Setting Goals for Your Blog

Do you set goals for your blog? When I started blogging, I didn’t. Now I do. Goals have made all the difference for me.

Four years ago I began blogging because I needed to write. I had been home with my kids for four years and hadn’t written a single thing other than a grocery list. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to write, I just didn’t have the time. Given the choice of writing or taking a shower, I opted for the shower.

Those early blogging days were just me putting my thoughts online. Taking them out of my head and sharing them with the anonymous masses who didn’t even know (or care) that I existed. And that was enough. I just needed to write.

Slowly, I became a part of communities. First I became part of the mom community. Then, at the urging of a friend, I began sharing my knowledge of blogging and HTML/CSS codes with other moms who weren’t as tech savvy. I helped them customize their blogs. I answered basic questions for them. Then I answered the same questions for others. My friend suggested I start a site called Blogging Basics 101 as a repository for all the questions so I wouldn’t have to address them constantly.

For an entire year I half-heartedly kept the site going. Then something clicked for me. I realized I love writing Blogging Basics 101. The trouble was that I was loathe to stop focusing on my family blog and leave the mom community I was so comfortable in. I needed to make some decisions.

To do that, I realized I needed to set goals for myself and then determine how to meet those goals. Once I was able to set the goals, I was able to see that BB101 and sharing blogging information was not only my passion, but it could be my career.

Here is my advice for setting your goals. The advice is simple and starts with one simple instruction: Do it.

1. Brainstorm. Write down everything–no matter how small or large–you’d like to see happen with your blog.
2. Prioritize. Review what you’ve written and decide what is most important. Then prioritize each idea.
   Set a goal. Choose an idea to be your first goal. I like to choose something that is challenging, but attainable.
3. Write down the specifics of the goal. Think about everything that needs to happen to attain this goal and write it down. Consider how you’re going to get those things done.
4. Write down how you’ll know if you’ve met your goal. This is important. If you just have an idea of what you’re working toward, you’ll never fully realize when you have achieved it. Be specific in how you’ll know when your goal is reached.
5. Set another, higher, goal. And so forth.

I started with just one goal: $100 total revenue from my three blogs. Once I met that goal, I upped the revenue goal. Every month I challenge myself to go a little further.

Of course, your goals need not be monetary. Maybe you want to challenge yourself to write more than three posts a week or receive more than five comments on a post. (Though I caution you not to get too caught up in your comments, but that’s another post.) The key is to think about what makes you tick then make those things work for you.

So, what about you? Have you set any goals? What was your path to reaching them? If you’re still on that path, how is it going? What are you doing to reach your goals? I’m interested to hear your story.

Written by Melanie Nelson from Blogging Basics 101
Posted on October 24th, 2008 and filed under Blogging
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