Happy first birthday to Take Your Success! About this time a year ago, in my college house bedroom, I started TakeYourSuccess.com with a small idea of what I was doing and big ideas of what I wanted to accomplish.
Little did I know all the 1 year milestones and works in progress that would result from this first step. But, I have used the metaphor of taking success as climbing a mountain one step at a time, so we definitely climbed some distance this past year.
I’ve had a blast in 2015 with TYS, and here’s what we’ve accomplished so far:
1 Year Milestones
- Total views: 79,000. The hard thing about starting a blog is absolutely no one reads and comments on it for about the first six months. Ok maybe your family and friends, if you’re lucky, but that’s about it. So patience is a virtue in this line of work. But, the positive is that the lion’s share of these 79,000 views all came in the last three months. I started getting hundreds of views a day in organic search engine traffic as my blog picked up steam. Overall, I saw my monthly page views this year go from 2,000 and then jump 4,000 after a few months. Then increase to 6,000 and then 10,000 monthly views. Then I ended December with over 16,000 views, thanks in part to exam week and more Google searches landing on my site.
2016 Goal: 250,000 total views.
- Total subscribers: 793. Similar to the momentum above, most of these subscribers barely trickled in at the beginning of the year and then rushed in near the end. In September, during my book launch and when organic search traffic picked up, people started consistently subscribing. If you haven’t subscribed yet and are considering it, I would do it (you can sign up on the homepage or in the black box near the top right of this page). Subscribing to the email list gives you exclusive access to the first looks at my new books, upcoming projects, and just released blog posts. I’m also working on providing free stuff to my subscribers through some partnerships.
2016 Goal: 3,000 total subscribers.
- Alexa rank: 1,850,460. Alexa.com ranks websites from 1 to 18 million, or however high it goes, with 1 being the best. Alexa gets data on global traffic through unique daily visitors to a site and the past three months of page views to compare each website to one another and order them. I’m currently ranked at 1.85 million, but I’ve made huge progress going from unranked, to 9 million, and then moving up million by million to 1.85 million. The more I publish quality content and write guest posts, the more traffic that will come my way, which will improve my Alexa rank.
2016 Goal: 750,000 Alexa rank.
- Social media following: 3,550 Twitter followers and 21,100 Instagram followers. I honestly like being on Twitter and Instagram for my enjoyment. Although I get a small dose of haters, interacting with people across the world and getting different perspectives is a good time on social media. But, it’s also helpful for the site in sending traffic to my blog posts and marketing new books. From looking at my followers, it’s crazy how many more people are active and engaged with Instagram than Twitter.
2016 Goal: 15,000 total Twitter followers and 100,000 total Instagram followers.
- Books: Authored The Golden Resume. My biggest accomplishment of all my 1 year milestones is authoring my first book—The Golden Resume. This book did amazing as it became an Amazon bestseller, currently has a 5 star rating after 50 customer reviews, and sent a noticeable increase in subscribers and page views. I received multiple emails and Facebook messages from people saying this book helped them land their first full-time job, and that honestly felt the most rewarding out of everything. I also learned a ton through the process of self-publishing and I’m confident this knowledge is going to pave the way for more book success in this new year. And I can’t complain about the monthly royalty income. I’m sincerely thankful for all of you who ordered the book and left a review!
2016 Goal: *Check the next section below for my author works in progress.
Works In Progress For 2016
The following list shows my works in progress that I’m currently pursuing and (hopefully) will accomplish by this time next year. The reason I say hopefully is some of the works in progress are out of my control. Anyway, here’s the list:
- Write at least one guest post a month, so a minimum of 12 guest posts in 2016.
- Get featured on Forbes, Business Insider, Fortune, Entrepreneur, LifeHacker, or another major website. (If you guys have any connections, please hook me up.)
- Author three books in 2016. (It’s time to hustle if I’m going to accomplish this!)
Special Thanks To My Subscribers And Readers
Without any subscribers, readers, and outside participation, TakeYourSuccess.com is simply a guy behind a laptop, which isn’t cool. But because of you, this site has accomplished a ton in 2015 and has serious ambitions for helping more people to dominate college, get the job they want after graduation, and live a great rewarding life.
Let’s keep the success rolling into the new year.
Readers, what 1 year milestones did you hit in 2015? What are your works in progress for 2016? What kinds of topics do you want me to write more about or less about (honesty is the best policy)?
