This blog review 2022 is done in two parts. First I share my analytics and second I share my “impressions” only to conclude on what I can do next year 2023.
If you are interested, you can compare with my 2021 blog review. This article is reflecting my second year blogging on my free time.
What I said I would do in 2022 with my blog review
To give you a little bit of my personal goals I have set for myself in 2022 and for my blog:
- Publish my first lead magnet (lead magnet = something to capture “leads” from my blog)
- Maintain a daily writing good habit
- Build in public… actually I wanted to build my coaching program in public
- Re-share my learnings and successes
And so what I said in the blog review 2021 was the following:
- Improve my SEO practices
- Get subscribers
- Collaborate with other content creators
- More blog articles than 2021
- More engagement, more impact
- Monetize the blog #makemoneyonline
So let’s see how it turned out and what are the conclusions I can draft from my year blogging in 2022.
Note: I am not a full time blogger. I have a full time job, I prioritize myself and my family and I write basically 5 hours per week. So of course if you compare with a person who is 8h per day on its blog, then my results will be VERY SMALL.
The Analytics of my Blog Review 2022
Traffic Acquisition per Channels:
- Acquisition is seriously decreasing. Meaning less people actually visit my blog. Social media and direct clicks are heavily affecting my results.
- But the ones who visit stays longer and interact more! Look at the pages per session and the average session duration! People spending 3:32 minutes on my site is very good!
Analysis of my “social” traffic acquisition:
- Twitter has the highest score for the Pages / Session and very acceptable bounce rate. Which is one of the social media I have share the most this year.
- Facebook is the all time winner in terms of “quantity”. It’s also my favorite social media because I’ve been actively using it for the past 14 years.
- Youtube is the new kid on the bloc, I’m looking forward to expand more the traffic acquisition with Youtube because it’s good results for the little things I did this year:
- May 2022: appearing on Movetoasia channel to discuss Hospitality Business in Vietnam [video link]
- November 2022: interviewed by Mr Peusse about my 10 years in Vietnam [video link]
Very low organic clicks…
I will have to improve my SEO and SERP for the future. Basically less people find me organically when searching for topics I talk about. This is linked to the fact I changed many times my website organisation probably, links and still haven’t solved certain SEO issues.
I will have to work on this for 2023 eventually; to be more searchable.
Individual Post Performances:
All time ranking (I marked the posts or pages published in 2022)
- 9 pages published in 2022 are among the top 25 most viewed pages. Despite having some all time performers, I also have some great newly published articles already in my top 25.
- For example, “build dream teams”
- Or “employees freelancers” are recently published.
- The winner of last year is the same winner this year; my “4 Lessons Learned as a Hostel Owner in Vietnam”.
- My “Challenge” is among the most visited pages. But no one has really participated yet… So I need to be careful when analysing this, to not mix-up page views and actual performance.
Subscribers Count
This has been very challenging for me to understand which system to use. How to capture emails and what to actually share with my subscribers.
Anyways, for now, 10 people are part of this list. And I have not managed to get that number climbing higher than this for now.
I’ve managed to get some engagement, but this is very limited for now. I will for sure continue improving this for the coming years.
My ultimate goal would be to:
- Send emails more naturally and engage real conversation with my subscribers.
- Grow my emailing list to 1000 people. I have to find 1000 people interested in starting the “happy life” journey I started 3 years ago. This seems very achievable but for many reasons I am not yet there!
- Be able to get people to subscribe and then subscribers to read my articles and engage with me. Basically the articles to become conversation starters… and I need subscribers to have people to discuss with.
Article count
In 2022, I have written more articles than in 2021. This was a personal goal and it’s achieved. I am very proud.
I have also realized that for some topics, I can finish the article in 30 minutes while for some others. This one for example about “to finish lists“. But many others are still in “draft” status.
I have learned about SEO and some good practices when writing.
I still want to improve the images and the visuals of my blog.
Conclusions for this blog review 2022
I keep learning and engaging.
First, from my huge improvement in “engagement”, I can say that this is my first win for this year. Seeing people spending way more time reading, even if they are less, is a very good sign for me.
On the few downside, I can see that my “free challenge” (the lead magnet) is not performing how I am expecting. I only got 10 people who joined my challenge.
Which leads me to declare that I am still not making any $ out of my blog. And it’s fine, I will explain why later.
The real plus of this year blog review is that I managed to:
- Maintain a weekly (not daily) writing practice. I don’t know if you realize what this means but it’s been two years I am finding time in my weeks to write on my blog. The benefits are huge:
- I learn to blog; technically and emotionally
- I can re-share what I learn and what others could need to know.
- I learn to write in English (my second language) and become, step by step, a great storyteller, copywriter and how to create engaging content.
- Starting to build in public, meet new people, expand my network and GET OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE.
Next year what do I want for my blog?
I am learning from my mistakes. Last year, I set some goals that were too far from my reality. So it’s important to detail what will happen in 2023 before setting any random goals…
What will happen in 2023?
Prioritising myself: In my daily life nowadays, I am a father (fresh from this year). I do my best to be present for my wife and my kid. And I also want to keep my health and be in shape physically and mentally to face all the challenges ahead of us. This takes time and this is my priority.
Focusing on financial & professional stability: Additionally, I am a full-time ERP Account Manager. I got promoted as the team is growing and I am contributing more and more to this company. I learn so much since I transitioned to work for an IT company and as a “company leader”. My full time job is also important for me because this is what brings financial and mental stability to my life at the moment. If I can take the time to blog almost everyday, it’s because I have this job. So I am grateful and I want to keep it as another priority.
So, if we take away these two realities, I have about 1 day per week left to blog… let’s say 8 hours per week. And I should include everything; from writing to the management of the IT tools and all the time spent on my “blank pages”.
I am only able to say these things since I started to “accept” more things… Listen about my journey here, you can also achieve this too.
What to expect and what I am asking for 2023! #SmartGoals
In 2022, I created a total of 14 “sprints” (mini-projects) for my blog and I cancelled 9! What it means is that I have started to work on many ideas and only 4 have been done.
So this year, I will set only 3 sprints, four goals that I will set for this blog and only focus on them:
- Turn this blog into a proper “Personal Blog” with my own perspectives and real-life experiences. I want to be able to document better my daily discoveries about my lifestyle, personal development, daily life interests, personal stories, personal lessons and advice, workout routines, wellness and self-care good practices, etc.
- Do something valuable that will grow my “subscribers”. I cannot end 2023 with 10 subscribers. If 2022 was a slow start, 2023 has to be about performance. I need to start impacting more people!
- Collaborate with more creators; podcasters, youtubers, bloggers, infopreneurs, coaches, medias, etc. over topics that are related to my different expertises if relevant to their audience. So please start sharing this with anyone who might be interested!
Something I will stop to say: “I want to monetize this blog this year”. I still think about it but the pressure it brings me is not suitable with my reality. I’d rather keep exploring how I can bring value to others and keep learning. I might eventually start offering some products or coaching. Who knows… this is going to be something I would like to keep aside from now.
This blog review for 2022 is reaching the end. I could have spent another week doing further analysis and I invite you to check my blog to give me more insights if you fancy. I have only used what I have available; Google Analytics and my own publishing system with Notion and of course my wordpress backend. But for now, regarding my progression, I am already happy with the little conclusions I have reached in this blog review.
Now, I am more interested in what you have to say about this review. What would be your one key take away? What do you see that I do not see or mention here?
