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When you start a blog, you usually have a goal in mind. Whether this is to share your personal experiences, create an income online or simply want to become a part of the online world and enter the blogging space. There should be an end goal in mind with your blog. This could be to have a certain number of followers. To build up the traffic so that you can monetise it. Or you simply want to make some money each month with an income from your blog.
*This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information*
What ever you hope to do, you need to have a clear blogging goal. When I started out with my first blog, I hadn’ t a clue what I was doing. (Being honest) I made mistakes with my first blog.
Why You Need A Blogging Goal
A blogging goal helps you to keep focused when you are writing content each day. In the beginning, you may not see any results for a while, and you could feel despondent. A blogging goal helps you to know why you are doing what you are doing. It helps you to keep going.
How do I know this? Because I did so many things wrong and almost gave up many times.
I had no focus
I had no plan
I had no goal.
I knew that I wanted to make money with my blog, I just had no idea how to really do this or when I hoped to achieve this.
I followed system after system jumping from one method to another.
Therein lay the problem.
I was not focused on one thing and could not gain any real traction.
The1Thing breaks this down a bit more. The1Thing is basically about setting yourself that one task daily and working on it single-mindedly until it is done.
But I was using one piece of information from one expert and another piece of advice from another.
I was moving from one thing to another.
There was no real strategy.
That was until I learnt this blogging strategy
How Do You Set Goals for Blogging?
First off, you should have short term goals and long term goals for your blog.
Short Term Goals
Short term goals are those day-to-day tasks that need to get done.
Of course, it will be to write a blog post.
But there are many elements that go into writing a blog post.
Check out my blog post checklist what to do before you hit publish
You will need to decide on the topic.
Do the research for the article.
Come up with a catchy title.
Write the first draft.
Find images for your blog post.
Then of course edit and hit publish.
Whilst blogging sounds simple it can get overwhelming when you don’ t have a blog goal set out on what you want to achieve.
Blogging Goals for Beginners
If you are new to blogging the first thing to work out is how many blog posts you will be able to write each day or week.
This will depend on the time you have. Don’ t aim for daily when you don’ t have the time.
There really is a lot more to writing a blog post than you may realise. Frankly, it does take a lot of time. Especially at the beginning when you are still figuring it out.
But the short of it is, the faster you get the content out the quicker your blog will grow.
However, it is better to have consistency than to blog daily and then find you cannot maintain this.
One tip I learnt was to do stuff in batches.
For example, when researching topics, the key is to do all your research at one time. Research 20 topics that you want to write on for your blog.
Batch time for writing. Then you write these 20 drafts before publishing any of your content.
Once you have your drafts, you batch time to find images.
Then batch time to edit.
At this point you should have 20 blog articles, with catchy titles, fully edited and with images all ready to be scheduled on WordPress.
This means your content will roll out steadily in that first month of blogging.
I’ m sure you will agree it is better to delay publishing by a month to give yourself this space, rather than the pressure of trying to come up with content each day for that day.
Another tip, is that whilst your content is automatically publishing in that first month, you need to start to draft out the content for the next month etc.
This means you have a month start.
This means you can keep ahead and never feel overwhelmed to keep creating content for your blog.
First Blogging Goal to Set:
Decide How Often You Will Post New Content.
Pick a day that you commit to publishing a new blog and stick to that day.
If you do nothing else that day except publish a new blog post then you will have achieved your daily goal.
Small accomplishments like that will soon gain traction for your blog.
What are some other blogging goals you need to set
First Blogging Steps
Choose a strategy to follow and stick to one strategy! This is the course that I use and recommend if you want to know the latest blogging methods to build up a great niche site blog.
Daily Blogging Goals
I know we covered this just a bit already, but I want to be really clear about those blogging goals.
You should be writing blog content each day. Maybe this is just a draft.
Or ideas of blog posts that you can polish up on later on.
Each morning this is what I do.
I will write for at least 30-50 minutes.
I choose a topic, from my list I have already created (more on that in weekly goals).
Then I write everything I can think of on that topic. Just like a brain dump.
I often have spaces and gaps when I am writing, where I know I need to do further research.
I just make a note of what I need to find or look for in these areas.
I never interrupt the flow of writing to go off and do research.
This is a creativity breaker alert !!
Any good writer will tell you not to break the flow once you have started.
If you follow this method daily, you will have the bare bones of the blog post ready.
When doing your daily writing, you should aim for a minimum number of words or to write for a set number of minutes.
Whichever one you prefer is ok. If you only have 30 minutes, then set that amount on your timer. If you have a more open time slot, then set a number of words to achieve your daily writing.
Just keep writing till you reach that golden number of words or until your timer has gone off.
When Should I Write My Blog Post?
You should be writing regularly. This is your sacred writing time.
Choose a time when you write best.
For me, this is first thing in the morning when I feel fresh.
This could be different for you it could be the afternoons or the evenings or maybe you’ re an owl who likes to write late at night.
Whatever time you choose to write, make sure you are consistent and build the habit.
By starting this daily habit, you will soon have loads of draft posts that you can use.
How long should a blog post be?
Rather than have a set number of words, it is better that you focus on how well your blog post answers the question.
If you give yourself a set number of words, what can happen is you start to fill the post with fluff.
In that case, it is better to have a shorter blog post that is direct and answers the reader’ s question.
However, shorter posts will rank lower than longer posts. So, the better content you can write the better your blog post will be.
On average blog posts are around a minimum of at least 500 -1000 words.
BloghubSpot suggests that a blog post should be between 1700 — 2100 words.
This is because if you are going to explain your topic well then you will ideally need enough words in order to do so.
If you are answering a short topic question like “how many words is an average blog post ”, the actual answer would be fairly short.
The reader wants to know how many words they need to write. Your blog post needs to answer this as clearly as possible, or your reader will click off and go elsewhere to find a quick answer.
But you don’ t want to have a blog post that is so short.
What you would do in that case, is to use that question as a sub heading within a longer post where you are talking about other aspects of blogging.
This will allow you to expand the blog post without the fluff.
What is your goal in writing a blog post
When you are writing a blog post, that post needs to have one goal.
That goal is what question are you answering for the searcher?
When someone searches for a topic, does your blog post answer that question?
Does the blog post explain the idea well?
Does it give suggestions?
Offer alternative ways of doing something.
Maybe it is a how-to post. Does it show clearly step by step how to do that task?
Or maybe it is a Product review. Does the post clearly explain what the product is? Does it give some pros and cons? Offer recommendations and may some alternatives.
Not sure what type of post to write, I break this down here
When you read through that post, would you feel that it has answered your question?
If you were searching for that answer, would you be satisfied?
It is better to stick with producing less content but writing quality content.
You would be better off perfecting a post, rather than to just push out a lot of content that serves no real purpose.
What Weekly Goals should I set for my blog?
Each week you should give yourself a set number of hours to do the other tasks that will help to make your blog successful. Believe me, in those early stages there will be a lot to learn.
-Research new article ideas
We’ ve talked about how when deciding on your niche, you should have come up with at least 20 — 30 topics that have not been written about already.
This will help you to rank faster.
This is another of the strategies that are taught when you take the course about building niche websites. These are broken down in how you can do this. This means that you have a ready-made list of topics on which to write when you sit down to write your daily words.
On a weekly basis you should continue to research more blog post topics to write about.
Keep yourself current and write about topics that are trending. When my Pinterest account got suspended for no real reason, I wrote a blog post about that.
- Find images for you blog posts
I like to batch out time looking and finding images all at one time. By this stage, I roughly have an idea of the blog posts I plan to write and look for images around those themes.
This means that I don’ t have to stop and search for one image at a time.
-Keep Learning
You should never stop learning if you want to be successful with your blog. There will always be something new that comes out and you can learn about. When a new keyword tool, Keyword Chef came out, I went to find out about it and wrote a blog post about it.
I also learnt more about SEO and came across some fabulous training that is so simple and helps you to clean up your website over a 30 day SEO FREE training course.
-Keep up to date in your niche
Try to read at least 3-5 blog posts in your niche each week.
This will mean that you are kept current with what is going on in your industry. You will know what people are searching for answers on. When Pinterest views went down, I followed what was going on and wrote a post about this that got me a lot of views, because people were searching for that topic.
Find out what people are stuck with and see if you can solve it. Maybe, you have experienced this yourself, writing from experience will also rank better, as your content is unique to you. This will also help you to craft content that is helpful and useful to others.
Monthly Blogging Goals To Set
- Check in on yourself each month
I find that it is good to set a monthly date to come back and see how you are doing.
Are you on track?
Are you writing daily? If not, why not? What do you need to change?
Have you published the set number of blog posts you decided on that month? If not, what do you need to do to change that?
Have you been writing your draft posts?
Did you publish the number of posts you set out to do?
Maybe you will see you are on track, and you will see the momentum building with visitors coming to your posts.
Maybe it will just be the satisfaction of seeing your blog posts out there.
It is good to keep in check on at least a monthly basis in order to keep track of the little blogging goals.
Once you know what success looks like for your long-term goal, these monthly checkpoints help you to break it down.
Maybe your long term blog goal is to earn $500-1000 per month. You will know you can do this from ads and affiliate offers once you have built up enough traffic.
I am sure you have realised by now that there will be a lot of work you will need to do in order to learn the steps to build a successful blog.
What are some Long Term Blogging Goals
What I have come to learn is that blogging is not a short-term strategy.
It takes time to build a successful blog and to build the traffic to it.
The strategy I am following talks about how it can take 6-12 months before you see any real traction to your blog.
It makes sense right. You are a new website on Google. You are not known.
Why would Google trust you? Why would anyone trust you?
Just like when you start a new job. It takes time (maybe not so long but there is still a 6-month probationary period).
Seems like there is a standard in proving yourself even in the standard 9-5.
But when people come online they seem to think that they should be making money instantly.
I am not sure why because that does not make sense.
What makes sense is that you give blogging time.
Most of all you need to stick with it.
Breaking Down the Long Term Blogging Goals
Your first goal, therefore, is to be able to commit to this for at least a year.
A year when you are putting in the hard work and perhaps not seeing any real result.
That is the first test of any blogging goal.
Ask yourself can you do this?
Can you commit to this?
Especially when it feels hard and you are seeing no real rewards for your efforts.
Set your long term blogging goal.
For example,
I will have my blog set up within a year.
I will be producing content for it regularly.
I will have at least 100 articles by the end of the first year, maybe more.
I will start to earn a monthly income from my blog.
Summary : Setting Achievable Blogging Goals
In this post, we have covered setting short term and long-term blogging goals.
Short term goals are the daily tasks you need to do to build a successful blog.
Daily tasks like writing content on a daily basis and have given you some strategies about how to manage your content strategy.
We talked about saving time by batching up tasks, like writing, finding images, researching, editing and scheduling content.
The post covered setting weekly goals. Weekly goals keep you focused so that you continue researching topics, doing some training, and keeping up to date in your niche.
We talked about monthly goals which are important to keep checking in on yourself. Monthly goals show if you are producing content for your blog and doing the daily micro-tasks that you need to do. Monthly goals help you to course correct before it is too late.
Finally, we talked about long term goals. Big shock I know when you learnt that it can take at least 6-12 months before you see any real results with your blog. We talked about how when you get traffic you will want to find ways to monetise your blog and to earn an income from it. We will cover more on that in future posts.
Are you ready to get blogging, then you can get your blog set up here.
Wondering what niche to enter, this is one that gets everyone stuck.
Write the perfect about me page.
Stuck with writing that first blog post, try this.
The Digital Mum spreading the word about the Digital World —
Helping You create the life that you love
Because there is another way!
*This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information*
Featured image: 123RF
