Did your last blog post have a goal?
You can’t hit a target you haven’t identified… did you think about your goal before you began writing, then work to achieve it throughout your post and your promotion strategies?
When you’ve got a goal in mind for your blog post, writing and promoting becomes easier because you know exactly what results you’re aiming to achieve.
For example, if your goal is to write a post that humanizes you and connects with your readers, you might measure your success by the depth of comments posted that show your readers are identifying with you.
Or, if your goal is to write a post that ranks well in the search engines to drive more traffic to your website, you’d do keyword research, optimize your post for the search engines, then work to build links to that post and watch how it ranks. You’d also want to watch your statistics to see if it’s working.
What’s Your Target?
What are some goals you might set for a blog post?
- To rank well in the search engines and gain search engine traffic
- To connect with your readers on a personal level
- To sell a product or service
- To encourage opt-ins to your freebie offer or ezine
- To get more RSS subscribers
- To share a resource and inspire your readers to use it
- To help your readers solve a problem
- To get feedback/information (like a survey or question post)
- To promote an affiliate product (and get clicks/sales)
- To generate comments
- To generate tweets or social network sharing
- To get readers to bookmark your post
- To get others to link to your blog post
Action steps
- Set a measurable goal for every blog post.
- Monitor to see if you’re making progress toward the goal.
- Tweak your strategies as needed and repeat.
Let’s Discuss…
Do you set goals for your blog posts?
Please share in the comments a post you’ve written and what it’s goal was–this is your chance to promote yourself and help other readers of this blog see how to apply goal setting for their blog posts.
Have you had success hitting a specific goal with particular strategies (like getting lots of tweets by writing a fabulous title for a blog post, or a title with “X tips for X” — and of course backing that title up with a great post)?
What other goals for a blog post goals are missing from the list above?
Or, fire away with questions about blogging goals.
Image Credit: Kalozzolak at StockFresh
Great post, Michelle.
Your readers would do well to read Yvonne Jones’ post as well (http://t.co/gSASKFv) on this subject. Both of you posted this morning. I think that means we are all seeing too many people missing their mark- and we all want them to succeed.
Thanks for sharing.
Just popped over there — thank you for the link. That’s a great “big picture” overview of goal setting and those goals definitely need to be defined first. Our big picture goals will determine what the smaller goals for our blog and each blog post are as they fit into our overall business/marketing plan.
Great post – sometimes when your blog is about more personal stuff in nature it is hard to keep the idea of having and evaluating goals as part of your planning while you are writing.
It is. A personal blog’s goals could be very different from a business blog. Goals for many of the posts there might be to express ourselves and get things out to share with others going through whatever we are — that’s a legitimate goal, too. :)
I agree with Roy. You and Yvonne posted great blogs today. Keep up the good work. Thanks Roy for pointing out Yvonne’s post. As a Certified Social Media Strategist, it is good to see that there are people out there who understand that strategy is a necessity.
Social media is another area that strategy is crucial. Without it, that can suck us in and be a huge time waster. With it, was can get results! :) I’m always happy to see people teaching strategy there, Paul. You are much needed.
“Or, if your goal is to write a post that ranks well in the search engines to drive more traffic to your website, you’d do keyword research, optimize your post for the search engines, then work to build links to that post and watch how it ranks. You’d also want to watch your statistics to see if it’s working.”
*lies down*
This has been my goal of late and I have found it quite stressful. But then, I decided not to have instant success as part of my goal, to try to think of it as a game or an experiment (or both) and to give myself some blog posts where I write without optimization in mind.
*gets back up again*
I think what works best is to identify what I want to communicate, write a sort of rough draft, and then, look it over with an eye to improving SEO. And along the way, I usually think of more things to add, anyway, from my own experience (which is another goal: to teach or share wisdom from my experiences).
Jeanine
SEO definitely isn’t my goal on every post. That would likely make my brain explode. :D Sometimes I just want to write to connect. So I get where you’re coming from there, Jeanine.
I am not sure I completely agree with you. I have some blogs that are commercial in nature. Here I want the user to DO something. I almost always have an agenda. The something can be buy a product, click on an ad or any of the other things that you mentioned: “What are some goals you might set for a blog post?”.
But there are other blogs that I write just because I want to share. I mean sometimes the urge to put stuff out there is so overwhelming that I cannot “not do it”. These are moments of inspiration and the posts I write do not have any objective, target or agenda. I just want to put it out there. No SEO, No bookmarks, No subscribers. Nothing. But many times these posts have a significant impact on the readers. They make a difference. They get tons of natural links. They get tons of traffic. In fact its almost like magic.
I’m not sure we disagree, Amanda. I think sharing something in a moment of inspiration doesn’t mean there wasn’t a goal — you were inspired to share and connect with your readers and that itself might be the goal of that particular post. :)
Sometimes I write just to share something and that is the only goal (not SEO, not links, etc). But I’m aware of when I’m writing for that reason and I approach it differently both in the writing and in the promotion.
But my perspective comes from business blogs and blogs that are working towards goals that are part of a bigger marketing/business plan as opposed to a personal blog which has a pretty different purpose or mission and since it’s not aiming to boost sales or establish credibility it’s goals would necessarily be very different and lean more to the side of connecting, encouraging, helping, sharing — things that are a little tougher to define and measure, and may not need measured at all. If the joy is simply in sharing and connecting for a personal blog, there’s nothing wrong with that being enough in itself.
Hi Michelle!
Thanks for inviting me back to your Blog…from The Blogging
Mastermind Comment Tribe’s page. :)
I’ve been blending my recent posts with a humanizing/seo
twist. Since I became a member of MyLeadSystemPRO, I’m
paying more attention to all of the SEO details, while still
writing from the heart…it’s working very well for me.
My content looks more eye appealing too & I would love to
hear your opinion when you visit me.
Have a highly inspired day…your tribal friend Steven Suchar
Hi Steven, thanks for stopping by. Yes, I remember reading about MyLeadSystemPRO and checking it out from your blog. Looked interesting. SEO is one of the areas that it really helps to have some support/guidance in until we get it figured out.
This really is a awesome write-up. Many thanks for taking the time to explain all this out for all of us. It is a great help!
I always have a goal for my posts. And I promote them in different ways. To just randomly be writing blog posts with no goal in mind would be like trying to have a business with no plan. You have to know where you are going in order to figure out how to get there. Nice post Michele!
Definitely. It helps, doesn’t it? Knowing what the post needs to do makes it so much easier for me to know where/how to promote it to get that accomplished. :)
I agree with you Michelle in that sometimes I also just want to write to connect. Hopefully, what I write will inspire and benefit my reader(s). I wrote a post about setting goals for business planning and how important goals are to reaching ones potential.
Basically, I personally believe that goals are great not only for business but also for every day life.
Thanks for a great blog post :)
Very true, Sonia. Without goals, we tend to float and not really get anywhere.
Hi Michelle,
Your post is thought-provoking.
I don’t set measurable goals, but I intend to convey a helpful message in short and punchy style. The comments and social sharing usually reflect that I am hitting the mark, at least most of the time ;)
Thanks for sharing!
Ryan
That’s a great way to know we’re connecting and making a difference, isn’t it?
Hi Michelle,
I fully agree with you that setting clear objectives is key. I think I did this part well…
However, I think it’s equally important to take robust action regularly in order to achieve them. This is where I struggled a bit, but lately I have been improving in this area as well ;)
Yes, creating a plan and following through on the plan are two different challenges. :)
Wonderful post! Thanks for this. Yeah! Personal blog should be different from a business or marketing blog.
Thanks, David.
I would also say start small and snowball into it. This tends to work really well, once you have a game plan you can successfully recreate!
Good advice. Starting small and learning as we go allows us to find what works and duplicate it.
Hi Michelle,
Nice post.I guess having a goal makes a mindset of achieving it.It certainly gives a direction in which we proceed.But the goals should be realistic else they are bound to fail.
Realistic goals are definitely key.
Hi Michelle,
Oh another thing I need to keep in mind :) I don’t have a blog post target and thanks for bringing this to my attention. When I write a post, I have a general idea what I want to accomplish with it but nothing concrete as what you have mentioned.
There is a reason why you are my mentor :)
P.S. My internet and laptop is finally up and walking (not running) again LOL
Yay! Glad it’s back up and walking. :) May it be “running” again soon.
There are bloggers doing their personal blogs just to express their thoughts or a story of their lives that they want the whole world know. Then maybe there’s no goal to hit on that kind of blog. But if its a business blog, there you have to set a goal for every blog posts.
Hi Alice, I agree that personal bloggers would have different goals. :) Sometimes it’s self-expression or community connection–and those are equally valid as aims, of course.