Setting Out Your Blogging Goals
7 November, 2007 - Your Feedback - 12 Comments
We all know that written goals are real goals, but as is often the case, we tend to forget to practice what we preach. Today, I’m going to record my goals here on the blog. Like Erik, I find that if my readers know what my goals are, it gives me added incentive to push towards achieving them.
My Goals for November
Social Networking - Write more analysis and statistics based posts in an attempt to capitalise on more Social Network traffic.
New Blog Design - Recently, it appears as though everybody has been redesigning their blog. This month, I too will be jumping on the design train. This design is really nice, but it was never intended to be used in a blog. Due to this, I’m now paying the price for using a design for a use it wasn’t intended for. I’ll go in to more detail about the problems with this design later this month. With the new design, I’ll be introducing some advertising on to the site which will hopefully work well for both my advertisers and my readers.
RSS Subscribers - I’m currently at 33 RSS subscribers. By the end of this month, I would like to increase subscribers to 50. It’s not a huge amount, but like when you first go to the gym, I need to get a feel for how much I can lift. Start off small and get a feel for what is easy and what is a challenge. Next month, I’ll be able to look back on how I did in this area and set a goal that I know will be a challenge.
Competition - I have an interesting competition idea in my head that I hope will attract the attention of some popular bloggers. First, I need to get the new design in place because I need a blog that can capitalise on the traffic generated from the competition. Once the new design is in place, and once I have prizes confirmed, I’ll announce the competition details.
Offline Networking - I want to organise a monthly offline get-together of bloggers. Similar to John Chow’s Dot Com Pho, I suppose. This month, I hope to make the first steps to get this setup.
That is certainly a lot of goals. I might not achieve all of them this month, but I’ll certainly try my best. If you’re a blogger, my advice would be to set your own goals for November and make an effort to write them down and read them each day. Sara, Tyler and Caroline, if you haven’t already documented your goals for November, I hope you’re listening. 
I hope you’re looking forward to the next month. I can’t wait! 
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Posted on 7 November, 2007 by Jamie Harrop
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Thanks for the mention Jamie. That’s a nice list of goals too…the competition idea sounds very interesting and I can’t wait for the new design. Best of luck completing all of your goals.
Thanks Erik.
nice goal and hope you will achieve all of them this month…yeah your right setting up a goal would be nice and achieving it is something you would cherish. Not only that, it would also improve your time management capabilities. great tips.
Yeah why almost all changes their theme anyway?
Thanks Rhyan.
As for why everybody is changing their theme… I’m not sure yet, but I am going to try and answer that question in a post on this blog later this week.
[...] Goals By Sara Ch. Jamie, my favorite young entrepreneur reminded me that I should be documenting my goals. I have not done that in the past, but I think he [...]
Before I started my blog, I had been using to do lists. As long as you have the goals in the back of your mind, it is not difficult at all to complete them one at a time.
Hi Jason,
I think you must be one of the few people are find it easy to achieve their goals without writing them down. I wish I was that lucky.
For most people, unless their goals are written down and read each day to remind them, they are very unlikely to ever achieve them in a reasonable time frame. But that’s ok, because writing them down and reading them each day isn’t hard.
That’s an impressive amount of work you have cut out for yourself. I’ve subscribed and can’t wait to see what you come up with. Good Job Jamie.
What I’ve learned is that it’s safer to focus on one or two goals each month than several. Maybe the safe option isn’t always the most exciting way, but it is probably the one that’s more likely to be achieved. Better to play it safe than miss a couple of targets.
The objectives should be both clearly defined and achievable. I think your RSS subscribers target is perfect. But the Social Networking idea is a bit generic. You say you’ll write “more posts” - more than how many? How many would you need to write in order to succeed?
In this case, it might be better to say how many posts you might write each month on the subject of social networking. Better still, try to write one post a week on a particular subject and always write it on the same day. Your readers are more likely to come back if they know to do so on a particular day - and you could really capitalise on this, more so than just writing the entries. This has worked well for me with “Music on Monday”.
At the opposite end of the scale though, don’t go overboard by making every day a subject-oriented day. You need some freedom!
Either way, good luck with your goals! It will be interesting to see how you do.
Thanks Ben.
You make a good point, in that goals should always be measurable. I totally forgot about this when I wrote the goals. :blush: Next month I’ll make sure all my goals are measurable.
Thanks for the reminder, Ben.
When redesigning your site maybe try to get your RSS button up in the header, I recently repositioned my button from about the middle of the page on the right hand side to the top of my site and overnight saw an increase of about 45+/- readers. Might have been a fluke but it was a nice increase so it’s worth trying. It’s still holding strong at ~50 readers, I had about 6-10 before the button move.
I guess if you stick it right in front of readers faces they are more likely to click on it.
It’s funny you should mention that, Nick.
The design is finished and I have large 3D RSS and Technorati buttons in the centre of the header. Those two buttons couldn’t be in better positions. I can’t wait to see what effect this change has.