of my travels.  I want to give my readers enough information about a place to pique their interest, but not so much that I bore them to death with text.  That said, there are a number of blogging goals I have for myself in order to keep growing as a blogger.

1. Purchase a domain name.

Purchasing a domain name is the next level of commitment for me.  Paying for something means I sure as hell better be using it, which means I'll hopefully more regularly produce content for my readers.  It also seems that owning a domain name is necessary in order to be taken more seriously as a blogger whether it's for travel, food, lifestyle, or beauty.  The way I understand it, your blog content becomes more visible to people searching for similar subjects, it's easier to track stats, and you own your content rather than the free blogging website.  I'm currently trying to decide between staying with Blogger or Wordpress, though the latter seems more overwhelmingly recommended.  This will likely also mean I'll revamp my blog layout/theme.

2. Blog more frequently.

I make this goal with hesitation because 2016 will be an incredibly busy year for me between planning my wedding, our honeymoon, traveling for my full-time job, working at the winery on weekends, my fiance's brother's wedding, bachelorette parties, and going on a big vacation at the end of the year.  Ideally I'd like to post something twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays.  I can't promise this will always happen, but I'll try to find a better balance between "real life" and "blog life."

3. Blog about prior trips.

Before I started this blog I was already going on various trips.  I haven't been to a ton of countries, but I would like to share my experiences in Costa Rica, Bolivia, and Canada and maybe even France and London if I can reach that far back into my memories!  I'd also like to elaborate more on our vacation last year to Ireland and Norway.

4. Participate in travel blogger events.

Last week I discovered the #TRLT travel chat on Twitter and had a blast.  It was such a great way to interact with people who also enjoy traveling, get new ideas for adventures, and to raise awareness of your own blog.  So I'd like to participate in more of these types of chats.  I'd also like to go to a #DCTravelBlogger event this year, which is organized by the Dining Traveler, to meet fellow bloggers and pick up some tips along the way.

5. Schedule my tweets.
A lot of bloggers use Buffer, a service that allows you to schedule posts for later.  Under their Individual free plan, you can schedule up to 10 posts per profile per day.  For now, this is probably more than enough for me, but there are other pay tiers which allow you to schedule more than 10 posts.  This will help me space out the shares I post on Twitter so that I don't unintentionally flood everyone's feeds with articles I find interesting.

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