My Goals For DGB In 2018

As promised in my January review, which you can read here, I said I would publish my goals for DGB during the course of 2018. After a record 2017 and an absolutely rip-roaring January, I have had to think carefully about what I want to achieve this year.

So these are my own self-imposed targets for 2018.

The major metrics

When it comes to website traffic, the three most important stats are page views, visitors and unique visitors. For some, the unique visitor numbers are the most vital as it shows how many different people are viewing a website. For others, page views are the most important as it’s a pure demonstration on the number of times content has been read/viewed, and is a key component for companies looking to advertise.

Generally speaking though, all the major metrics have their own unique importance, all three combine to paint a detailed picture on a site’s performance. To catch up on my 2017 targets and what I actually achieved, follow this link: https://www.doubleglazingblogger.com/2018/01/review-dgb-in-2017-vs-2016/.

So, these are my targets for the major metrics this year:

These 2018 targets are significantly higher than the targets I set myself in 2017. To be clear, this years visitor target is 55,000 higher than my 2017 target. The unique visitors target is 45,000 higher than in 2017. The page views target is a whopping 75,000 higher than my 2017 goal.

As you will have seen in my 2017 review, I did easily surpass my page views and visitors targets, and just sneaked in on my unique visitors target. But, these 2018 goals are still significantly higher than my actual 2017 stats. I have based these targets on two factors. First, my drive to keep growth going on this site. I maintain that DGB is unique to the industry, there is nothing else out there like it, and it’s uniqueness is what helps drive it forwards. Second, I have seen the stats in the opening 36 days and they are absolutely staggering and that is what has led to me set such high 2018 goals. To give you an idea, DGB has been averaging over 1000+ page views per day during the working week. Something it has never done before. If these numbers continue throughout the year, I should easily sail past my targets.

That being said, there will be the eventual seasonal drops in traffic. Summer is the big one, as people take time off to go on holiday. But I also take at least one vacation per year, which always impacts traffic to the site.

Social media targets

One of the big reasons I was able to grow DGB’s reach and traffic in 2017 was thanks to expanding social media coverage. So it makes sense to set some social media targets as well.

My main three channels are Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. All three grew last year, and in return, there was a 63% rise in traffic from social media compared to 2016. So it would be foolish to ignore this side of things. This is where I want to be in terms of social media by the end of 2018:

These are steady increases over the cost of a year. I want to add roughly 1400 new followers on Twitter. Even if only 20% of these new followers read DGB posts on a regular basis, that would still add a decent level of traffic to the site.

Boosting Linkedin connections shouldn’t be an issue, I have added quite a few since the start of the year. The big one will be Facebook however. I am trying to add followers and likes to the DGB Facebook page without going begging for them or paying for advertising of it. There’s nothing worse than seeing companies beg for likes, and I won’t resort to the same thing. I will advertise that it’s there, but I certainly won’t be cap in hand.

Overall, the social media around DGB plays a major part in driving traffic. The more social media grows, the better DGB will do.

Subscribers

Every Wednesday morning I send a weekly email of the latest posts to be published in the previous seven days to a growing subscriber list. At the time of writing, that list stands at 1397. This has been another big contributor to the rise in traffic last year. Every Wednesday when that email goes out, it often becomes the best day of the week for DGB.

Moving forward into 2018, I would like to hit 2000 subscribers by the end of the year. So from February, I would need to add roughly 55 new subscribers per month. That’s a fairly high and sustained amount. If I get to within a couple of hundred of that by the end of the year I will be happy. It will also be a huge driver of traffic this year. The good news for you guys is you only get it once per week, so your inbox isn’t slammed, and it’s completely free. If you’re looking to up your digital advertising spend this year, then way above average open and click-thru rates should make this pretty attractive too ;-)

All in all, I have set myself some pretty high targets here. I have two aims, to beat my stats from last year, and to then achieve the targets I have set myself in this post. At this moment in time, with traffic as it is, I am pretty confident of doing both. But of course things can change. All being well, with plans in place to keep DGB growing in all areas, I’ll be reporting good news come the end of the year.

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