At the start of a new year, and especially when it’s a milestone year like 2025 (it’s already been a quarter century since 2000!), I think about my goals for the year ahead and look back at what I achieved in previous years. This year marks 9 years since I started the blog in January 2016. I’m so proud of how the blog has grown and what it has become.
In the beginning years of this blog, I posted about my yearly goals. I recently looked back at some of those posts and it was so fun to read about my goals and reflect on which of those goals were achieved and which were not.
- I published my goals for the blog for the first time in 2018: Learning the value of annual goal setting
- I held myself accountable for the goals I set in my final post of 2018: 2018 Year in Review
- My 2019 goals included a change of focus for the blog to mainly STEM for kids: New year, new focus on STEAM for Kids
- My 2019 wrap-up showed how my blog had grown over the year: Engineering Emily 2019 Wrap-Up
- The final year I set goals on the blog before everything changed: 2020: Goal Setting for the Year and Decade
2020-2024 Blog statistics
I loved how the previous year-end wrap-up posts I wrote included stats from the year. I am statistics lover, so I liked comparing those older statistics to where I have grown to today. That inspired me to share my 2020-2024 statistics in this post. A lot has changed in the last 5 years, including huge growth on the blog!
| Year | Website Vistors | New Blog Posts | Products on Site | Instagram Followers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 47.8k | 90 | 0 | ~1800 |
| 2021 | 112.2k | 14 | 0 | ~1900 |
| 2022 | 120.2k | 0 | 0 | ~1900 |
| 2023 | 170.1k | 11 | 0 | ~1900 |
| 2024 | 146.7k | 8 | 8 | ~1900 |
I shared the bulk of the existing posts on my blog during the lockdowns in 2020. That brought in many more visitors to my site and new followers on Instagram. The blog visitors have continued to grow despite my lack of posting. I slowed down posting when I became pregnant in 2021, then took all of 2022 off from the blog after my 3rd child was born. I still haven’t had the time to get back to regularly posting since then (life with 3 kids – 2 in elementary school with lots of extracurricular activities and a toddler is BUSY).
Instagram is my preferred social media platform. I post regularly to my Instagram stories, but I am inconsistent about creating Instagram reels and posts. The Instagram algorithm doesn’t like this, and has kept my follower count the same for the last 5 years! I can’t get over the hurdle to 2k followers. If you are reading this and don’t follow me on Instagram, head over to my page @engineering_emily and give me a follow! It’s a great way to see what’s new and get to know me better!
I had almost 150k users on my site last calendar year (2024). That’s over 10k per month average! That is so encouraging and exciting for me to discover, but about mid-way through the year it came at a cost. With the high-traffic on my website I was required to upgrade my hosting service and other background services.
At the time I was still not monetizing the blog at all, yet my costs were going up drastically. So I decided to try Google AdSense and add ads to my blog posts. I’m sure you’ve noticed them. While they are a nuisance, I feel like this is no different than most blogs you will find on the internet, and was necessary for me to cover the increased costs of running my website. Fortunately, with my high website traffic, the ads are now covering the costs to run this website!
I didn’t originally know how successful the ads would be so I wanted to find another way to monetize my website. I decided to offer printable STEAM Activity for Kids packs in my Shop. The idea was to for the packs be a convenient and helpful way for parents to do the activities featured on my blog at home with their kids.
For example, you may have found my Elephant Toothpaste blog post and want to try it with your kids. But you pull up the blog posts and it has a lot of background info to read through before getting to the actual activity with ads popping up along the way. I include a lot of photos (which I find helpful to understand how each step should look), but these photos make reading through the instructions more cumbersome.
The printables get right to the point: a 1-2 sentence overview of the activity, and materials list, safety instructions, easy to follow step-by-step procedure, followed by a brief overview of the STEAM concepts learned during the activity. I also include a QR code to the Engineering Emily blog post, which you can use as reference if you want to see photos or videos to help understand the activity.
The pack can be viewed online as a pdf and/or printed. I prefer to print each activity as I’m ready to do it. I like to have something to read and reference nearby while doing activities. I’ve used the printables to do activities at home with my kids and appreciate the convince of not having unlock my phone and then keep scrolling and closing ads while I’m doing an activity.
Despite my hard work creating and sharing what I know is a helpful tool, I still have not sold any packs (except to a few kind family members and a good friend). I’m remaining. positive and hopeful about the printables going into 2025. I plan to focus on marketing and finding the right audience for this product, and eventually start selling a few a month.
Recommended products
Top 5 Posts on Engineering Emily in 2024:
- Elephant Toothpaste | STEAM Experiment for kids (54k views)
- 4 Simple & Fun Paper Airplanes | STEAM Activity for Kids (13k views)
- Easy Coin Trick to Learn about Inertia and Newton’s First Law of Motion | STEAM Activity for Kids (6.9k views)
- Exploring the Five Senses for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers: Sense of Taste (6k views)
- Color Changing Plants | STEAM Experiments for Kids (6.2k views)
Most of these posts have consistently been in the top for the last 5 years (all five posts are from 2020 or earlier). I haven’t been posting STEAM for Kids Activities as often as I used to ever since I got pregnant in 2021 and had my baby at the end of that year. That baby is now three, so I don’t have the baby excuse anymore.
I did many activities with my older two kids when they were toddlers so I want to re-do some of those activities with her, and also find some new activities to do with my toddler and older kids too. Last week I made homemade play-dough with my daughter. I printed the printable from the Food Ingredient STEAM Activities for Kids pack, and we made play-dough together then played with it all morning. It was so much fun!
I also plan to continue to share STEAM for Kids Books in 2025. I love to read to my kids. I have been reading STEAM themed books to them since they were babies. These days my son reads chapter books on his own, but I still read out loud to him when we find a book we both want to read. I have a book series review coming next week that I can’t wait to share! My son and I read all five books together and it was so special for me to spend that time reading with him.
Speaking of books, When I was re-reading my 2020 goals, I read that one of my goals for that year was to write a children’s STEM-themed book and get it published. Well, we all know that 2020 did not go as planned for most people, me included. With the school closures and my kids at home with me for most of that year, I did not make any progress on the book.
However, 2020 was the year that I shared the most STEAM activities for kids blog posts. I wanted to keep my kids busy, entertained, and learning at home, so we did daily STEAM activities that I shared on the blog. It was a crazy time, but I often look back fondly at all the fun we had at home doing experiments together everyday. And my blog grew exponentially from my consistent posting during that time.
This is the year I hope to get back to writing that book. I had made a start on a rough draft early in 2020, and I still like the idea I was working on. I don’t think my problem now is the actual writing of the book, it’s my lack of knowledge of what to do after I write it. I have my idea and first draft written, but where do I go from here? How do I find an editor, illustrator, and publisher? If anyone has written a book I would love advice on where to go from here because I feel paralyzed right now and unable to proceed and not sure where to look to find the advice and resourced I need.
Engineering Emily’s 2025 Goals:
- Sell 20 printable STEAM for Kids Activity packs (or one per month minimum).
- Create at least one STEAM Activity or Book post per month (12 minimum).
- Finish the children’s book that’s been siting on my computer for the last five years and get started on publication process.
- Reach 2000 followers on Instagram by posting to stories daily (I’m currently sharing my exercise routine daily for the month of January), and making a post or reel around twice a month minimum.
I cannot believe it’s been 25 years since the turn of the century – remember all the Y2K drama and fears? I was in high school at the time and so many of my core memories were made around the turn of the century – it was around that time that I was deciding to pursue engineering in college. I do not think my 16 year old self would believe where I am today. My life today is not what I imagined for myself at 16, but I wouldn’t change anything in the last 25 years and the person I have become. My 16 year old self would definitely be impressed by 41 year old me – I think this life is beyond my 16 year old dreams, and I hope to continue to exceed my dreams in the next quarter century!
How is your year starting off? Are you setting any big goals for yourself or your family or business? Can you believe it’s been a quarter century since Y2K?
I remember when you first started Engineering Emily. I am impressed by how much it has grown. You are a strong and creative leader and should be proud. Good luck on your 2025 goals!
Thank you Florence. You were such a HUGE help to me when I first started the blog (I’m not sure if I could have got it started without you and your support), and you’ve always been one of my biggest fans. I miss our front yard and kitchen chats so much, I hope you’re doing well. <3