How to Set Big Goals for Your Blog

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New year new…blog goals?

That's right, it's that time of year once again.

The time to evaluate what's working and most importantly what didn't work in 2018.

I'm not talking about that gym membership you neglected.

Heck no.

We're talking about setting blogging goals for the new year and how to actually be successful.

Just as your life changes every year, so should your goals.

So if you're ready to set some goals and smash them, let's get started by setting big blogging goals for 2019.

disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links which means I may make a small commission at no extra cost to you if you choose to use my link. and if you do, I appreciate you!

 

Set 90 Day Goals

Instead of looking at our year as a whole, we're going to break it down into 90-day segments.

Why?

Because it's easier to chew, it's less intimidating and our goals are going to change literally all the time.

I find this to be the easiest way to set goals and actually achieve them because its' also giving you a time limit.

If you give yourself a whole year to achieve something, it'll take a whole year.

Give yourself 90 days and you'll do it in 90 days.

With that in mind, there are three main areas of blogging we are going to evaluate.

• Content
• Promotion/Marketing
• Income

I'm going to break these each down into segments then we're going to create a brainstorming list of what needs to be improved and worked on in 2019.

Stay with me here, this is going to be fun!

 

Content Evaluation

I'm starting with content because frankly it's my favorite part of blogging and in my opinion the most important.

Without content, you really don't have the need for anything else.

Your content strategy is really going to depend on what worked in the year before and what didn't.

You can usually tell this area needs a bit of work if you're not getting the traffic or engagement on your posts that you want.

When you look back on the last year and you're not so happy with your content strategy, take a look at what you can improve on.

Where you writing and publishing consistently?

Did your audience find you're content helpful? They'll usually tell you.

Did you create content for any other platforms such as email marketing, social media or other blogs (guest posting)?

Really be honest with yourself here and remember your content is your bread and butter to create a successful blog in the future.

I also recommend taking a dive into your Google Analytics to really understand which blog posts did the best overall in the year before and create more of those types of posts.

 

Promotion & Marketing Evaluation 

This is sometimes the scariest part of blogging because you have to put your hard work out into the world.

But it has to be done.

The really nice thing about blog promotion is that most of it can be automated and scheduled out so you don't have to spend too much time on this.

Pick 1-2 Platforms to Focus on

If you'd like to up your blog marketing game in 2019 then you simply can't be everywhere at once.

I recommend sticking with 1-2 platforms that you actually enjoy using and see the most return on investment from.

This is going to change from person to person depending on niche but for the most part, Pinterest and Facebook are the two that work the best.

Google is another place to put your focus on but if you are using Pinterest than you're already one step ahead because Pinterest is also a search engine.

But you can read more about Pinterest marketing here.

To evaluate which platforms you should be on you can simply check your Analytics and see which platform(s) drove the most traffic.

Market Daily

I know this sounds like a ton of work but if you want to get your blog out there in front of your audience you've got to show up every day.

As I said, you can easily automate your marketing with Tailwind for Pinterest and Instagram or use the built-in scheduler for Facebook.

 

Blog Income Evaluation

This one is simple.

You either made the income you wanted with your blog or you didn't.

Of course, making money from your blog is much more than just picking a strategy. It's also about your content, self-hosted vs. not and so on.

You can read more about how to set up your blog for profitable success here.

What Income Strategy Worked & What didn't?

There are five common ways of making money blogging:

Ads: requiring a large amount of traffic and can affect user experience if done incorrectly.

Affiliate Marketing: My personal favorite but requires a strategy and building a solid foundation of readers and trust. Check out my blog posts on affiliate marketing here.

Sponsored Content: Requires traffic and reaching out to brands that will pay you to write about their products. Most brands are looking for a decent following and a self-hosted blog.

Creating and Selling Your Own Products: This can be one of the most profitable ways to make money blogging but takes much more time and requires a lot of trust from your audience.

Services: Offering services like freelancing and personal assistant are great ways to make money early on.

If you tried any of these ways of making money last year, simply looked at what worked and what didn't.

Remember, making money blogging requires consistent and valuable content so if your content strategy suffered chances are your income did too.

For many bloggers affiliate marketing on their blogs and Pinterest as well as sponsored content seems to be the best option and the easiest.

Some things to look at to improve and boost your income are:

• Creating trust with your audience
• Consistently writing valuable posts
• Promoting on Pinterest/in the right places
• Using Affiliate Companies with Higher Commissions

 

Creating your 90-Day Blogging Plan

Take a look at those three main areas of blogging and pick the one that you feel you need to work on the most.

Like I've said, they're all connected so if you improve your content, you'll improve your traffic with will increase your income and so on.

Once you've picked the area you want to improve the most it's time to pick a big scary, hairy goal to go with it.

What is the main goal you want to achieve with your blog in the next 90 days?

Go big here because it should push you out of your comfort zone a bit.

 

Pick Three Daily Tasks

Once you have your big scary goal written down it's time to create a brainstormed list of ways to get yourself closer to that goal.

Every day, pick three tasks that will help you get closer to that big goal you wrote down.

I like these tasks to take me no more than 30 minutes otherwise they’re too big, overwhelming and I get too distracted.

That’s 90 minutes or less a day you will focus on getting closing to your goal.

The rest of the day is spent focusing on everything else.

I also recommend setting a timer for your tasks and putting your phone away or on airplane mode so you can put all your focus on those tasks.

If you have less time to focus on your three tasks, pick three tasks that will only take you 10-15 minutes instead.

 

Reevaluate every 90 Days

Rinse and repeat every 90 days until the end of the year and you won’t believe what you can achieve in the new year.

Trust me, this works.

I use this method every year and love it!

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