My Action Plan Advice Welcome!

So, my break was a little longer than I expected, but I finally found some time to come back and get some real work done. Somehow this week really got away from me. I'm not sure if things slipped because I was more tired than I realized (as tends to happen when you're burned out), or if I'm subconsciously procrastinating because I'm experiencing some frustration with growing my site.

In thinking about this, I revisited the short term goals that I created for myself a few weeks ago to check in and see where I am:

1) to continue fleshing out the content of my site at a good pace of 2-3 posts per week

Assessment: I had a really strong week and a half of writing before my break-turned-hiatus when I turned out 3 or 4 posts that I was happy with. However, this week I obviously didn't write any (although I do have one in the works) and I've been struggling to find topics to write about because I'm having trouble being accepted into more affiliate networks. Since my niche is basically fitness fashion, it's hard to stay relevant if you can't reference what's out there on the market.

2) to begin the monetizing process by choosing some affiliate partnerships and placing some quality ads.

Assessment: I joined Clickbank, Commission Junction, and LinkShare, and I did successfully join some affiliate programs. I've done okay with using the ones that I have, but I would like to have more variety.

3) To make my first sale by the end of May!

Assessment: I'm getting a little anxious about this one. I saw on LinkShare that I've had almost 600 impressions since I joined, which I guess is good, but I haven't had any click-throughs yet, which is distressing.

4) Be turning a profit by the end of the summer!

Assessment: This is starting to feel depressingly unlikely (see #4).

5) Break Rank 500 by the end of May

Assessment: I think I'm on track to reach this goal, which makes me happy. But I'd feel so much more confident if I could see even a little evidence that I was on the right track for producing conversions.

Since improving my site content will increase my chances of getting both more partnerships and conversions, I think I need to really focus on getting creative with content and making sure it's accessible. That said, here are some adjusted goals that I think will make my site more successful:

Adjusted Goals:

1) Ramp up the Writing: I clearly still need to increase the volume of posts, but I think I've fallen into the trap of being dependent on affiliate partnerships for content ideas. So in addition to simply writing more, I need to brainstorm some topics that I could write about (and add relevant images to) without having access to affiliate product images. As a fashion blogger, this is going to be a big challenge.

2) Make a Kickin' Homepage: I think a more exciting homepage will compel people to engage with the site more.

3) Reorganize Posts/Pages: When I was initially organizing my menu, I chose to have each menu tab be a blog category so that each page would feature relevant posts for that tab. But since each tab is now a blog roll, I think it's probably making it difficult for people to see all of the content that's available, because you can only see one post at a time unless you know to scroll down. And even if you know to scroll down, scrolling through multiple posts is a really inefficient way to manage site navigation. Moving forward, I want to explore how I can organize the posts and pages in a way that's more engaging and easier to navigate. (Tips on this are most welcome!)

If you have any ideas in particular about any of this, please let me know! I sense that now is a time that I will need to lean on the WA community a little more.