What is your end goal? Are you chasing pageviews? Dollar signs? Do you want more Facebook likes or engagement? Let’s talk about what the BEST goal really is for you.
Listen to Create If Writing – Episode 026
But first! I have a free download for you: a 15 Step Intensive List Growth Worksheet. Click below to snag your download for this actionable worksheet that will give you specific steps to grow your list this month. We are doing this in our Facebook group as well in December, so join us if you want to do this together!
This past year I had a giant switch in my mind. I wouldn’t have said that I was chasing pageviews, but that’s really where I spent my time. I promoted things like crazy, hoping to see those numbers rise. (I should point out now that I am NOT saying that having better pageviews as a goal is a bad thing!) In June I finally hit 100k pageviews, which had been a long-term goal that seemed TOTALLY out of reach. I celebrated…until the next month Pinterest changed up the algorithm for the smart feed again and my pageviews were literally cut in half.
It’s terrible seeing that. I hate it. But you know what I hate more? That all those pageviews and all that traffic did NOT translate into something more lasting. I got comments. I got some new followers. I got a few email subscribers. But check out those blog stats compared to my mailing list stats for the same blog. 
Do you see a jump? Me neither. The same steady growth. (If you’re wondering about the jump before April, I grew my list through a book I gave away on NoiseTrade and gained a bunch of followers through that. My point is not that pageviews are bad or a bad goal.
My point is that my mindset was NOT focused on building a lasting audience through my email list. If I had, I would have seen the same kind of jump in the stats for that list. I actually got more subscribers in May when I had half the pageviews that I had in June. That’s a sign of a mindset that is not focused enough on list-building. I want to make an argument that your goal should not be pageviews ALONE, but your goal should be to build an email list that is made up of a lasting audience. That audience should be the backbone of everything else. Period.
This is quite a shift. I know this because I went through this shift this year. Taking time off from promoting my blog heavily or even writing on my blog scared me. It was hard. And strange. Yet I did not really see a change in my income. My residual Pinterest pageviews stayed pretty consistent after the big drop. (Followed by two more months of dropping.) Not much actually changed. Except that on the back end of things, I grew a new email list for this blog by almost 700 people.
Which means that on a blog with pageviews that are maybe a tenth of my larger blog, I built an email audience that is close to half the audience I have for the bigger blog. I don’t do math, but that’s pretty nutty.
10% of the pageviews but 50% of the email subscribers
THAT, my friends, is the difference between focusing on the bottom line of pageviews or a bottom line of building a lasting audience through your email list. I have some really exciting things coming up this month with regards to email lists, so make sure you are subscribed to get all the good stuff!
I like that – building a lasting audience vs. building page views. My list is growing steadily, but I do focus on page views more for some reason. Just because they visit your page doesn’t mean they are your target audience. Those who sign up for your newsletter are. Good switch in mindset. I do love the quick fix, Kirsten!