Blogging Goals. Challenge

Transcription

1 Blogging Goals Challenge

2 I m a massive fan of goals and not just wishy washy, la de la goals but real, tangible goals. Ones that you develop a plan to achieve. This challenge is all about setting your goals for your blog, and doing so in alignment with what sets your heart on fire. Plus you get to plan out how you re going to achieve them! Winning.

3 1 PREP WORK Assess The Now Now, before we can set any goals for anything in our biz and life, we need to know where we are at and how far we have already come. This gives us a stellar foundation to work with and allows us to actually measure our goals instead of just putting them out there and hoping some magic dust will make them happen. So that's our plan for day 1 - we are going to take a nice big in depth analysis of where we are at and how we got there. So much fun! Step 1: Where are you right now? Grab some pen and paper and start mapping out exactly where you are right now. Leave no metric uncovered. Here are the main areas I look at when completing this exercise (but you can add your own in here too!): Social Facebook Followers - Facebook Reach - Pinterest Followers - Pinterest Daily Impressions - Pinterest Monthly Views - Pinterest Daily Clicks - Twitter Followers - Twitter Reach - Instagram Followers - Instagram Reach -

4 1 PREP WORK Analyse Website Average Monthly Pageviews: Average Monthly Unique Visitors: Number of Blog Posts on Site: Average Pages per Visit: Average Time on Page: List Number of Subscribers: Number of Opt-Ins Available: Products/Services and Income How Many Products/Services Do You Have Available: Average Monthly Income: Average Monthly Expenses: Step 2: How Far Have You Come Repeat the above process for your stats from a year ago, or even 6 months ago. This will give you a really good idea of how much you've improved over a period of time and how much your blog has grown. You can repeat this analysis at the end of each month to give you a great idea of your achievements and your movements towards achieving your goals. Stats I like to play particular attention to include my number of subscribers, clicks to my website from Pinterest and my average monthly income. I don't usually pay a lot of attention to my follower numbers on social media as these aren't as important as the others.

5 2 REFLECTION Focus On You Step 1: Self Reflection Now, before we go ahead and set our goals, we need to spend some time reflecting on what it is we actually love to do, and what we prefer not to do. What is it that sets your soul on fire? I am always surprised at how many people don't actually ask themselves these questions on a regular basis. There are so many different aspects to running a successful blog. There's the creative aspect, the marketing aspect, the social media side of things, the networking, the tech, the strategy... so many different facets. It's important to work out which of these you love doing. So, today's task is simple. Spend time thinking about all of the tasks that are involved in running your blog and determine which of these tasks you love to do and which you prefer not to do. Then, I want you to look beyond the simple tasks and look to areas in your business that make you excited. Perhaps you love writing ebooks and sharing your stories, or you love teaching others and creating courses, maybe you get super excited about the tech and seeing all that html just makes your heart happy. 2

6 2 REFLECTION Focus On You Knowing what you love in your blogging business will help you know where to focus your goals. Similarly, knowing what you don't love will help you set goals around managing this as well. While today's task may seem simple, it is a powerful step in setting goals that drive your blog forward - reflecting more upon yourself, your loves and your happiness will only have incredible benefits for your blog and business. 3

7 3 PLAN IT Bring it Together Background: We spent Day 1 reflecting on where we are at and how far we had come - such an incredibly valuable task. Day 2 saw us reflect on what sets our soul on fire and what makes us happy. So naturally Day 3 is going to be all about actually mapping out our goals. But as I promised this isn't about wishy washy vanity metric goals where you make a sweeping declaration saying you want '50k followers on Instagram'. No, no, no, this is so much more than that. There are 3 main components when it comes to setting our goals for our blogs: 1 - Determine your goals and intentions 2 - Set your timeline 3 - Identify tasks Let's look at this a little closer. Step 1: Determine Your Goals As I'm sure you're away, statements aren't goals. They are just words. But still, this is an important place to start. Keeping in mind your understanding of where you are at now and how far you've come, and what sets your heart on fire, outline your goals you'd like to achieve for the year. 4

8 3 PLAN IT Bring it Together I choose to create 5-10 (max) overarching goals for the year. This is because if I choose any less I don't find I'm pushing myself enough, and if I choose more there's too many areas to focus on. When choosing your goals, I want you to pay particular attention to the 'why' behind these goals. What will achieving this goal mean? When writing out your goal, do so in this way: I want to achieve (insert goal) which means I will be able to (insert outcome) which means my blog will be (insert blog outcome) For example: I want to write an ebook, which means I will be able to share more detailed information with my readers about my expertise which means my blog will be a place to sell my ebook. Attaching outcomes to your goals gives them more depth and perspective within your life. Step 2: Set Your Timeline Goals mean nothing without having a reasonable timeline to achieve them. You could say you want to write an ebook but unless you set a timeline, how are you ever going to motivate yourself to achieve it? Do you expect to achieve your goal in the next month, six months, year or five years? Be very specific. 5

9 3 PLAN IT Bring it Together Set actual dates instead of timeframes if you want extra motivation. Add this to the start of your sentence from step 1 - so it will now look like this: By the 31st May 2017, I want to have written my ebook, which means I will be able to share more detailed information with my readers about my expertise which means my blog will be a place to sell my ebook. Step 3: Identify Tasks This is by far the most important step in your goal setting process. You've got the 'what' component (your goal), you've got the 'when' (your timeline) and now you need to identify your 'how'. How are you going to achieve your goals. Under each goal statement you have written, start writing a list of tasks you need to complete in order to achieve this goal. Don't overanalyse just yet - write whatever comes to mind and you can refine it later. The point is to have a visual representation of what goes into your goal, and a task list you can start to use to move towards achieving your goals. Once you've exhausted all tasks, start to organise them in a logical, chronological order in which they need to be completed. Having this list will help you identify what needs to be achieved and by when so you can measure if you're on track to achieve your goal by your nominated date. The tasks from these lists can then be used when you create your monthly, weekly and daily to do lists. Ensure each time you write a to do list, you have tasks from your goals included. 6