Now that you have a blog, here comes the $1.98 question: What are your goals? That question may make you feel like you’re back in the high school hot seat, sitting in your guidance counselor’s office as you’re grilled about your post-graduation plans. Maybe you don’t even know what your goals for your blog are.
Relax! It’s not that deep! Like your high school guidance counselor, we’re going to ask you a few questions about your blog that only you can answer. Everyone’s goals are different, yet there are similar ways that these goals can be achieved. Many businesses, entrepreneurs, and generally successful folks often use the SMART goal formula. SMART is an acronym for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Time-Based
We’re going to help you better pin down your blogging goals by asking a series of questions that line up to each of these SMART goals. Ready? Let’s get started!
What are your goals?
You may be tempted to answer this one with “To have the best gosh-darn blog on the web!”
That’s all well and fine, but let’s get a little more specific. If you reframe your goal to “Have the best gosh-darn ‘80s television fashion blog of all time!”, now we’re getting somewhere!
Knowing your niche and your audience will help you determine who your competition is and know what you’re up against.
How can you tell you’ve created the best blog in your niche?
Having the best blog in your niche begins with creating great content. That content will reel in readers. To be able to measure how close you are to your goal, you need to get an idea of how many readers are coming to your blog.
There are a number of ways you can do this. Back in the early days of blogging, hit counters were a way to measure how many visitors a site had. Means of measuring traffic to a blog have become more sophisticated and a lot of bloggers install a Google Analytics code on their site to gauge what people are reading and how long they stay.
If you’re a little intimidated by code and analytics at this stage, a good starting point would be taking inventory of how many comments your blog receives for each post.
If you have social media accounts set up for your blog, see how many followers you have and take stock of how many people retweet or comment on the link. These are the numbers you want to see grow as proof of your blog gaining traction with readers.
How attainable are your goals?
Take a look at your competition. Have they written similar posts? How many followers do they have on social media? How many comments do they average on posts?
Before you get discouraged, take a look at some of the earliest blog posts your competition delivered. If they began blogging 5 years ago, take a look at how much reader-interaction they had way back when compared to now.
Seeing how your competitors’ blogs have grown in followers and engaged readership can give you more concrete goals to aim for. They can also let you know that your goals are definitely do-able. And if you manage to surpass those goals? Even better!
How realistic are your goals?
Your goals are as realistic as you want them to be, so long as you’re willing to work to achieve them. Promoting your blog is just as important as creating quality content.
Remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Similarly, readership is not built up overnight. Break your goals into smaller chunks. Shoot for smaller monthly goals that will help define larger, more overarching goals that you have set for your blog over a longer period of time…. Which brings us to our final question:
When do you hope to achieve these goals?
Here’s another familiar question you may remember hearing from your guidance counselor or from your boss: What’s your five-year plan?
Maybe you haven’t thought that far in advance for your blog. Maybe you’re just having fun writing about something you love. However, it couldn’t hurt to have some short-term or long-term goals for your blog. How many visitors do you want to reach this month? How many comments do you want to see on your next post?
Setting goals can help you map out what you want to achieve and better navigate that path. If you’re not reaching your goals, it’s not the end of the world. Goals can be great guidelines for success. If you’re not reaching them, it just means that you have to change your strategy or look at the areas where you are falling short. By giving more attention to those areas, you can evaluate what you need to do in order to achieve your blogging goals for the next milestone mark.
With a little planning and a willingness to put in the work, you can hit the goals you set for yourself…Even if that goal is to become the best ‘80s television fashion blogger on the web.
