The 17Q1 Plan & Goals (and, THANK YOU)

First: Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

When I first dreamed up this campaign on the plane to Austin in October I thought a reasonable amount of success to acheive by the end of 2016 would be hitting around $40 of pledges. That would pay for CK's hosting and also be strong social proof to future pledgers. 

You helped me meet and exceed that goal, and the result was more than just dollars. You've helped give me a renewed sense of excitement and commitment towards blogging that has totally invigorated me.

Speaking of being invigorated, let's talk about my 2017 first quarter plan for CK.  

If November was my test-run for a new version of CK's success, 2017Q1 is a make-or-break first trial. What I'm able to achieve in the next 90 days will determine CK's outlook for the rest of 2017 as some of my priorities shift regarding my stay-at-home parenting and career.

My plans break into three separate but interrelated parts: editorial content, page content, and meta-projects. I'm writing about them here as much for personal accountability as for anything else, but I'd love to hear your feedback as my #1 focus group. 

Editorial Content

Goals: 90 posts in 90 days. >150% Y/Y and M/M returning users to homepage.

The crazy pace of November was fun, but it didn't revolutionize traffic across all of CK. What it did do was factorially raise the % of returning visitors to the CK main page, especially when it came to daily active users.

That is a very good thing and I think I can make it happen with significantly less content. I'm aiming to produce as close to a post-per-day as I can for all of Q1 (which would still be less posts than I wrote in November!) to see if I can approach the same increase in visitors.

The posting mix won't be significantly different than the November mix, except for:

• I won't be doing a song-a-day series (for now), since that's an unavoidable 1/3 of each week's writing time.
• Comic read-alongs/reviews will be more closely aligned to public guide launches to help bridge readers between editorial and page content.
• I will add some form of "New Release" or "New Solicit" post, as they have been big traffic-drivers in the past.
• As much as I really want to focus more on my original fiction, it was consistently the lowest-trafficked post-type in November. I have some ideas for how to tweak that, but if you haven't clicked through those posts to read before please do in January!

Page Content

Goal: >10 DC Guides launched (plus X-23)! Update all 80+ Marvel pages with new collections.

When it comes to page content, at least the first month of 2017 is going to be strongly focused on DC Comics.

This, too, comes from November and December data. Even less popular "New Guide" posts and pages generate some of the highest click-through and traffic of ny content, but at this point I am deep into the long tail of Marvel characters. Aside from Venom, there's probably not any Marvel character left whose page would significantly alter CK's traffic.

While there are many one-off guides I could do outside of Marvel (Buffy, Hellboy, Spawn, etc), the elephant in the room is DC. It's a universe as big as Marvel that could conceivably double my traffic. It's by far the most-asked question in reader emails after "When will you continue your reading order guide?"

Also, after doing some competitive analysis, there's not anyone out there doing CK-style and -quality guides for DC Comics.

In order to assess DC's impact on CK's traffic quickly enough to plan for the rest of 2017, I'll need a very aggressive launch schedule. That means getting out Rebirth, New 52, DC Events, and several major heroes before the quarter is halfway done.

I'll make a follow-up post tomorrow to let you know my plan and schedule so you can chime in with requests and suggestions.

I will also be doing an update of all Marvel pages with books solicited through the end of Q3 2017.

Meta-Projects

Goal: Mobile-friendly redesign with magazine-style front page.

A key difference between November and 17Q1 will be that I'm not only focused on CK's content. I need to make some moves behind the scenes, as well.

One example is the link internationalization I was able to add in December thanks to your monetary support. Even with just a partial launch month of data it appears to be giving close to a 10% boost to my Amazon click-through, which is awesome! As of today, every guide page has been internationalized, so January's data should be very interesting!

While I have some similar small projects to invest in, when it comes to CK's longer term health and success my number one priorioty is absolutely a redesign in Q1. 

Here on Patreon I have a redesign linked to higher-level pledge goals that are almost 10x where we are now. In reality, if I wait that long for a redesign I'm going to see my organic search result traffic plummet as Google begins to prioritize mobile-ready designs - and, less traffic will probably mean less Patrons, in the long run.

(Also, I think readers would spend more time on the homepage if they could quickly zero in on different kinds of content in a magazine-style layout on the home page rather than just scrolling eternally. For example, imagine if there was easy-to-find stacks of "Comics," "Music," and "Fiction" that you could scan for new content whenever you visit!)

Redesign is an expensive task both in dollars and time, and I can't say that I'm excited about spending either. However, if I really want to be evaluating CK against other top-performing blogs, it's a must-do.

##

That's a picture of my ideal first quater of 2017 on CK. It will be challenging, but none of it is nearly as insane of a plan as November - so, hopefully I'll get a bit more sleep along the way :)