Maybe it’s too business-like to set yourself blogging goals? A major reason for starting a blog is to get away from the rigid structure of employed work and do something you want to do whenever you want to do it. Right?
Blogging is freedom… why would you want to become a slave to objectives, goals and plans? Don’t these tools go against the grain?
If this is what you’re thinking and you’ve thrown the idea of setting yourself blogging goals and objectives into the trash can, you might want to pull it back out and rethink things.
Sorry to tell it like it is.
Sure… blogging can offer a lot of opportunities and for many it can unlock the door to a world of relative freedom.
But I’ll say it loud right now…
You won’t even make it to the door, let alone unlock it, without planning and setting yourself some blogging goals.
Why Set Goals as a Blogger?
When you start a blog you might have some fairly lofty aims like:
- Becoming wealthy.
- Getting out of a sucky job.
- Doing something you enjoy.
These are entirely natural reasons for starting a blog, indeed I completely identify with them. However, in terms of their ability to inspire you to hit certain targets, they’re too broad and nowhere near concrete enough to sustain you.
They’re also difficult to measure. Or rather, they require smaller, more measurable steps on the road to achieving them.
Blogging is hard work… be under no illusion. I have bags of experience with blogs and I can tell you first hand that a desire to be wealthy alone won’t help you get to millionaire’s row.
For me, a simple desire for wealth is not enough of a tangible blogging goal to stoke the flames of your motivational fires when things don’t seem to be growing as quickly as your like.
To give yourself the best chance of building a successful blog, whatever that means to you, requires grit and determination… and the identification of concrete blogging goals and a plan for how you’re going to achieve them.
Without specific goals, you’ll find it hard to build a plan that’s considered, achievable and rooted in reality. You can’t have a plan without goals and your blog won’t last long without either.
If you don’t set yourself goals, how do you know where you’re headed? In fact, how do you know where you currently are?
Goals Are Your GPS
Setting goals for your blog gives you a focus… it’s your GPS if you like. The various objectives you set yourself become the roadmap to your ultimate aim of financial wealth, leaving a sucky job or doing something you enjoy full-time.
Most people don’t achieve their ultimate aim and a lot of blogs fail: poor planning and a lack of concrete, achievable goals are definitely strong reasons why.
But more than this, you need goals in life to help keep you sane.
There are multiple times I’ve felt like I was going crazy since starting the SideGains blog and at times I’ve been close to burning out. The only reason why I haven’t caved in and stopped blogging is I’ve always had specific goals to aim for and achieve.
Even setting small goals can help maintain your positivity when the chips seem to be going down.
Admittedly I don’t always hit the desired timeline for the goals I set myself. Sometimes this is down to a lack of understanding the effort required to achieve them. Sometimes it’s through circumstances beyond my control.
Regardless, my blogging goals give me something to aim for.
Striving for and achieving goals is a tangible way for you to understand that you’re making progress, even if all your blog stats aren’t heading in precisely the way you’d like.
How Do You Set Yourself Meaningful Blogging Goals?
You don’t actually need anything as slick or sophisticated as you might imagine… you write them down into a list!
Sit down in front of a computer, laptop or mobile device… or even grab plain old pen and paper and draw up a list of things you want to achieve. But when you’re doing this, be as specific as possible and try to be realistic in terms of what is achievable.
For example, if I were to say I want to be a millionaire next week, the reality is that it won’t happen unless I take up bullion robbery… even then what are my chances?
You might have the aim to become wealthy from blogging. That’s a good start but that is the destination point and not a tangible goal in my view, so dig a little deeper.
Some better examples of more concrete blogging goals to help you reach your ultimate destination might be:
- Have a newsletter list of 500 subscribers by the end of this year.
- Grow my blog visitors to 200 unique visitors per day in 6 months time.
- Outsource all content writing by the end of this month.
These are all tangible goals with a specific outcome that is measurable. The compound effect of a detailed list of goals like this will move you much closer to your ultimate aim… your destination point.
I use Google Sheets to manage my blogging goals as it’s free, my documents are stored in the cloud and they’re available for me to access anywhere and on any device.
Prioritizing Your Blogging Goals
When you’ve exhausted your supply of ideas for measurable targets, try to evaluate each one to see whether the timeframes you’ve listed against them are achievable, given your resources and time.
You might need to research or take advice from other bloggers to get a proper feel for how achievable each one is or how long they’ll take.
If you’re like me, you’ll probably have a massive list and you won’t be able to work through all of your goals at the same time, so next you’re going to prioritize.
Look at each goal and assess:
- How long it’ll take (both hour and elapsed time)
- How much it’ll cost (your effort or outsourcing)
- What the expected benefit will be in terms of your blog (traffic growth, revenue, backlinks)
- How important each one is in terms of the benefit to your blog
By looking at each one in detail you can determine which will take the most effort, require the most time and deliver the greatest benefit. When I use this approach I can easily spot the goals I should focus upon first, and assign a priority accordingly.
As I mentioned above, I use a simple Google Sheet to identify my blogging goals and prioritize them. A copy of this document is available to all those who subscribe to my newsletter.
Want Access to my FREE Blogging Goals Google Sheet?
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N.B. You’ll need to create a Google Account to access my Blogging Goals Sheet.
Summary
Without setting yourself goals you’ll be wandering aimlessly with no idea how close you are to your overall objective.
Goals are like key markers on your map. As your travel your blogging route, achieving them will help you understand where you are on your map and how far you’ve got to go.
Having a set of clearly defined goals will give you a work structure that will help you work towards a plan. In fact, without goals you’ll probably find it difficult to put any sort of plan together.
Setting and achieving your goals will help you to maintain focus when your blog doesn’t appear to be growing in quite the way you’d like.
Just to give you a little nudge… subscribe to my newsletter using the form in this post and I’ll give you access to a FREE Blogging Goals Google Sheet to help you define and prioritize your goals. You’ll also get access to all my FREE resources.
That’s all for now… thanks for visiting.
Paul
What are your blogging goals? Drop a comment or ask me a question in the comment form below and we’ll discuss this together.
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