Bringing Some Structure to Soup! There It Is

So I officially have a blog! And according to my Blogger dashboard, I have had 37 pageviews! That feels pretty good. But there is much work yet to be done!

What I think I lack the most right now in my blogging life is structure. A few AmpliFound posts that I think have made the most sense to read for myself first have been How Often Should You Update Your Blog, Choosing a Goal for Your Blog and How To Set Goals and Have a Complete Vision For Your Blog. The overarching goal for the three of these being: setting up some goals.

Taken from “How Often Should You Update Your Blog,” I think the first four words says it all: “It all starts with a dream….” My dream of having a blog is that it will be useful, entertaining, and consistent. But for me, in order to create something that fulfills this dream, I also want to gain some followership. And in order to gain that followership, this is going to require commitment on my end. In order to stay committed to my blog, I’ll need to outline some starter goals to keep myself accountable.

After reading “How To Set Goals and Have a Complete Vision For Your Blog,” I went through and answered the four questions which helped give my scattered mind a little more direction for what I want to see happen within the next 6 months to a year for Soup! There It is.

What Are Your Goals?

As of right now I think I’d like to focus on two main goals. The first is to create a blog that inspires other to get creative in the kitchen while also leaving readers with something more than just a recipe. So overall, I’d like to be consistently delivering quality and unique content.

My second goal is to create a blog that LOOKS GOOD. I want to be able to understand and experiment with the technical architecture of how to make a blog pop & sparkle. Right now I’m using a very basic Blogspot template that kind of makes me cringe with boredom.

How Can You Tell You’ve Created the Best Blog In Your Niche? (Tracking & Analytics)

I think when Soup! really starts to get rolling is when I’ll be making analytics more of a priority. Installing a GA tracking ID is something I think that should definitely happen sooner rather than later. Blogspot has some basic tracking on the home dashboard but I don’t consider the success of my blog truly measurable until I start seeing things like social shares & feedback from readers.

How Attainable Are Your Goals? (Scoping out and Gauging the Competition)

Doing a quick Google search for other soup bloggers, I can see I’ve got some of my work cut out for me! Here are some of the soup gladiators I found:

Soup Chick
A Thousand Soups
Seriously Soupy
Soup Addict

All of these blogs have an awesome visual appeal and their recipes look like they’re straight out of Bon Appetit Magazine. Posts are made frequently and they all appear to be engaging regularly with their social communities. They even had some advertisement so I know they’re seeing some of their work literally pay off!

So far the only angle where I think I’ve got some of these big dogs beat out is in my soup puns and a Justin Timberlake gif. (Little wins, guys.)

How Realistic Are Your Goals? (You Have to Put In What You Want to Get Out)

My goals will only start to evolve from feasible to attainable if I’m constantly working towards them week by week and month by month. I didn’t go too crazy here because I know that I probably won’t be able to dedicate more than 5 hours a week to blogging. Here’s a list of short term goals I’ve set for myself by week and month:

This Week:

• Post one new entry by Sunday 3/9
• Promote latest post at least 2 times this week on Twitter, Facebook & G+
• Set up a short-term editorial content calendar for March

This Month:

• Have at least 5 complete posts on blog
• Create Twitter handle as first social media profile and engage with at least 20 followers.
• Set up an Analytics profile.
• New layout for blog
• Identify a target audience.

When Do You Hope to Achieve Those Goals?

I don’t have a 5 year plan or anything for Soup!, but I do know that if I look at my blog in six months and see the same boring layout and same style of content, I’ll be disappointed. I definitely think that setting some weekly milestones for myself will help me experiment and craft content and ideas that will have the greatest appeal to my audience.

Full Steam Ahead!

Ah. I feel much better now that I have a plan. My end goals aren’t completely set in stone, but I’m glad that I’ve got some foundation for launching my ideas as I keep moving forward. The biggest challenge I have more myself over these next few weeks will be keeping myself accountable and managing my milestones. What I keep trying to remind myself is this: If I fail at keeping myself accountable, then I will surely fail at staying accountable for my audience. There’s no way my blog will grow if I don’t give it all the love and attention it needs. So full steam ahead and here’s to creating a soup-a fly blog!