Writing your 2022 blogging goals can be daunting, to say the least. We’re already into January, and I just finished up mine! Normally I write out my blogging goals for the next year in December.
This year, though, 2023 really did just sneak up on me! I know a lot of people were super pumped when that page on the calendar finally turned… 2022 was such a horrible year for so many.
But, for me and my family, 2022 was a great year! My grandson was born!
So, I’m a little behind in writing my 2023 blogging goals, and if you are too, then this post is just in time for you! Because, a couple of summers ago, I learned a little secret for creating your business goals. It works for both entrepreneurs and bloggers.
So, before writing your 2023 blogging goals, there is something I want you to do: figure out how much money you need to make in 2023.
That’s it! That’s (almost!) all you need to do to create blogging goals that will work for you and help you to achieve all you dreamed of – and more – in 2023!
So, let’s get started!
Figure out how much money you need in 2023 before writing your blogging goals
If you know how much money you need to cover all of your business expenses, then that is good. If you know how much money you need to bring home as a profit, to support your family, then that is even better. But if you know how much money you want, to grow your business and support your ideal lifestyle, then that is excellent.
Because that is where your blogging goals are born from.
See, when you sit down with your notebook and pen and decide that you:
- want to publish weekly blog posts for 2023
- need to post on social media daily
- want to update old posts
- will send out weekly emails
- and would like to create a new product or two
you need to know why you are doing those things.
And even more than that, you need to know how much income those activities will generate for you.
So, before you create your blogging goals, you need to figure out:
✔︎ the amount of money your blog currently makes (and how)
✔︎ what your blogging expenses are
✔︎ how much money you need, to sustain your current lifestyle
✔︎ the amount of money you want to make, in order to invest in your growing blog
✔︎ how much money you would need if you lived your ideal lifestyle
And I’ll walk you through how to do all of this.
Start by listing out all of your yearly expenses
The very first thing you need to do is to figure out how much money you need to make in 2023 to cover your blogging expenses.
I mean, let’s face it….you can only sustain your blog with your personal finances for so long. Unless you intend for your blog to always be a hobby (which you don’t, or you wouldn’t be here) you are eventually going to want to, at the very least, cover your blogging expenses with your own blogging income.
What business expenses do you need to cover?
Figure out what it costs you to maintain your blog for the entire year.
(This post contains affiliate links, specifically for services I use and love. If you decide to use any of these services, it will cost you nothing extra. Please see my disclosure policy for more information. Should you decide to use Keysearch, my favorite SEO tool, please use code KSDISC for an extra 20% off! Just for being a loyal reader.☺️)
This could be things like:
- Your hosting service
- Your domain name
- Any themes or plug-ins you pay for
- Your email marketing platform, if you are not using a free service
- Any subscription services you might have, such as Tailwind, Keysearch or Canva
We are looking at only the expenses that you already have for the year, not the things you want to invest in or think you will need for 2023. We’ll cover that later.
Once you have those expenses listed out, figure out how much they cost you on a yearly basis.
For example, Canva costs $12 a month. But I want to know how much money I absolutely have to make, to keep my current business afloat. So, I need to know that Canva costs me $144 a year, in order to keep their service.
Add up all of your yearly expenses.
After you have your business expenses, you need to consider your current personal needs. Do you bring home profit from your blog, to support your family and your current lifestyle? If so, how much do you contribute to your family income?
What personal expenses do you need to cover?
Start by listing out what you contribute to the household on a monthly basis.
Be very real about this. If you have a set number that you just automatically transfer over, from, say, a business account to your personal account, then that makes it so much easier.
But if you don’t, list out all of the household expenses that you cover.
For instance, maybe your spouse covers the housing costs, utilities, and transportation, and you take care of the children’s needs, the groceries, and the household expenses. Then you need to list out how much these expenses cost you, on average, every month.
If you cover your entire family budget with your blog, then it can be easier to know how much you need to make as well, as long as you already have a budget made up. If not, here’s how to create a budget.
Once you have all of the monthly expenses listed out that you cover with your blogging income, add them up and multiply it by 12. This is how much money your blog needs to bring in, in 2023, to maintain your current lifestyle.
If you just transfer over a set amount every month that is fine too. Just multiply that number by 12.
Now, take what you need to cover your basic blogging expenses from step one and add it to what you need to maintain your current lifestyle in step two. What is that number?
This is how much income your blog needs to make in 2023 to stay right where you are at and cover your current expenses.
But our goal is to grow, right? So, we need to keep pushing through this exercise!
Next, it’s time to figure out your current revenue
Once you know how much you need to make in 2023 to simply break even, it’s time to figure out how much you can expect to make.
This is where it can get a bit trickier, but it really doesn’t have to. Start by listing all the ways your blog makes money. This can be things like:
✔︎ providing a service, such as VA work or freelancing
✔︎ affiliate income
✔︎ advertisements and sponsorships
✔︎ selling your own products
After you know how your blog will make money in 2023, it’s time to figure out just how much money your blog will make from each revenue stream.
For example, if you provided a service last year, such as freelance writing, on average, how much did you make every month? $50? $1,000? $3,000? If it fluctuated a lot, then find the mean and go with that. Or, if you want to play it really safe, use the lowest monthly number.
On average, how much did you make every month from affiliate income? From advertisements and sponsorships? How much did you gain from selling your own products?
When you are figuring this out, use only the consistent blogging income. If you made affiliate sales in January and September, and that’s it, I wouldn’t count that in as income for 2023. Unless that is regular seasonal income you can rely on. Anything sporadic you want to just ignore for now.
After you know how much money you averaged each month for each of your revenue streams, add it all up! How much money can you expect to make in 2023, if you ran your business exactly like you did in 2022?
Does your blogging income cover your expenses?
This is a great exercise because it helps you to decide on what your 2023 blogging goals should actually be.
If your current blogging income is covering both, your current business expenses and your current personal expenses, even if there is little to no profit after doing so, then you know what you are doing right now is enough to at least sustain your blog and break even.
It means your blog is supporting your current blog expenses and your current lifestyle! Congratulations!! 🙌🏻 🙌🏻
But if your blog is not covering the basic expenses to keep it afloat, then that means you can expect to dig into your personal pocket during 2023 to keep your dream alive. Unless that is, you change the way you are doing business.
And that means doing some drastic re-thinking when you are writing your 2023 blogging goals.
After doing this exercise, there should be two tracts you can choose from:
⇢ Goals that will grow your business and increase your revenue
⇢ Goals that will take you back to the basics and turn your hobby into a thriving business
Which tract do you belong on?
If your blog is already covering your expenses, it’s time to look at financial growth
You heard me!
It’s time to grow, baby!! 🥂
Your blog is a business, and it is alive and doing well! Congrats! 🎉 In 2023, you should be focusing on growth.
And how do you tell if a business is healthy and growing? By increased revenue, of course.
So, again, before you sit down to write out your 2023 blogging goals, go through just one more exercise for me: figure out exactly what kind of revenue you need to make in 2023 to support the kind of growth your blog needs.
In order to know how much revenue you need to grow, list out everything you want to have money for in 2023
You already know what it costs to maintain your blog. You know all of your business expenses. And you are making enough money to cover them.
You also know how much money you need to make in 2023 to bring home to your family. You know what personal, family, and lifestyle expenses you need to cover, and your blog makes enough money to cover them as well.
So, now it’s time to daydream a little bit.
List out everything you wish you could invest in this year, for your business
Let’s start with your business dreams, of course.
Take that same piece of paper and start a new column on it. In this column, list out all of the things you would like to spend money on in 2023 if you had the money to spend. These are things in your business and for your blog; we’ll look at personal expenses in just a bit.
So, it could be things like:
- Premium themes, plug-ins or subscriptions
- Courses or programs
- Coaching or mentorship
- Equipment, such as a new laptop
- Client management systems, bookkeeping software, or data systems
- Contracted services, such as a virtual assistant or a social media manager
- Web designer
The sky is the limit here! No one is going to see this but you, so don’t worry if it seems impossible or looks foolish. This is your chance to daydream just a bit.
After you have the list, go back and assign dollar values to it. What would it cost you, to hire a VA or a web designer? You can go as in-depth as you want to here, digging for actual expected costs or just guestimating yourself.
But the more accurate you can be, the more accurate your goals will be when you write them.
And then, of course, after you have estimated values next to each item, add them all up so that you have an annual price tag to your biggest dreams.
Next, list out everything you wish you had money for in your personal life
We started our blogs to support a certain kind of lifestyle we always dreamed of, did we not?
So, it does no good to plan for business growth unless you can enjoy some of the proceeds! Take another section of your notebook and start a list of everything you would love to do, experience, or purchase in 2023.
If you don’t bring home any blogging income right now to support your family, do you want to someday? And if you do, what do you plan on contributing? Maybe you would love to be able to take over the household expenses for your spouse or build up your retirement.
Maybe you hope to someday retire your spouse.
If you already contribute to the household finances, what do you wish you could do more of? Take a family vacation? Buy a bigger house? Pay off debt?
List out all of the personal items or expenses you wish you could cover with your blogging income. And then next to those items, assign a monetary value.
For example, if you hope to be able to take over the household expenses, take a look at your budget and see how much those expenses are currently costing your family each month. If you want to build up a retirement, how much would you like to tuck away each month?
Do this for each item on your list and then add them all up. How much will these activities cost you for the year?
And then, of course, add up your desired business expenses with your desired personal expenses. This is how much EXTRA money your blog needs to bring in, in 2023, to cover your best ever year – and lifestyle.
What kind of income does your business need to bring in, to cover your desired financial growth?
When you think about writing your 2023 blogging goals, you need to really be thinking about how much money you want your blog to make in 2023 and how you are going to make it. That is why this exercise is so important to do – before you create your blog goals.
So, once you know how much money you can expect to make in 2023, and how much money you would need to make, to see the kind of growth you long for, you can add those two numbers together.
And this number is the kind of revenue your blog will need to make, in 2023, to grow!!
Take a look at this number. Is it doable? Or is it outrageous? You need to decide right now, before moving on to the next step. Because the next step is all about HOW you will make that money.
And that HOW will lead right into your 2023 blogging goals.
All we’ve done is set the stage.
Can your business bring in that kind of cash?
So, if you think this number is too high and there is no way you will ever make that kind of money in 2023, then go back, to either your desired business expenses or your desired personal expenses (or both!) and cut some of those activities or items out.
You can strive for them next year.
Keep cutting things out until you have a number you really feel you can accomplish. Or, even better, cut just until you have a number that you feel is a little unrealistic. I’ve always been told our goals need to feel just out of reach. 😉
When you have a doable number, it’s time to move on to the next step.
Now figure out how you will fund your financial goals
Remember when we listed out how your business brings in revenue? Ads, sponsorships, affiliate income, client services, products, etc.? Now it’s time to figure out how much revenue you need to bring in, in each of those areas.
It needs to be more than last year. So, that means you need to increase your services, host more ads and sponsored posts, make more affiliate sales, and create and/or sell more products.
Start by choosing your biggest moneymaker. For our example, let’s say its client services. And since I’m a freelancer, I’m going to use freelance writing as an example.
Let’s say, in 2022, I made $1,200 a month in freelance writing. And let’s say I did this by writing about six articles a month, which were about 2,000 words each. And I charged 10 cents a word.
Now let’s say that in order to hit my new financial goal, I need to increase my service revenue to $5,000 a month. How would I do that?
Well, I could write more than six articles in a month. If I kept my word count and price the same, I’d have to write ten and a half articles every month. If this isn’t possible for me, then I’d have to look at either increasing the word count of each article or increasing my rates, until I reach my $5,000 goal.
And that is how it’s done! You go back and do that for each of your revenue streams. Doing this will help you decide what your blogging goals should be, based on how much income you want to make in the New Year.
As you work through each of your revenue streams, use these questions to guide you:
- How many clients do you need per month? Per year?
- What do you need to charge them for your services?
- How much do you need in affiliate sales? Sponsorships? Ad revenue?
- What is your goal for product sales? How many products per year is that? Do you need to create more products?
It might be easier to start out with your yearly numbers and then work backward to your monthly or quarterly goals.
When you finish this exercise, you should know:
✔︎ how many clients you need and how much you should charge them
✔︎ how many sponsored posts or ad spots you need, and what you should charge for them
✔︎ approximately how many affiliate sales you need to make
✔︎ how much of your own product sales you need to make, along with how many products you need to sell to make that goal
✔︎ if you offer enough products, or if you need to create and launch something new
Knowing this will help you when writing your 2023 blogging goals!!
If your blog is not covering your current blogging expenses, then you need to go back to the basics
When I did this exercise, I was surprised to see that my blog was covering my expenses, and I came out on top with profit! 🙌🏻 🙌🏻
The first time I did this, I decided to go back to the basics anyhow, because I didn’t make as much profit as I had wanted to. This last time, however, I was able to focus on growth. 😁
If you need to go back to the basics, then instead of focusing on financial growth in 2023, you may want to focus on growth, plain and simple – as in traffic growth. 😂 🤣
I took Elna Cain’s blogging for traffic course because my goal in 2021 was simply to focus on optimizing my blogs for traffic and affiliate income. I wanted to grow my traffic and readership.
I needed to create a solid foundation before I could start worrying about selling products or leaning heavily into affiliate sales (ads are not on my radar).
After taking her course and focusing on traffic for a year, I made a nice little profit! So, now it’s time to focus on revenue growth.
If you did not make enough money to support your blog, or you barely made enough money, you may also want to go back to the basics, before creating bigger financial goals.
Going back to the basics could include things like:
- Publishing consistent blog posts
- Being more visible on social media
- Setting up a better marketing plan
- Creating a content strategy that supports traffic growth, email list growth, or even affiliate growth
- Learning about SEO
- Learning how to write better blog posts
- Performing market research
- Creating a user-friendly website
If you need to go back to the basics, you kind of need to do an assessment of your blog first, before writing your 2023 blogging goals. Do that, and take some time to review 2022. After you review your blog and your past year, you are ready to create goals for 2023.
Where are your strengths? What do you need to improve on? Do you even know how to build a solid foundation for your blog?
If not, then take Elna’s course! I promise you, you WILL NOT regret it. It could be exactly what you need, to set you up for success in 2023!!
At the end of the day…
At the end of the day, momma, you blog to make money, to support your family. Even if your blog is a passion.
So, before writing your 2023 blogging goals, you need to know what your financial goals for your blog are.
To do this, you need to look at your current blog expenses and your current personal expenses. Does your current blogging income cover these expenses? If so, then you are ready to set financial goals to support your growing blog!
Do this by listing out what you want this year, both for your business and for your family. Add it all up and set that number as your financial goal! And then decide what you need to sell in order to make it happen!
But if your blog is not covering your basic expenses, then you need to go back to the basics. You don’t want to spend another year supporting your blog with your family’s finances. The goal is to turn that around and support your family’s finances with your blog!
So, tell me in the comments below – what track are you on? Are you supporting financial growth? Or heading back to the basics? Let me know!!
And happy blogging! ☺️
