Part 3 of 11 things to consider before you start blogging
I have spoken before about setting your self aims to achieve your overall goals however I have never spoken about the importance of doing this task especially when you’re first considering becoming a blogger.
If you’re at the stage where you are thinking hard whether or not you should start blogging you will already have a subject in mind, it might be something you’re interested in, naturally skilful in or something you want to learn and by blogging about it you hope to pick it up along the way. Whatever it is with this subject in mind you can create your first goal which will be sliced up in to several short term aims.
A goal should be a long term plan to achieve and to achieve this you must use strategies which will be a part of your short term aim. By having short term aims these allow you to keep on track as well as motivating you when you complete these short term aims making you realise you are getting closer to achieving your long term goals.
So now we know what goals are and why short term aims are also great to have, let’s see what sort of goals you may have when first considering starting a blog.
What goals will I have when I first start a blog?
This is obviously a very hard question to make applicable to every sort of blogger and every kind of blog so I shall just be general here.
When I first started blogging the only goals I had were to achieve over 1,000 visits daily to have more than 100 articles and to rank in the top ten for “SEO tutorials”. The problems with these goals are that they had no strategies or short term aims two of them are broad goals and lastly I didn’t put a time limit on the goals the biggest mistake you could make.
To make achievable goals that you can track your success of you need several things these being.
1. The goals cannot be too broad; they need to be specific to a certain area of your website or area of the market.
2. To make the goals more achievable in a shorter amount of time and with less risk of losing sight of the overall goal you need to break these down in to short term aims.
3. The short term aims need to have strategies in place to achieve them as well as the overall goal.
4. The goals need to have a time limit set on them. A date or month which you can aim for the goals being achieved by.
5. The goals need to be realistic for the age of your blog. For a brand new blog a goal to have more than one million visitors each month in six months time is not very realistic, it isn’t impossible either. But it is best to focus on smaller more realistic goals which will challenge you and force you to work hard but won’t de motivate you and force you to quit.
6. With a website you can split your goals in to two different categories internal and external goals these will help you to keep organised and more focused.
For a brand new blog you need to make sure your goals are realistic this is to ensure the goals are achievable. Having goals which are unrealistic will only de motivate you. This in turn could have large negative effects on your blog or work output.
Overall it is important to have goals they can motivate you, improve your growth rate, and keep you on track and much more. The important step is making sure these goals are realistic and set in stone from the start of your blogging career; this ensures no time is wasted going down the wrong road.
Be clear with your goals and aims, know where you want to be in one year’s time and plan ahead.
Read previous articles from the 11 things to consider before you start blogging series
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