For 2025, I’m sharing some of the key projects I’m working on and the strategies I’m using to stay on track.

Hopefully, these can inspire you to set your own goals and create a plan to achieve them!

1. Grow My Newsletters

Newsletters are one of the most powerful tools to build engagement and monetize content.

In 2024, I doubled down on my already existing email marketing presence, and the results have been incredible.

The best part? Unlike social platforms that change on a whim, your email list is yours.

My Newsletter Goals For 2025:

• Subscriber Growth
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  Grow my main newsletter to 50,000 subscribers and my travel blogger newsletter to 15,000 subscribers.​
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• Engagement Boost
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  Increase my open rate to 55% and my click-through rate to 3%.​
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• Monetization Goals
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  Aside from affiliate marketing, my goal is to land $4,000/month in sponsorships for my main newsletter and $1,000/month for my travel blogger newsletter.

💡 Your Newsletter Focus for 2025:

If there’s one project to prioritize this year, make it your email list.

PLEASE.

Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and even Google can feel like a hamster wheel... always demanding more effort, yet never truly in your control.

Your newsletter, however, is a direct line to your audience that you own.

Here’s how to get started or grow:

• Choose an Email Marketing Platform:
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  ​If you’re new, sign up for an email platform to manage your list and send emails. Here are a few options:
  • ​ConvertKit (the platform I currently use).
  • ​Beehiiv (an up-and-coming platform I’m considering moving to).
  • ​Flodesk (great for simple, beautiful emails).
• Create a Freebie to Attract Subscribers:​
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  Think about your audience’s biggest questions or pain points. Could you offer:
  • A checklist
  • A guide
  • A template

*You can design this for free in Canva.

• Nurture Your Audience with Weekly Value:
  • Send consistent, high-value emails. Share tips, stories, and resources that are hard to find anywhere else.
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  • Focus on building a connection with your readers so they look forward to opening your emails each week.
• Start Small, But Think Big:
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  Even if you have just 50 subscribers, treat them like gold. Everyone starts somewhere, and consistent effort pays off.

The image below shows one of the first newsletters I ever sent to travel bloggers back in 2019 - there were just 11 people on my list at the time!

>> Learn more about making money from newsletters in Scale Your Travel Blog - click here!​

2. Grow a New Niche Site

I’m building a new niche blog using Pinterest to drive traffic.

My New Niche Site Goal: $3,000/month by December 2025 through ads.

This niche isn't great for affiliates, so display ads will be my main focus.

💡 Your Blog Focus For 2025:

Leverage Pinterest! Create vertical pins that inspire clicks and optimize your blog posts for search.

3. Scale My New Facebook Page

This year, one of my big projects is growing a new Facebook page to drive consistent traffic to my site.

My Facebook Page Goal: 100,000 monthly sessions from this page to my main travel blog by December 2025.

While traffic is my main focus, being accepted into the Facebook Bonus Program would be a nice cherry on top (hello, extra $$$!). For now, though, my priority is creating another reliable traffic stream.

💡 Should You Focus On Facebook For 2025?

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I’m not a fan of relying on social media for blog traffic.

Why?

Because platforms like Facebook are designed to keep users on the platform; not send them to your site.

So, is Facebook worth your time in 2025? Maybe.

For full transparency:

• To grow my page quickly, I’ve been running Facebook ads to increase reach and engagement. Ads have certainly helped to speed up the process.
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• If you don’t have a budget for ads, organic growth on Facebook can be much slower and more challenging. In that case, there are other platforms that will give you better results without spending money on ads.

4. Start a YouTube Channel for Course Creators

Here’s something I don’t talk about often because it’s a completely separate business from my travel blog…

But I’m incredibly proud that my blogging courses and coaching programs have generated over $1 million in the last two years, and over $2 million in the past four years.

Teaching, and helping others achieve their goals, is one of my biggest passions.

(Fun fact: I used to be an English teacher and even considered becoming a college mathematics professor. No wonder teaching feels so natural to me!)

I spend a lot of my time testing new blogging strategies, and nothing excites me more than sharing what works.

For the longest time, I doubted whether I had much to add to the sea of information about courses that's already out there.

But then it hit me: Earning $2 million from courses isn’t exactly common, and my unique perspective does have value.

And I'm pretty damn excited about it.

My New Youtube Channel Goal: $1,000/month in revenue by December 2025.

I feel this is a manageable project for me to tackle in my “free time” (which is practically nonexistent with a 6-month-old baby haha).

💡 Should You Focus On Youtube? Should You Create A Course?

Again, maybe! But maybe not!

• YouTube:
  ​
  ​If you have a knack for creating videos, editing, and understanding YouTube SEO, this could be a good platform to grow your audience and income.
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• Creating a Course:
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  Before diving in and creating your own course about a topic, ask yourself: Would I even buy this course? Do people need this?​
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  If your answer is yes, then there’s a good chance your course idea solves a real problem and that’s a strong foundation for success.

Quick Note: Want to work with me one-on-one for course creation?

Right now, I’m working with a handful of course creators to help them grow faster and more efficiently. I'm offering this for a very limited time as I explore how best to support course creators.

If you’d like to work with me one-on-one, reply to this email with your course idea!

I’ll review your response and share more details if it’s a good fit.

5. Host My 5th Annual Travel Blogging Summit

I've hosted four Travel Blogging Summits up to this point for over 1,200 attendees.

My Travel Blogging Summit Goal for 2025: 650 attendees

If you haven't signed up for this summit yet, do NOT miss out! The sessions we're hosting are incredible, and I know you'll walk away with so many valuable ideas.

>> Sign up for Travel Blogging Summit 2025 here!​

6. In-Person Mastermind Meetup for My Coaching Students

I’ll be hosting a mastermind for my Scale Your Travel Blog coaching students in February in Las Vegas! I am so excited to meet more of our community members in person.

💡 Your Focus:

Think about how you can bring your community together, whether virtually or in person, to connect and share knowledge.

PS. If you want to join in on free meetups like this, consider joining us in Scale Your Travel Blog here!​

7. Increase Ad Revenue on My Main Travel Blog

For 2025, one of my key goals is to grow the ad revenue from my main travel blog.

Breaking It Down:

To hit my $20,000/month goal, I first need to do the math:

• My Current RPM: Around $30 (RPM = revenue per mille, or per 1,000 sessions).
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• Sessions Needed: $20,000 / $30 X 1,000 = 666,667 sessions per month

That’s a big number, but with a clear plan, it’s within reach.

How I’ll Reach 666,667 Monthly Blog Sessions:

Here’s my strategy to scale traffic across multiple channels:

• Email List: Consistently grow and nurture my email list to drive engaged readers to my site.
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• SEO (Google & Bing): Optimize my content for search engines by targeting high-impact keywords, updating older posts, and publishing new articles.
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• Google Discover: I’ll focus on creating more Discover-style blog posts, as this traffic source has started gaining traction for bloggers again (it was quiet there for about a year it seemed).​
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• Pinterest: Continue leveraging Pinterest by pinning click-worthy images.. and lots of them!
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• Facebook Page: Use my growing Facebook page to share posts and drive traffic.

💡 Your Ad Income Focus For 2025:

If you haven’t joined an ad network yet, make this your year to start monetizing with ads.

Ad networks can provide a great way to generate passive income from your blog traffic, and they often come with tools and support to help you optimize earnings.

Here are a few options to consider based on your traffic:

• Journey by Mediavine: Ideal for smaller blogs just starting with ads.
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• Monumetric: Works with blogs that have a minimum of 10,000 monthly sessions.
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• Rise by Raptive: An awesome stepping stone for blogs with moderate traffic.
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• Mediavine and Raptive: For established blogs with higher traffic thresholds.

This is what Mediavine ads look like on a blog (circled below in red) -->

Put your brand, company, or service in front of 25,000+ bloggers!

With an average open rate of 52%+, our newsletter connects you to an engaged audience of bloggers and content creators.

Reply to this email for more information ✍️

​Build Your Newsletter from Scratch with YouTube - beehiiv

​Local Newsletter Makes Six Figures - beehiiv (plus Michael's tweet about it here!)

​I Make $20k/Month Posting Memes on Facebook Pages - Niche Pursuits

🚨 The Blogging Income Streams I Depend On

🚨 What Top Bloggers Use To Earn More

🚨 Pinterest, Pinterest, Pinterest

Talk to you soon,

Laura

P.S. Here are my top recommended blogging resources.
​(Links in this email could be affiliate links, meaning that if you purchase through them, we will make a small percentage without ANY additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my newsletter!)

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