Happy Birthday Cracking Retirement

It is Cracking Retirement’s 1st birthday. On the 18th September this blog turned 1. If I liken it to human development, it is at best a toddler, just learning how to make its voice heard and starting to walk unaided. As some of you may have noticed from my post earlier this week, I am in Madrid at the minute, so it passed without comment, until I checked the date this evening.

On 18th September 2016, I was beavering away in my study setting up my website with BlueHost, having a bit of a panic as I wondered what on earth I was up to. Was I too arrogant thinking that people would bother reading what I was up to?

Like every good birthday celebration, it’s a good idea to take a look at the year gone by….

My stats are pretty small, compared to other bloggers, but given that I had a shot at blogging from 2010 to 2012 when I think I had less than 100 views, I am doing a lot better. At that stage, I just decided it was a waste of time, and deleted the lot! However, this time, I am a lot older and wiser. I understand a little more about the world of blogging, and have decided I will persevere.

Total views for the year – 11,508

Total posts – 68 (average 5.5 posts a month)

Busiest month – October 2016 – 12 posts! (The novelty hadn’t worn off…)

Most successful post – Our Drawdown Strategy. this was part of a chain gang, and it brought lots of new people to my site.

Guest Posts

• May 2017 White Coat Investor
• May 2017 UK Money Bloggers Loose Change
• July 2017 Akash Sky
• August 2017 Freedom is Groovy
• August 2017 UK Money Bloggers Loose Change

I even have a growing band of people who have kindly given me their email address, to receive regular updates.

To start with, I felt I was drowning as I related in Blogging It’s a Dark Art, however I am slowly becoming more confident, but I still have a long way to go. There are so many new things still to learn.

However, I have learnt that you really need to put real time into blogging. It’s not a lightweight enterprise. You need to join forums (fora to be more correct, but the term is less widely used!) So I was introduced to the UK Money Bloggers which has been really friendly, and introduced me to lots of Facebook Groups. I joined a US based Rockstar Finance group, where I have met a whole new group of online friends. The help and advice I have received from across the world has been amazing. I also now have a Facebook Page, an Instagram Page, a twitter account, even a Pinterest page.

However I am really enjoying the journey. At least the first year has given me a base to build on. I am hoping to introduce more guest blogs. We’ll see how that goes. When I did my start of year Dream Big, I wanted to

• achieve 50,000 views
• start basic affiliate marketing / monetizing the blog by June 2017, with an aim to build a second income stream
• post at least 1 blog every 2 weeks, including over my holidays
• achieve a email list of 100 subscribers
• get featured on Rockstar Finance

The outcome 9 months into the year is that I have a way to go to get to 50k views. I have purposefully held off any attempt to do affiliate marketing. I have decided I will let the blog find its own niche first. I have pretty much met the ‘1 post every 2 weeks’ even when on holiday. The subscribers are good, but I have yet to feature on Rockstar Finance.

So what will the year ahead bring for Cracking Retirement.

• For the author (me!) – a busy year ahead with lots of travel, lots of metal bashing and great health and fitness
• For the website –
  • 50,000 views
  • 500 subscribers
  • a more settled niche
  • a rockstar finance shout out
  • some new guest posts on my blog

Here’s to another successful year.

Meanwhile time to get back out into the glorious sun!

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