Blogging Success - Measuring Success With Goals

Image from Jeff Pang

If you set a goal, will you reach it? If you don’t set any goals, how can you measure success? Every blogger should set a goal. It doesn’t matter how small or large the goal may be but you must shoot for something in order to get somewhere.

The new year brings on new challenges for my blog. It’s only 3 months old but it looks like my blogging has come quite a long ways. Most blogs don’t make it past the first week.

I sat down and developed a short list of blogger goals. What I want to achieve for 2009. If you’re new to blogging or haven’t set any goals for you blog, you are more than welcome to take my goals and make it your own.

Here are my blogs goals for 2009, in no particular order:

1. Increase rss subscribers to 100
2. Implement an email subscription service
3. Generate 100 email subscribers
4. Reach a total income of $300
5. Generate 1000 visitors each day
6. Have unique blog posts 3 days a week
7. Convert new visitors to repeat visitors
8. Develop a marketing strategy

Have you set any goals for 2009? I’d like to hear them and hopefully we can hold ourselves accountable to each others goals.

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Quick Guide To Starting A Great Blog

There are 175,000 blogs created each day. That’s about 63.8 million a year. If you’re seriously thinking of running a successful blog, you will need to distinguish your blog from the rest. There are a number of tasks and decisions to make before going public.

Platform

Here are 3 major sites you can host your blog on:

• Blogger
• Wordpress
• Typepad

This method is used by most new bloggers since they don’t have to worry about technical details involved with maintaining your own site. Just pick what subdomain you want (ex. strobist.blogspot.com) and customize the look using a simple interface.

If you do not prefer the subdomain method, you have the option to add a purchased domain name.

Design

Take a look at other successful blogs out there and take notice of the design they use. They are not plastered with bright yellow font, flashing text everywhere and annoying, non-suer controlled music playing in the background.

Take time to think about what you want your blog to look like because this is how you will brand yourself. If you do not know any web design, you can certainly get free templates out there for Wordpress or purchase a template that has already been made.

Here are some examples of well designed blogs:

• ncnblog
• john chow
• shoemoney

Niche

The best way to start a blog is to pick a niche market. Concentrate your efforts on writing content for this particular niche to develop a focused blog. It will aim your blog content towards a targeted audience. Readers often search the Internet for something they need such as productivity tips, road cycling, blog tips, etc. By narrowing your content to a niche you will raise the visibility of your blog and will be labeled as an “expert”.

Content is KING

Before making your blog publicly known, it is highly recommended that there be a couple of blog posts ready to be read. By having blog posts live on your new blog, new readers will know that you are a serious blogger. Some readers come to a new blog that only has one post and they never come back.

Take time each day to think about future blog topics. Aim to write 1 to 2 blog posts each day. You don’t necessarily have to post them the same day but it is safe to have a ew blog posts ready for the days you need a break from blogging.

Consistency

Blogging consistency is key for a blog to survive. Create a blogging scheme where you plan to post to your blog every week, or twice a week, every other day, etc.

When readers notice that you hardly update your blog they will probably never return. Mark it in your calendar to dedicate at least 30 minutes to writing new blog content each day.

Resources:

Are you looking for more tips on starting your own blog? Check out these sites:

• Starting a blog
• How To Choose A Niche Topic For Your Blog
• Spend Time Writing Great Posts

Do you have any questions or tips for new bloggers? Let’s hear them!

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Road To 1K A Day

It started as a personal challenge to me:

Get one thousand visitors a day to my blog, rowelldionicio.com, in six months

For some bloggers, one thousand is minuscule but for me it’s quite the contrary for a few reasons:

• This is a new blog
• I have no internet marketing experience
• I am starting from scratch

The goal is to reach one thousand visitors a day in six months to my blog, rowelldionicio.com. I will blog about the processes taken to reach that goal and share it to the blogging community looking to enhance site traffic.

I have sympathy for those bloggers when it comes to zero site traffic. Many do not know what steps to take to improve traffic but I plan to uncover each step of the way. A number of key points to begin with come to mind:

• Use successful bloggers as a guideline
• Social networking
• In-person networking
• Conversion
• Content
• Visibility

I am talking mostly about the Internet here. The possibilities are endless but it’s like finding a needle in a haystack. You have to be enthusiastic and passionate to find the material you desire. Once you hit that milestone; capitalize on it.

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