Q4 2024 Check-In: Accountability on All My Sites

“Ac·count·a·bil·i·ty:” The state of being accountable; liability to be called on to render an account; the obligation to bear the consequences for failure to perform as expected.

We all know accountability helps – but it can be hard to find a powerful way of holding yourself to account to ensure you achieve your goals. Even for me – probably one of the most over-achiever and over-accomplisher people you know!

I’ve now been writing these quarterly accountability check-ins for two years (you can see Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4 of 2023 and Q1, Q2 & Q3 of 2024 if you want to look back), and I find it extremely helpful to do so. I don’t know if anyone actually reads them, but the process of writing them helps me stay focused, set priorities, and even look forward (though the post is mostly looking back).

Below you’ll find the update that wraps up 2024; I’m excited for what 2025 holds even though my whole portfolio – and income – looks very different than it did when I started this series.

As a reminder, I’m using the stoplight system Rand Fishkin uses as part of his SEO predictions posts each year; it’s a clear way to measure how you’re doing (or did) when evaluating things.

In total, I have 12 areas of focus across 3 high-priority sites (and one low priority site), and here’s how they’re doing:

• 🟢 (success/achieved) = 8/12 = 66%
• 🟡 (in progress) = 2/12 = 16%
• 🔴 (failure/so far) = 2/12 = 16%

I think it’s funny that I didn’t mark any goals as ‘in progress’ as of writing this; I’m feeling very binary today and not deluding myself that some of these will ever happen – though I could of course improve my focus on them by next quarter (unless it’s a site where I’m setting new goals between now and then, which is V&V and STG). In any case, let’s dive into each site so you can understand more.

High Priority Sites

This section focuses on the four sites I’m currently focusing on the most; they’re the ones I have as ‘favorites’ in Asana and have at least a few articles (new or updates) scheduled in the coming months.

Valerie & Valise (October 2013)

Since Q3, V&V passed its 11-year mark, and that means I have new goals and areas to focus on for the coming year!

• 🟢 All-In on Facebook – I’ve wavered on my level of commitment from week to week, but I am definitely still the most active on Facebook compared to any other social channels. It’s going to remain a priority because it does drive traffic!
• 🟢 Stay Committed on Email – I love emailing my community, though it isn’t the most effective channel for driving traffic to my site (it is great for sales though!). This is an easy one!
• 🟡 Finally Figure Out Pinterest – I had a call with a Pinterest consultant that was moderately helpful, but I still can’t seem to crack the code to get traffic. I’ll keep at it as we move into 2025 because even the little bit I’m getting helps!
• 🟢 “Paywall” My Blog Content – After setting this goal, I was highly motivated to get it done – and I did! I have a very hacky free/paywall, but it works, and I’ve earned almost $1000 from it plus have gotten over 100 new subscribers.

This is a really good place to be in moving into 2025; traffic and income are still way down, but I should be able to continue focusing on this site as my main priority through the coming year.

London On My Mind (January 2021)

LOMM continues to show some recovery – Q4 was a bit flat, but it stayed at the elevated level after recovering in August and September. In any case, this has helped me stay focused on this site, which I truly love working on. (London is my favorite city in the world, after all!)

I’m about to set new goals as the site crosses its four-year mark, so here’s one last check-in on my goals from last year.

• 🟢 Manage Expenses vs Growth – I’ve been a bit more lax on this in the past quarter by letting one of my writers submit freelance articles for me, but it has helped me keep the content pipeline full with articles that are directly tied to one of my affiliate strategies.
• 🟢 Keep Trying New Content Types – I did this early in the year, so I’m counting it a success; for 2025, I’m moving away from new content types to keep the site maintained and healthy until I come up with other ideas to try.
• 🟡 Triage Low-Performing Articles Quarterly – I did this for a few quarters, but not in the second half of the year. I probably need to do it at least annually going forward though it won’t be one of my main goals – just a normal part of maintaining a healthy site!

At the end of Q3, I thought this site might shift into maintenance mode, and it sort of will in 2025 – but I still plan to publish new content or update existing content once a week all year, so that’s nothing to snuff at.

Eat Like Bourdain (June 2021)

ELB is my baby – the only one still going strong despite so many Google updates in the last 18 months. It’s a ton of fun to work on, and is finally starting to pick up some steam on Instagram!

Here’s an update on my main goals at the halfway point of the year.

• 🔴 Enthusiast, v3 – I still want to do this, but I just can’t make the economics work right now since so many of my other sites are down in income. It’s on the back burner and if I ever feel really ambitious and like I have lots of spare time, I might come back to it.
• 🟢 Instagram/Social Community – I’m seeing success here! Thanks to a fellow creator who used my site to visit a spot Tony ate, then tagged me in a reel that’s gone viral, I’ve grown to over 2k followers with basically no effort on my part. I’m also getting tagged in more content in general, and getting lots of engagement/feedback when I do post. This has been a lot of fun!

At this point, I can’t imagine what my goals might be for the next year, since I’m not creating (much) new written content and these other projects don’t necessarily move the needle for income, but I have a few months to figure that out!

Low Priority Sites

Changing this section slightly, I want to acknowledge some of my sites that aren’t high on my list – but which I am still working on a little bit.

Space Tourism Guide (November 2017)

As of writing, I’ve officially shifted STG to the low priority bucket; this site has been completely battered by Google updates and shows no signs of recovery. That said, it has a decently sized email community and is important for my professional portfolio. I’m updating two posts per week right now, mostly a combination of posts that I already have scheduled to “future-proof” them, and my annual night sky event/monthly night sky guides. As we move further into 2025, I plan a few new articles, but not many!

I do have some stoplight goals for STG, and want to acknowledge those:

• 🔴 Repurpose content for Forbes – I did some math, and even with my shitty traffic and RPMs, I still earn more from having content on my site than from publishing it on Forbes. As such, I’ve put this goal on hold.
• 🟢 Keep updating gear posts, monthly guides, and annual events each year – This is my top content priority for STG in 2025, so I’m definitely going to keep at it!
• 🟢 Future-proof the site in every other way – I’ve been working at this for a few weeks now, and it will continue into 2025. At some point I’ll need to audit a lot of the other content I *think* is future-proof already, but need to double-check.

Jordan Traveler (May 2021)

After my last update, Jordan Traveler started showing the first signs of recovery; only it and LOMM have shown any recovery from the hits of the past 18 months, and I think JT is particularly struggling because of the genocide in Israel. In any case, I’ve decided to commit to 2 articles per month – predominantly rewrites and especially rewrites/updates of my main itineraries – to keep the site on a healthy maintenance schedule.

D&D Community (April 2023)

As of Q1 2025, I committed to publishing 12 articles on this site this year. This obviously isn’t going to move the needle much, but my associated Instagram account occasionally gets gifted/partnership inquiries, and keeping the blog active is a part of the strategy.

Global Tiki Tour (February 2024)

Similarly, I’m finally focusing on this site with a goal of publishing 12 new articles in 2025. This is my ‘fun’ project right now as I shut down other sites.

Alaskan Cruisers (TBA)

Here’s a little spoiler for you, but I just bought a new domain! This is my first new site in a year – and it’s the first one I have a plan to actually build since ELB almost four years ago. I haven’t done anything with it as of Q4 2024, and probably won’t have time to focus on it in Q1 2025 either, but I am excited to work on something new that’s deep in my wheelhouse with lots of partnership and growth opportunities!

Jordan Traveler does have stoplight goals, but I didn’t report on them last quarter either. At this point, none of the other sites on this list have stoplight goals, and I don’t plan to do the 6/9/12/annual case study updates for D&DC or GTT. I probably will do all of that for Alaskan Cruisers once I start publishing on that site.

Sites I’m Shutting Down

For the first time, I’m actively shutting down some of my sites as we move into 2025. I’ve decided it’s just not worth even having them on my plate, and have been consolidating high-performing articles onto other sites that make sense. Here are the sites I’ll be shutting down in the next few months:

• Discover Sausalito (January 2020) – When I first started this site, I had high hopes for it – it was my third site ever – and I launched it right before the pandemic destroyed traffic to all sites associated with travel. While it did recover and eventually grow, it never got to a point where I could monetize it*, so I’ve moved ALL of the articles to V&V and have let the domain expire. Eventually I’ll remove most of the articles to focus on the ones that drive the most traffic, but for now, it’s the best place for that content to live.
• Follow the Butterflies (April 2020) – FTB was my pandemic project, because it was the first lifestyle-oriented blog I created – it was all about Harry Potter lifestyle topics, not just travel. Unfortunately, that is a very competitive space – and the site has gotten hammered by various updates throughout the years. It is monetized on SheMedia, but it makes so little (~$50/mo) that I’d rather put some of the content on other sites and earn that way. (You can now find Harry Potter pages on both LOMM and V&V.)
• Soup Whoop (April 2021) – While this site continues to get traffic, it’s not enough to monetize and it’s not a site I want to focus on. As such, I’ve begun re-homing all of the articles on this site in exchange for backlinks back to V&V, and will let the domain expire this year.
• Great Plains Travel Guide (March 2021) – As I’ve mentioned in past updates, I’ve been moving content from GPTG to V&V for a while now. It hasn’t been performing as well as it did before, but I’m keen to let go of this domain (which expires in just a few weeks). This site is monetized on Mediavine currently and has earned about $125/mo in the past year, but my RPMs for V&V are almost 2x what they are for GPTG, so narrowing my focus is worth it even if the traffic doesn’t recover.

*It actually did reach Mediavine Journey levels in the year before HCU, but that wasn’t available yet, then it has never gotten back to that level since.

In the future, I won’t have much to say in this section, other than to reference all the sites I’ve shut down – including those I don’t really mention anymore like True Crime Podcasts and Visit Ni’ihau.

And with that, I’ll leave this for now. These updates continue to become easier to write as I put sites on hold and focus on fewer of them, but I still find this helpful for myself to write and be accountable. Hopefully you too find them helpful as they offer a bit more of a peek behind the scenes! Have any questions about my various quarterly goals? I’m happy to answer in the comments.