What Are Your Professional Goals for 2012?

One of my goals for 2012 is to make my blog more professional and to turn this fabulous hobby of mine into an actual business. I have already begun the process and I am doing pretty well for just starting out!

But there are many facets to running a successful blog. Like, you have to blog a lot. Duh.

When I began blogging in March 2010, I posted once or twice a week...now I post three or four times a day. I am trying to find a happy medium for 2012. I don't want to overwhelm my readers, but at the same time, there are so many things that I want to blog about! I work on campaigns with PR firms and have deadlines of when my posts for them need to go live, but then I also want to write my fiction pieces, write opinion pieces, post some of the recipes I've been tinkering with...

Last night, as I was searching through the Internet for inspiration and motivation (they really are the same thing, after all), I came across a blog that focused on pharmacy automation and all I could think of was, WOW, talk about a defined niche! Here I am, with topics ranging from everything from my travels to the Caribbean to the newest cookie recipe I've tried, and this person only blogs about the newest technological advances in the pharmaceutical business. How do they maintain such focus?!

I decided long ago that Rebel Chick's Journey would be a blog about my lifestyle - mainly, my love of travel, entertaining and writing. Along the way, I somehow began blogging product reviews and a host of other interests...my blog has become such a reflection of who I am - totally random! How could I ever be so focused as to write entire posts just on things like conveyors?

It got me to thinking. I really need to focus more on the things that I really want to talk about here. I rarely have time to write my personal posts on serious subjects that really matter to me because I am so busy with product reviews and promoting the giveaways that I host on occasion. I was somewhat inspired by that blog to buckle down and concentrate on the things that matter.

January 1 is the beginning of a whole new year, and I always make New Year's resolutions. I make the usual resolutions: lose weight, get in shape, pay off debt, travel more, etc. Now that I am working to really take my blog to the next level, I need to make resolutions for my blog as well.

I came up with a few goals, some of which I am already working on, and some that I know I need to work on to achieve my goals in the blogging world.

• Network with more bloggers. I really need to do this in order to grow my blog, learn tricks of the trade and get support from people who do the same things that I do.
• Reach a wider audience. This is something that I am sure most bloggers try to accomplish each year. I need more traffic, more visitors, in order to grow my blog and become more successful!
• Learn SEO. Search engine optimization leads to more traffic from people doing searches for topics relevant to my blog. This week, I posted a recipe on M&M's cookies and I was the third website listed when searching for M&M's Christmas Cookies...this was my first concentrated effort to SEO a post and it really worked! I need to master this!
• Learn code and design. Now, of course I am not going to become a master code expert and start designing websites. But I really need to learn more than just the basics of HTML if I want my blog to look professional! My site looks fine for now, but I want to give it more of a unique personality...just like me!
• Earn more money. I think every blogger who has monetized their website is in agreement with me on this one. I do sponsored posts and run one ad, but I need to do more to earn a substantial, steady income...Of course, every goal prior to this one will help me achieve it!

What are your blogging goals for 2012?