How To Set Goals For A Blog And Have A Successful Year

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This ‘how to set goals for a blog and achieve success throughout the year’  is an outline of the goals I have set for my blog this year, and how I plan to tackle those goals and have a successful year.
It’s that time of the year when most people are creating goals for 2017. Some are setting lifestyle goals, travel goals, weight loss goals, health goals, business goals and so on.

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Today, we are speaking about blog goals for the new year.

I know, I know, I’m a bit late. Many of you have already moved past the goal setting stage and are currently in execution mode! However, here I am thinking of goals for my blog and as well as what I can do to achieve those goals. I’m hoping that my plan of action for the year will help both you and  I achieve our blog goals for 2017.

I started my blog in September 2016. I had a plan to make a certain amount of money every month and get a certain amount of page views. If you’ve been following my journey, you will know that many times it’s hard to achieve your goals exactly as you plan. In my first two months blogging, I did not achieve my goals as planned, however by month 3 and 4, I began to see more consistency and growth in term of my goals for my blog.

Why?

Becuase I work hard every month to execute my monthly plans. If I don’t work towards my goals,  I feel like I have let myself down. And I hate letting myself down!

Before we start, here are some interesting stats about goal setting.
1. About 10% of people actually achieve the goals they set for themselves each year.

2. About 30% of people who set goals stop working towards them after the first week.

Many of us have been a part of that 25% in the past. I sure have been there! Too many times if you ask me.

However, In this post, I will talk about how we can keep our blogging goals alive and in focus throughout the year.

First, here are my goals for my blog for 2017

1. Grow my readership to an average of 150,000 monthly page view (super engaged) before the last day of December 2017. For me, this means that every month, I will need to increase my page views by 25%.
2. Make a full-time income from my blog before the end of December 2017. For me personally, this means that I have to increase my income by 30% monthly.
3. increase my engagement. This means that I have to use more call to actions when creating my content.
4. Dominate Pinterest and search engine traffic by improving my SEO and my Pinterest marketing strategy.
5. Create a super engaged facebook group with an average of 3000 members. Right now I am at 25 awesome members. To reach 3000 members, I need to increase by 250 members monthly or 8 members daily.

Clcik here

1. Organize my content calendar for the year and be two months ahead in terms of content.
2. Brand my blog before the year ends with the income I make from my blog.

Have you set any goals for your blog for the year?

If not, I suggest you take a few minutes to think of somethings that you want to achieve with your blog this year and come up with some goals.

If you don’t mind, please share your goals with me below!

Now, for the hard, but not impossible part…

How I plan to achieve those goals in 2017.

It’s no secret that it’s easier to make goals than it is to follow through with them. That’s why you need a game plan in order to be successful with your goals. Here is how I plan to tackle mine. I hope you find some inspiration from this.

How to set goals for a blog and achieve success this year

1. I will write all my goals down on paper.

I find that writing with paper and pen helps me out a lot. Don’t ask me why, because I sure can’t tell you. I just know that it works.

Fun Fact: I write most of my blog posts on paper before first typing up on my laptop. I love to use those beautiful planners to get my writing done.

*Although I love to write, I also plan to incorporate a digital editorial calendar into my blog content strategy this year. My plan is to use my editorial calendar as a way to further map out my goals for the year. That way, I am always aware of what I should be working on when I’m using my laptop (which is all the time these days! #bloggerlife)

2. I plan to break down my goals into bite sized pieces.

I have found that the only way to keep myself motivated and moving, is to create small tasks that I can complete over time.

For example, I made a resolution to get an average of 150,000 monthly page views by December 31st, 2017. After writing this goal down, I immediately felt overwhelmed. After all, for someone who has just started blogging and learning the ropes, this seems like a huge hurdle.

However, while sharing my 2017 goals with members of a facebook group that I love, I had an epiphany.

Last month, I got 9900 page views on my blog and this realization gave me an awesome idea of how I was going to achieve my traffic goal for 2017.

The plan is, starting from January 2017, I will increase my traffic by at least 25% each month.

Here is a breakdown of what my stats should look like moving forward if I can stick to and achieve my goals.

December 2016 page views for my blog  = 9900 page views

This is an outline of how my traffic needs to grow throughout the year in order to meet my goal of 150,000 monthly readers. As you can see in the graph,  my blog traffic does not have to increase significantly each month. This makes working on this goal a lot less stressful than I had previously anticipated.

At the end of the year, I should be averaging 150,000 page views monthly. This is my goal broken into smaller, more manageable increments.

Therefore, I suggest that you break down your goals like this. Especially, if they are very big and seem overwhelming to you.

I followed this same process with my income goal for 2017 and my facebook group growth goal for 2017.
Here is my blog income goal outlined monthly for 2017.

I plan to increase my income by 30% every month for the entire year.

In order to be successful, here is what my income growth needs to look like in the next 12 months.

December 2016 blog income = $354.24

As you can see, by doing this I’m mapping out a course or plan of action for myself that is not overly overwhelming.

Grow my facebook group to 3000 members. Again I broke this down into smaller tasks in order to achieve my goal I must get 250 members monthly or 8 members daily.

3. Keep your goals at the forefront of your mind. Daily.

I try to keep my blog planner open at my desk as often as possible.  Therefore, I’m constantly aware of the things I need to be doing to propel my goals forward. Every time I see my goals, I’m reminded that I have to get to work!

3. Track your goals.

There is nothing more motivating than seeing your progress, whether it is good progress or stagnancy. Whatever the case may be, you have the best gift. YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!

I track my progress by creating monthly blog income and traffic reports. I have found this very helpful to me, especially since  I list my monthly goals on my blog. I feel the need to make sure I give it my best each month since I’ve put it out there for the world to see.

Whatever methods you use to track your progress, I suggest you get on it. Seeing progress, whether small or big, is a very effective motivator.

In case you don’t like income report, you can use a binder, planner, goal tracking printable or a vision board to track your goals. You can find inspiration for those on Pinterest.

5. Get A Blogging Buddy/ Accountability Partner

Blogging can be very lonely. Therefore, if you’re not careful you can slowly become unmotivated to work on your blog because you hate doing it alone. This can be a major deterrent to achieving your goals, especially if you’re used to working on a team (9-5 job). An accountability partner can become your ‘team’. I have one and I love waking up in the morning knowing that I have someone to share my blogging goals with. I  also love to share new things I learned with my accountability partner and ask for help when I feel lost or stuck.

6. Join Facebook Groups with like minded bloggers

I have found facebook groups to be very helpful in achieving my goals. Seeing other people’s small or big wins makes you want to work hard to achieve your goals and experience that same satisfaction.

It also helps to see people like you doing great things. It makes you feel like you can do it too if you just push through limiting thoughts.

Another great thing about facebook groups and their part in helping you achieve your goals is the fact that so many people are so supportive of you in those groups. If you ever feel stuck or lost, visit a bloggers facebook group and air out your concern. I can guarantee that you will receive such a great influx of helpful comments, blog post links to help you navigate your issue, others willing to walk you through your problem 1 on 1, and so many other forms of support. This is a great way to keep yourself on track for your year long goals.

Those are some awesome strategies I plan to use to help me achieve my 2017 blog goals. What do you think of them?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below and also, let me know if you have any good tips that can help us as bloggers achieve more of our goals this year!

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