BLOG TIPS: HOW TO SET GOALS

. HOW TO SET BLOG GOALS .

I wrote a whole blog tips post a couple of weeks ago all about what I believe blog success to be (what is blog success), and in particular how success is subjective and most importantly unique for every person. The overall conclusion of my post was that to measure your own success, you must set your own goals. And that’s where I wanted to pick up today, on setting your own goals (or even better, objectives).

There are a million and one goals you could set yourself dependent on what you want to achieve, in fact there are so many different options that in my opinion it would be impossible to simply share a list of goals for you to take inspiration from, this would also not offer a solution that everyone could benefit from. So rather than share a zillion options, I wanted to share some thoughts on what a goal should be, how you go about setting it and how you should measure your success on it.

. DEFINE SUCCESS .

Step one. Define success, to you, to your blog, to your life what does success mean? It doesn’t have to be one thing, it could be two to three, if not ten things. Regardless of what success is to you, make sure you settle upon an overall target that is within reason, achievable, and that if success is more than just one thing (which I suspect it may well be) then make sure it’s not so broad that there’s no chance you’d ever be able to deliver on them.

Once you’ve defined what success would mean to you, embark on step two … thinking about how you’ll achieve it. Set objectives.

. SET OBJECTIVES .

So now you know what success looks like, based on your individual blog, have a little think about all the different ways you may be able to achieve this success. These ‘tactics’ will become the objectives you then start working towards. You should have a few objectives to help you deliver your overall success target (although not so many they become impossible to deliver on, remember achievable is key) … for example if success for you was to make your blog your sole income or your career, you’d need a fair few  objectives in place to work towards in order to achieve that (e.g. produce great quality content regularly, meet business partners, join a blogger programme, produce a media pack, engage with brands & followers etc).

Objectives should be specific, and should outline what you physically need to do, to deliver success.   Within each objective, you may even have a few smaller tactics to help deliver against those specific objectives!

. MAKE IT MEASURABLE .

The other thing you must of course ensure your goals and objectives are, is measurable. There is no point setting yourself objectives that you simply can’t define the achievement of. The more specific and measurable your goals (or objectives), the easier they will be to deliver, and the more easily you’ll be able to review your progress and adapt your plan of action throughout if required.

When it comes to goals and objectives, try and put numbers, stats or specific details to them. If your goal is about growing blog traffic, think about the details, are you talking page views, unique users, followers? By what percentage are you looking to grow by, what’s the total number you want to achieve … and critically, by when?

. SET A TIME .

Once you’ve set out your objectives and defined your tactics, aligned on how you’ll measure this success, your next step is to put a timing plan against it. There’s no point or use having an objective of growing your fan base to 10,000 subscribers, and having no timing plan against it … without having a delivery date against your goals, you’ll have no way to truly measure how well your doing and more importantly without a relevant timing plan a goal could become simply impossible (some things just need time).

For every goal you make, ensure it’s specific, achievable, measurable and time bound.

. BE REWARDED .

It’s a little twist on the standard objective and goal setting methodology (Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Relevant. Time-based) … but for me it’s also important to reward. Once you’ve set out what you want to achieve, outlined your goals, defined your timeline and agreed how you’ll measure it … add a little motivation by setting yourself a reward. Not only is this a great way to keep you motivated, but it’s also a really nice way of rewarding yourself for what you’ve achieved. After all achieving success and delivering on your objectives will have been no easy feat.

So there you have it. 5 tips to help you set proper goals for yourself and your blog … the 6th little added bonus tip is to ensure that these goals are always specific to you, your blog, your perception of what success is. And while you’re on the quest to ‘achieve success’ be sure keep focused on your own achievements, not that of others, and if you need to adjust your objectives throughout the months or years to ensure they stay relevant and achievable then you should do this. You must stay agile … if somethings not working, or alternatively you’re already smashing your targets, then adapt, evolve & amend as you need to.

I’d love to hear about your own goals and how you’ve gone about setting those objectives? And of course, if you found these tips helpful :)