Most bloggers fail to set goals for their blogs. They don't realize that setting goals as a blogger is the key to growing your blog and business! In the post I explain exactly how and why you need to set goals for your blog.
If you are new around here, you may not know that I was a trial attorney for 14 years. It was stressful, to say the least. And once I started blogging, I realized just how unhappy I was in my career. I became SUPER motivated to make blogging my full-time job. You can read more about my blogging journey here.
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If you just want to skip to the happy ending, I'll tell you that I gave up my partnership at my law firm on January 1, 2016 to blog full-time. Since I “retired” from the practice of law, things have been GREAT for my blog, but I want to improve and have more focus every single month and year I am doing this. Some days, I find myself writing a blog post, scheduling Instagram posts and creating graphics all in a span of 60 minutes. I'm frantically completing tasks instead of focusing on whether those tasks actually matter. Do you ever feel that way?
Well, it has taken me far too long to figure out that setting blog goals (and by that I mean actually WRITING THEM DOWN), is the single best way I have found to focus my time and energy as a blogger. It's so effective that I wish I had figured it out sooner.
But, the truth is, until I took Elite Blog Academy, I had never actually set any goals for my blog. And I had definitely never evaluated whether all the tasks I perform will actually HELP my blog and business grow. I was growing my Instagram following because I thought I needed to grow it. And sure, there is some value in growing my Instagram following, but not nearly as much as growing my email list. But I had never even stopped to really think about the difference. I'm kind of embarrassed to even admit that, but there it is!
So, in a nutshell, here's what I have learned about setting blog goals.
Break your blog goals down.
You need to write down yearly goals, and then break them down into what you can accomplish each quarter and then plan out all the work needed to complete your quarterly goal(s) on a monthly basis. When you break your goals down in this way, it REALLY helps you focus. Instead of working on all of your goals at the same time, you focus only on those in that quarter. If you find yourself working on a task that will not further your quarterly goal, you stop doing it. Plain and simple.
For example, if my Q1 goal is to grow my email subscribers by 20,000, I am going to work on creating new opt-ins, maximizing my opt-ins that already exist, etc. I will not dedicate a whole lot of time to growing my Instagram following, because that does not relate to my goal of growing my email subscribers.
Make sense?
Aim high.
If you find yourself thinking, “I'd love to double my income,” WRITE THAT DOWN! Do not adjust your goals downward. Do not underestimate yourself. You'd be surprised how motivating it is to have your big, bold goals staring you in the face every day when you sit down to work.
Be specific.
It's not super helpful to set a goal of “increase email subscribers” or “increase income.” No, to get to that laser level focus, you need to be specific when you set your blogging goals.
I am now very intentional about setting yearly, quarterly, and monthly goals and my blog and business are growing as a result. In fact, my blog revenue is up more than 20% over what it was this time last year (and my expenses are actually down a bit). I'm telling you, setting goals for your blog can be really, really effective if you do it right!
If you want more practical tips like this that will help you take your blog and business to the next level, be sure to subscribe to my free blogging newsletter before you head out!
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