2019 Income Breakdown, Goals & Resolutions for 2020

As with every year end/ beginning, I’ve always had this tradition to talk about my year in review and set some goals for the year.

I’ve found that setting solid, actionable and measurable goals – even if I don’t actively look back at them to check my progress – has inadvertently worked my subconscious to drive me towards achieving them.

That is why I can never really gear up for the new year without sitting myself down and thinking long and hard about what I’ve done and how I will improve and progress in the new year.

As I’ve mentioned in my 2019 review posts, it was the first year I’ve been travelling full time, and the second year into my digital nomad life.

After many hours studying my metrics, numbers and dollar signs, studying what worked and what didn’t, below you will find my income breakdown. I discuss what I’ve done right, what I need to do more, and what I will continue doing to grow the blog.

The one major realization I’ve had is the difference between setting a time-based goal and an open-ended goal. In 2019, I set a goal and left it on the books to “one day work on them.”

It would have been fine if I was based in one place and working all day so I was constantly reminded of these goals – like I was when I was living in Japan. However, travelling so extensively in 2019, I sort of let those goals slide in place of Hawaiian beaches and African rhinos.

This year, I’m making it a point to set weekly/ monthly goals to keep me on track, so I don’t let the important-but-not-urgent tasks to backpedal.

Be warned, it gets pretty technical, especially if you’re new to digital marketing/ blogging. If you’re trying to learn to blog better, there could be some useful lessons to glean from. You know what they say about learning from others’ journeys?

That said, I also include some personal, character-building goals for me to work on this 2020.

Let’s first start with pulling out my goals from last year that I was working towards, followed by metrics I want to target this year (2020) and actionable items to work on.

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2019 Goals in review

This was pulled out from 2018’s review and goal-setting post. I review each point below:

1. Increase the number of personal posts I write

Always a work in progress and something I hope to improve on this year again because I know the importance of writing and connecting with others in my own voice!

2. Streamline the blog’s mission/ purpose

WIP

3. Build a more engaged audience so that you’ll want to stick around. 🙂

No –
Bounce rate increased by 13.65%. A factor could also be the increased Pinterest traffic.

4. Improve email marketing and conversions

No –
Email acquisitions dropped by 0.07%.

5. Increase my monthly page views to 100,000

No –
Pageviews grew by 20% YOY to 46,000 monthly average
Users grew by 50% YOY to 30,000 monthly average

6. Increase my overall income by 125%

No –
Grossly overestimated myself and only increased my average monthly income by 5.7%. My PR consultant work for a hotel brand pulled out midway so I only managed to work a couple of months with them.

7. Increase my passive income from 15% to 29% of blog income

YES!
I hit 29% on average exactly!

8. Secure more collaborations on my own accord. And not through freelance writing.

This year I completely cut off freelance writing as a source of income.
With the blog’s stats and the way I pitched, in 2019 I’ve successfully worked with tourism boards from Costa Mesa, Cambria, Tuolumne, Sri Lanka, Plettenberg Bay and various luxury hotels in South Africa.

9. Expand BATW’s international presence by working with international tourism boards.

Yes!
Point above.

10. Expand the BATW team!

Yes!
Worked with Jing Xin on my Bhutan video, Sean on my Vietnam vlog, with Vanessa on writing and with Daniella on design.

11. Meet more travel bloggers and players in my field.

Being on a press trip always allow me to make new friends. I also always make it a point to meet local bloggers whenever I’m in a new city, or vice versa, when travel bloggers come to Singapore.

I’ve found that meeting them in person really helped me establish a real connection with these “virtual friends,” and it’s always heart-warming to talk about things you’re passionate about together and share ideas with one another!

12. Make more international friends and visit them as I conquer new destinations.

I’m going back to the USA this summer to say hi again, and hopefully back to South Africa in Q3 this year to partner with brands I had so much pleasure working with!

13. Go to at least one place that scares me.

Yes!
I went to the USA. If you subscribed to my newsletter, I confessed my fears to you about visiting the US solo for the first time.

In my 2019 in review article, I shared why this was such a monumental decision for me and how it made me grow more resilient.

Curious to hear get one-on-one with me and be privy to my personal thoughts on travel that I don’t publish on the blog? Subscribe to my newsletter here:

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P.S. I can be pretty snarky sometimes – be warned.

14. Treat my family to an overseas trip entirely on my own dime.

Yes –
We went to Australia in 2019! Check out my exciting story glamping for the first time, or my incredible wildlife encounter at Kangaroo Island.

15. Go to a new beach destination!

Yes –
Hawaii! It turns out that I ended up with more days than planned in Kauai, found love through spontaneity here, and went back to stay for another 2 months at the end of the year!

16. Do more yoga to fix my ageing 25-year-old back and neck.

Not sure if I did more or less of this, but my back and neck pain has been cured of for good. I attribute it to physiotherapy being the answer to my persistent back pain! All hail physiotherapy!

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2019 Income Breakdown

I’ve broken down my income streams into a pie chart for easy comparison between 2018 and 2019.

What worked in 2019

Increased passive income from 18% to 29%. This is what I’m earning from letting the blog run on its own when I’m not working i.e. sleeping, travelling. I definitely am spending much less time working in 2019 than in 2018 – something I’m guilty about of course but at least it’s a consolation that my passive income is growing.

Increased US traffic from 15.6% in 2018 to 22.5% in 2019 – this shows my keyword targeting is paying off!

Increased Pinterest traffic – still a platform I have lots to learn about and I’m sure I can improve the amount of traffic I get from Pinterest. The amount of Pinterest is still far from desirable (350+k monthly unique viewers based on Pinterest’s site), but at least it has increased from 16,000 sessions in 2018 to 42,000 sessions in 2019.

Some re-optimized Europe posts that I’ve worked with writers to edit is now in the Top 10 by Organic Posts – this shows my SEO-reoptimization is somewhat paying off!

What didn’t work in 2019

Organic and Email acquisitions dropped, in place of increased Social acquisition (primarily Pinterest).

Bounce rate increased from 73% to 83%. I surmise it has to do with increased Pinterest traffic too.

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2020 Personal Goals

I’ve been reading self-improvement books, listening to podcasts and watching documentaries to find ways to better myself. Here are some things I want to work on this year.

1. Take responsibility of my life

Blame external circumstances less and reflect more.

2. Keep promises and fulfil commitments

To myself, my family, my friends and those important around me.

3. Build people up, don’t tear people down

Be more thankful, complain less, gossip less, be more empathetic

4. Give 100%, 100% of the time

Be dependable

5. Be aware of and live your own values

Sure we can be side tracked at times because of external circumstances, but we will never be happy and complete if we don’t live what we truly stand for. Values could come in the form of freedom, hard work, respect, honesty.

6. To be persuasive, you first need to be Truthful, so that you can be Credible, and Believable.

7. Invest in people. Be interested, not interesting.

8. Seek to serve.

9. Eat less meat, more vegetables.

If you watched The Gamechangers on Netflix, you’ll see why. 😉

10. 44 countries by 2020!

I’m at a count of 38 countries now. See all the countries I’ve been. I have my eyes set on a couple of countries in the Caribbean. So many people tell me to visit South America, a continent I haven’t yet stepped foot on. Mexico and Canada is also on my list.

But first, let me explore more of the US. 🙂 (I need more money!!)

11. Be spontaneous

.. but less impulsive. Make thoughtful decisions.

12. Continue seeking new experiences

.. and doing things that scare me and puts me out of the comfort zone.

13. Be offline more

Read! Journal! See the sunset/ sunrise!

14. Mindful travelling

2020 seems to be the year of mindfulness. In this increasingly chaotic world, the trend is moving towards mindfulness, meditation, and being more aware within. With that, I’m not all about chasing countries to visit. I want to take my time and appreciate local life, especially now that I have the privilege to work from wherever.

15. Be proud of me, and be proud about sharing it.

I want to connect with YOU better, by sharing more personal posts. I just have to make time to write more.

16. Live as many days as I can worth remembering

17. Live on my own

Well, believe it or not, coming from Singapore, we never get to live on our own. Even when we have our own place, it’s usually with a spouse. When I travel, I also somehow end up living with housemates or a partner.

Yet through travelling so much and being on my own so much last year, I really value my own personal creative space where my mind can wander freely.

18. Van life!!

Quite a far-fetched dream, but if all goes well, I really hope Cade and I can purchase a van and turn it into a home for the next time I do a road trip around the US/ Canada!

I had the opportunity to be put up in a RV when I was visiting San Diego in January this year with my friend Jeff, and I was so astonished at how much can fit in a moving vehicle.

It would be such a dream come true to own our own van and have the freedom to sleep wherever we wish! Then I can finally fulfil this other big bucket list of mine to visit the national parks of the US!

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2020 Blog Goals

1. Increase PV by 50% to 825,000

To do that, I need to go hard on SEO:

• Reoptimize articles that are ranking 6 and higher on Google to make it more SEO-friendly.
• Make sure my orphaned posts aren’t homeless no more OR deleting useless posts.
• Guest posting on other high DA blogs.

2. Increase US traffic % to surpass SG traffic

3. Increase passive income from 29% to 40%

Strategize and optimize affiliate posts better. How do I create more visibility to my buying posts?

• Create posts that review a single product/ service and optimize the heck out of it.
• Is Skimlinks worth it, considering it slows down my site?
• Interlinking from popular posts
• Email newsletters?

4. Increase monthly income by 15%

5. Increase loyalty, gain more traffic/ leads through email marketing

Invest time in making more opt in freebies. Get my New Zealand freebie up and going. Maybe Hokkaido too?

Invest time to build a solid email automation and funnel to drive traffic, establish better relationships with my subscribers, and provide REAL value.

6. Establish the 80/20 rule of effort vs reward

2020 will be the year of investment!

I started off this year looking for VAs to take on some of the work that I no longer have the time to dedicate. Even staying in Singapore for 3 solid months from February to April, there’s still so much to tackle, so much potential growth for the blog that there’s never enough time for everything.

7. Attending my first travel conference

I’ve always been hesitant about signing up for travel conference due to the hefty price tag it accompanies and the lack of guarantee that it would be useful to me.

This year – I wouldn’t say I spared no expense – but I finally convinced myself to sign up for WITS in Kansas city!

I’ve had my eye on going back to the US to explore more of the parks, so this summit gives me an excellent opportunity to explore more of the US after the trip, beginning with Florida, the Caribbean, Colorado and Cuba!

Hopefully I get to make more friends in the industry, learn new information, be open to more opportunities and get more motivated to improve the blog. Who knows, I may get to speak in a travel conference in future?

8. Be more mindful with accepting press trips

Last year after pitching press trips like crazy and travelling non-stop most of the year, I realize I’m quite over the whole “omg she gets to go on free trips all the time to cool destinations” phase.

Accepting press trips that I weren’t totally psyched about really drained me.

Not only do I have to work throughout the trip, collecting information and snapping pictures, I also have to curate content and do post-editing after the trip. The opportunity cost of creating new content is time spent strategizing long-term plans for the blog and going forward in the direction I want the blog to be.

Moving forward, I’d rather pitch to destinations I’m really looking forward to going and want to create content for, with my target audience in mind.

9. Focus more on creating value for YOU

Think long and hard about my reader journey and how I can improve USER EXPERIENCE

10. Successfully organise a tour

As part of wanting to connect with my readers in real life and wanting you to experience the real joys and personal growth that travel can bring, I’ve partnered up with a tour operator to run a tour in Russia this August.

This will be something I’m doing for the first time, so I’m going to do my best to make it happen! It could open the doors to leading my own tours in the future. :]

11. Launch my own course?

After having this blog since 2015, I’ve amassed quite a fair bit of experience in the travel blogging world. I’ve started a section on Blogging where you can learn everything about blogging there.

While it isn’t the main focus of the blog (I still mostly create travel destination guides), I’m wondering if perhaps it’s time to share more of my journey on how I got to blogging full-time and earn a sustainable income? How I get to travel for free and secure sponsorships?

12. Amp up video marketing?

13. Sign up for blogging courses?

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Hurray! You made it to the end. If you’re a new blogger, hopefully you gleaned something from my goal setting review. This post is mostly for me to review and be accountable to myself so I can look back at the end of the year to see what worked and what didn’t.

What are your thoughts?