Smart blogging goals are what we’re talking about here if your blogging business seems to have gone on strike!
Starting a blog can be a very exciting journey, allowing you to make money while doing what you love. To make sure that you stay on track, you’ll need to make sure that you’re setting clear goals to work towards. But what should these targets be?
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Step-by-Step S.M.A.R.T. Goal Setting
S – Specific: Your goal can answer who, what, where, why, when, and how?
M – Measurable: Your goal can answer “how much”. Your goal must be quantifiable. You must know when it will be completed based on a specific measurement.
A – Achievable: Your goal must be realistic for you and what you currently have at your disposable.
R – Relevant: Your goal must make sense for you, your blog, your business, and your time.
T- Time-bound: Your goal should have a time frame. This helps with motivation and knowing when things are complete.
Once you have set your SMART goal, there is a super important question to ask yourself: “AM I COMMITTED TO THIS GOAL?”
Smart Blogging Goal Models
From 0 to 12 months your site is brand new. You’ll have little search traffic, minimal amounts of content published, a small following, few backlinks, no strong network or relationships, and perhaps a non-recognizable brand.
Consequently, I like to start with the big goals and then work my way back. Are you ready to make some of those S.M.A.R.T blogging goals apply to your blog? What should your blogging goals be?
You have to have some measuring points in your long-term blogging goals.
For example,
- What You Want To Build With Your Blog: With my travel blog, I want to build a complete resource for families who love traveling to the Caribbean. I’ll have everything related to family travel for those who want to learn more about tropical island destinations. That’s my mission with Funntripps.com.
So, when you’re going to set your long-term blogging goal, write your blog’s mission statement first.
- How Many Pageviews You Want To Get Monthly After Five Years: Set your target amount of pageviews you want to get every month after five years.
- How Much Money You Want To Earn Monthly After Five Years: After setting the target money amount you want to earn monthly with your blog, you need to define your monetization methods.
If you didn’t set up your long-term blogging goal yet, I’d suggest creating one. You need to have right blogging mindsets that whatever happens, you’ll be a successful blogger. And long-term blogging goals will help you with this.
Let’s use a few of mine as an example.
Five-Year, Three-Year, And One-Year Goals
My official blog launch occurred in December 2019 and I was super-excited. However, I lacked a blogging system and my blog went nowhere, fast! I procrastinated and didn’t implement the necessary models to follow. So, I guess you’d say “I planned to fail because I failed to plan!”
I had done this before and was expecting different results. That sure was foolish thinking but I finally realized that I needed to improve my blogging focus.
Therefore, 7 months later, I finally decided to write down my five-year, three year, and one-year goals. I needed markers for my blog so I’d know exactly where I was headed as I scheduled my blog’s quarterly, monthly and daily goals.
I decided that these goals were going to be my blanket. While there had to be a degree of specificity, they did not need to be as specific and focused as the shorter-term goals.
I drew the line in the sand with my aim to retire in 5 years by turning passion into profit. I needed this number as my foundation so that I could calculate just how much income I would need to be generating to reach that goal.
Building an email list was another one of my five-year goals. Particularly, my plan of attack was to have 100,000 subscribers on my email list.
I had failed many times before, so this goal had to be realistic. It’s important that your goals be broken down to ascertain if they’re realistic before being actually set.
But how exactly did I do that? Let’s do the math to clarify:
100,000 subscribers / 5 years = 20,000 subscribers per year
20,000 subscribers / 12 months = 1,667 subscribers per month
1,667 subscribers per month / 30 days = 56 subscribers per day
Simple, right? But is this possible?
Well, I’m now on the path to find out and expect to be hustling like crazy to create impact for my family.
During the first eight months of my blog I didn’t achieve 56 subscribers per month. And potentially, the goal may not be reached on a monthly basis due to other unknown factors.
However, I plan to aggressively implement certain traffic generating strategies. Hopefully, the rate of subscribers will grow to much more than 56+ per day so the five-year goal of 100,000 subscribers can be attained.
Annual Blog Goals
My ‘BIG 3’ annual goals that I’ve chosen to work toward over the next 12 months are:
- Write At Least 1 Blog Post A Week With An Opt-In
- Publish One Ultimate Guide (3000+ Words) Monthly
- Driving 100,000 Visitors Per Month By Focusing On SEO
During the year, I also plan to make connections with 12 Influencers. But once you’ve shortlisted your ‘big 3’, simply apply the same strategy as your five-year and three-year goals. As you dive deeper, your one-year goals will influence your focus and actions for your quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily goals.
Now that you have set your ‘big 3’ annual goals, what discipline is required to reach these goals?
These actions turn into your ‘big 3’ monthly goals.
Quarterly Blog Goals
One of my favorite ways to stay on track to complete all of my blog and business goals is to create a 90-Day Plan. Doing this has become an incredibly valuable strategy for me and is a system I learned from Jonathan Milligan. So, I figured that I would share it with you!
Quarterly goals are super important!
I believe the 7 key sections you must employ in your strategy are:
- Establish Primary Quarterly Goals
- Leverage Special Events & Promotions
- Effectively Use An Editorial Calendar
- Grow & Automate Your Social Media Following
- Building Your Email List
- Analyze Profit Projections
- Continuing Education & Network, Network, Network
Change your quarterly goals to get back on track if you need to alter your path to reach your annual goals.
Just before each quarter ends evaluate your success in that quarter, make any necessary changes, and set your goals for the next quarter.
Monthly Blog Goals
Here is where you’ve got to really past the test. In an effort to make a difference for your family and yourself, you must be focused.
My initial blog goal is to get 1,000 email addresses and gain credibility in my niche.
I’ve already broken this down earlier, so I know how many subscribers I need each week to reach that goal.
Accordingly, these are the activities I’m going to do, specifically, to reach that goal:
- Write & Publish An Article Every Week
- Create Lead Magnets & Landing Pages to Collect Emails
- Lead A Challenge
- Host A Giveaway
I’m on a mission to build my email list. So these are components of my monthly goals that will shore up my focus.
Weekly Blog Goals
Your weekly goals will propel you forward.
I’ve decided to keep it simple and easy to stay on track with choosing ‘3 BIG Goals’ for each week and no more. Below are a few I’ve set before:
- Publish 2 New Blog Posts
- Update 2 Old Posts For SEO
- Add 3 Pins Each To 3 Older Posts
- Check Google Analytics For Progress On Page Views (Compared To Previous Week)
- Check ConvertKit Subscriber Growth Compared To Previous Week
Do your best to remain focused and keep your goals attainable. You’ll move forward much more quickly rather than having a list of goals that are not action-oriented. Avoid creating lists that are so long it freezes you in your tracks.
Daily Blog Goals
You have to determine how much time and effort you want to give to your blog. Once you’ve determined your available time for your blog, you can now make your daily plan easily.
I fully support having ‘3 Big Daily Goals’, which are then broken down into 3 action-oriented tasks to reach those goals.
Some common blogging tasks are:–
- Writing, editing and scheduling blog posts
- Promoting your blog posts as well as your blog
- Checking email
- Replying to blog comments
- Building your social media profiles
- Updating your blog pages
- Email list building
- Administrative tasks, etc.
Simply make a daily routine and set time blocks for daily achievement.
It can feel like we aren’t accomplishing much over the course of a day, but when you complete these 3 main tasks day after day, the big picture is pretty amazing!
Pro Tip
Close all the tabs on your computer when you are working on your blog, including social media, and email. This will increase your focus and productivity ten-fold!
Also, turn off all your cell phone notifications so nothing is dinging on your phone unless it is an emergency.
I have my family’s text messages on in case there is an emergency. However, if your family tends to message you for no reason let them know when you are working and to only message or call if it is an emergency.
When you take your blog serious, they will take it serious as well!
How to Create Smart Blog Goals
If you want to track your progress, you’ll need to make sure that you’re setting smart goals. But how can you tell what’s achievable and what’s a fantasy? The most important aspect to consider is your niche. This will determine the number of people who will be interested in your content. The bigger your niche, the more traffic you can expect.
It’s also important to remember that you’re just starting. It’s normal for people to take a little while to get a hang of the blogging world. As a result, you need to be willing to adjust your goals, as you learn more about the audience and the industry.
Blog Benchmarks
When setting a goal, you want to make sure that you have a specific target in mind. Because of this, many blogs will use measurable benchmarks to help them track their progress. In this area, one of the most important aspects to track is the number of page views you get each month. The number of views you should be getting vary considerably, with some people advocating for 4,000 views a month, while others targeting 250 visitors a day. The most important thing is that your audience continues to grow.
There are a few other blog benchmarks that you might want to set. For example, you might want to get four new people to sign up for your email list each month. If you have an affiliate marketing program, you might aim to get five people to follow the sponsored link. As your blog grows, you’ll need to adjust these benchmarks.
How Much Should I Blog?
One of the most common questions that newbie beginners will ask is how many posts they should be publishing each week. This can vary depending on the niche you’ve chosen. Some will require more frequent coverage. For example, the entertainment niche will need more updates than a sewing blog.
However, the biggest factor is the amount of time you can dedicate to posting. It’s estimated that 45 percent of bloggers can write a post in less than two hours. For 16 percent of bloggers, it takes more than four hours to craft a post. The more experience you have, the faster you’ll be able to write. When you’re just starting, create a writing schedule that works well for you. For some people, it can be two posts a week. For others, it can be to post once a day.
Wrapping Up
Setting blogging goals isn’t a big deal. But it helps you stay on track and keep focusing to accomplish more.
I aim to learn and implement new blog growth strategies, serve my existing community, and eliminate time wasting activities as the blog continues to grow.
However, my goals weren’t always separated this clearly. I used to be like everyone else: wanting to make $1,000,000 quickly! Well good friend, for starters, you need to make sure your blogging goals are S.M.A.R.T. That’s an acronym that quickly describes what we’ve talked about in this post.
To make sure that your blog site keeps growing, you’ll need to work towards such goals. At first, it can be hard to know what targets you should be setting. But, as you grow more experienced, you’ll have a better understanding of what goals you should be chasing.
I’ve laid out a few goals that will hopefully inspire new and seasoned bloggers. And I’ve shown you what I’m doing with the launch of my new blog. But I really want to help you set and achieve YOUR blogging goals.
So, here’s what I’m going to do.
I’m going to offer free VIP access to Bahama Bloggers to the readers of RicardoNewbold.com, my personal brand. Bahama Bloggers is our online community to help you set your blogging goals and discuss a plan of action to achieve them with other like-minded peers.
“Successful Bloggers Don’t Blog Alone!”
Ricardo A. Newbold
If you get your blogging act together, the hard work will pay off. I PROMISE!!!!! Follow these smart blogging goals and I guarantee that you’d see your blog grow significantly in the next 90 days.
If you are ready to get your blogging act together, drop a “Yeah Mon” in the comments!
Recommended Reading:
Learn more about SMART goals.
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