This guest post is by Aman Basanti of ageofmarketing.com.
Ask any success guru out there and they will tell you that the most important part of becoming a successful blogger is to set clear goals.
And that is good advice for people who know how they want to tackle problogging. It is good advice for bloggers who know how they want to create content, generate traffic and monetize their blog.
But for the rest of us, who are on a journey where we start somewhere, try things and then respond to the result of our actions, slowly tweaking our strategy and tactics, it is not useful. How do we set clear goals? How do we define exactly where want to be in 12 months when we don’t have clarity on what we want to achieve?
Goal setting for new bloggers
The answer comes down to shifting your focus from end-state goal setting to activity-based goal setting.
On my consumer psychology blog, for example, I don’t know how I want to monetize it. Am I going to make money from ads? Am I going to make money by selling affiliate products? Am I going to make money from consulting? Do I even want to monetize it? I do not know. It all depends on what I discover about my market.
What I do know, however, is that no matter what I want to achieve in the end, I am still going to have to create content and promote my blog. So rather than setting goals around what I want to achieve in the end, I set goals around what I want to do weekly/monthly/yearly.
Accordingly, here are my top three goals:
- Write two blog posts every week.
- Submit one guest post every week.
- Read one non-fiction book a month.
This way if I have a bad week, as I do from time to time, I can make up for it in another week.
Goal setting for new or confused bloggers
So if you are a new blogger or an old timer who does not know what they really want out of their blog yet, but still wants to maximize their chances of success, set activity based goals. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Posting goals
I will write _____ post(s) a week equaling _____ posts a year.
I will read _____ book(s) a month equaling ______ books a year.
Blog promotion goals
I will submit _____ guests a month equaling _____ guest posts a year.
I will comment on ______ blogs posts a week equaling ______ comments a year.
I will network with ______ people on Facebook/Twitter/StumbleUpon a month.
This is a far easier way to set goals when you are new to the world of problogging.
Aman Basanti writes about the psychology of buying and teaches you how you can use the principles of consumer psychology to boost your sales. Visit www.Ageofmarketing.com/free-ebook to get his new e-book – Marketing to the Pre-Historic Mind: How the Hot New Science of Behavioural Economics Can Help You Boost Your Sales – for FREE.
Quote-People without plan are plan to fail. These info will ensure people like me to take action everyday.
Yeh its a good quote Syed. I think it was Napoleon who said it first – Failing to plan is planning to fail.
This sounds pretty good on paper or web. But one must ensure that these things are implemented. Secondly, I don’t quite agree with a networking plan. Those things must be highly spontaneous rather than scripted.
Mani, you are right in saying that one must implement and not merely plan. Also, with the networking, I agree with you – I only included it in there to get people to think about the kinds of goals they could have. While for me networking is an effort and I only like doing it when its natural rather than forced, I think you could still plan it a bit.
This is true. You need to set goals. It is not important how big or small they are but working without goal in kind is the worst effort. Its like driving and wasting the money on gas without really knowing where the destination is(sometimes, i admit, it is fun)
I agree, its just hard to set goals sometimes when u dont know where u want to go..thats where it helps to have activity based goals.
Thank you for this! My own goals were to a) practice and improve my skills and b) get into the habit of writing three posts per week. I think, if I can meet goal b in six months, I’ll reevaluate and expand my goals.
Thank you again for sharing!
Karen, writing 3 posts a week is an achievable goal. Now that I have been writing for a good year or so, I have found that my ability to write has definately improved. Especially the number of posts that I can write has increased. I used to only be able to write 1 post a week. Now I can comfortably write 2-3 posts. You can too :)
setting goals is always a positive thing to do as a blogger, as it motivates anyone to keep their content optimization efforts up to par daily. Writing daily does more than release creativity into the Internet universe. It helps you to become a better person, as well as understand people better online, “while striving for excellence”, in accomplishing your long-term blogging goals. As they always say, “content is King on the Internet” :-)
Thanks for sharing your thought Drewry. Appreciate it.
As someone new to blogging this seems really good advice, it makes it really simple to set your goals. This will be useful with new years resolutions as well.
Its perfect for someone new to the blogsphere. You don’t have to know what you want out of your blog and yet you can still have some measureable goals. Thanks for adding to the conversation Tom.
True, goals help you grow, i now write 3 post per week and the number of pageviews in growing so fast.
Glad your blog is doing well :)
This is some timely information considering that the new year is generally a time of goal setting and if you want your new one to succeed setting his goals is definitely the way to go about doing it.
Ahhh… you know Steve, I should have scheduled it for the new year…didn’t think! ahh well :)
These are some pretty good tips to use!
Glad you enjoyed them Mike.
I read in some magazine that the king star of bollywood Shah Rukh Khan never made any goals in his life. He said he just kept working hard and things happened on their own.
Very true. As a beginner it is very important to plan and put it into action. Even though it sounds easy, it requires a good amount of dedication. Unfortunately I have not been able to do it till now, but will start right away.
Its better late than never. So start now!
Goal setting is just the first step though, right? You need weekly reviews to see what you have accomplished and what you need working on. Eg. for me, it’s very easy to waste an entire day on Facebook/Twitter/Stumbleupon networking when my time could be better spend creating content.
Roy good point about reviewing your goals. If you are not reviewing your activity to determine whether you are meeting your goals, you are wasting your time. Thanks for adding that in.
Great advice on blog goal setting.
Recommand a goal setting tool at http://www.GoalsOnTrack.com, a very nicely built web app designed for tracking goals and todo lists, and supports time tracking too. It’s clear, focused, easy to navigate, worth a try.
Thanks for sharing that link Harry. Appreciate it.
A great post Aman. Very clear and easy to implement today.
Matt
Thanks Matthew, appreciate the kind words.
Thanks for the post Aman! This is something that I’ve been struggling with for a while without realizing it. Your post made me realize what my mistake has been: forgetting the small goals in between that lead to the larger accomplishments.
This is a quick and easy way to break down those big long-term goals into a more manageable (and therefore less intimidating) goal!
Rishi its good to break down goals into small consumable chunks. That way it is not so daunting.
Yes, I totally agree that setting goals is exactly what you must do in order to succeed. The internet is huge and distractions are everywhere and you can find yourself, in any moment, wasting hours instead of working on your blog.
“The internet is huge and distractions are everywhere and you can find yourself, in any moment, wasting hours instead of working on your blog.”
Totally agreed. So hard to keep focus when you have so many distractions. That’s where goals help. Thanks for sharing.
Nice post. Activity based goals are certainly easier to set and implement.
Thanks for adding to the conversation.
Recently launched my blog at http://www.thelessonlocker.com and looking for ways to improve my blog and bring people to it. I liked the “setting goals” idea because anything simple and concrete I can do is helpful. Thanks!
Am glad it helped you better your blogging journey Trevor. Thanks for sharing.
The Truth is that you need to write original good content. Stop Writing Daily news like Tech news and others which you can find in major websites. Instead focus on a specific niche and advance. Try Targeting long tail keywords. If you want me to evaluate your keywords then do tell me I am always ready to help new and emerging bloggers.
This is a nice, simple way to set goals. Thanks! I plan to share this, too.
Hmm…I will be deceiving myself if I fail to adopt this goal strategy. Thanks for sharing.
I was just thinking about goals for my blogs when I was trying to fall asleep last night (bad bad practice to get into, I know but sometimes hard to shut the mind up at night). I will definitely be adopting your fool proof goal setting formula for my own blogs.
This is a helpful post for me as I ramp up to launching my own blog. I’m currently trying to make a comprehensive list of topics I’d like to tackle on blog subject, but an additional step I need to take is consistently monitoring what other bloggers/writers in my space are writing about and what topics are drawing traffic. While I’ll write about what others are writing about, I’d like to also be known as a thought leader in my area, so I need to inject creativity into the process.
“…I set goals around what I want to do weekly/monthly/yearly.”
Accordingly, here are my top three goals:
1. Write two blog posts every week.
2. Submit one guest post every week.
3. Read one non-fiction book a month.
Well done bro… this is a nice simple way of making a list… no need to over think this folks… or plan to plan for another plan… just 3-5 things jotted down in a $2 notepad… what I’ll get done this week (or today) depending on the mood… get it done bit by bit… focusing on one thing at a time… Good stuff… Martin