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Note: In this article, when I refer to ‘my blog’, I am referring mostly to my motherhood blog, Adventures in Motherhood by Shaz
Back in university, I remember doing some business management courses where we discussed goals at great length, but somehow when I actually started my own blogs and business, it never occurred to me that I should actually define a quantifiable set of goals for myself.
One of the first things that Shoemoney discussed with me was my goals, or lack thereof – it was essential, he said. After that, I set about writing out some goals for my key blogs and my web development business, but still, I think I didn’t do enough. Then, yesterday, I started Wendy’s ecourse and the first assignment were to define goals!
It kind of clicked when I read her instructions –
What is the ultimate outcome you want your blog to achieve? 3 years from now, or even 10 years from now, where do you want your blog to be in terms of traffic, career opportunities created, impact on customers and readers, and/or revenue generated? Are there other results that are important for you to achieve?
I think I was struck most by this statement because it really made me look into the future and think about what I wanted to be, or what I wanted my blog to be, mostly I starting thinking about what kind of impact I wanted to have on my readers.
My motherhood blog started off because, ironically, I was looking for a way to make money at home and I bought into the whole ‘blogging=easy money’ myth. But, as it happened, about a week into it, I realized that I completely adored blogging, and about a month into it, I realized that there was no way that I was going to be making any money! I spent the next 10 months becoming friends with the most unexpected people, and being part of the most amazing communities, and although I didn’t make a $1, I still loved every moment of it!
In the past couple months, I have started getting a tiny income from my motherhood blog, thanks to Text Link Ads and now I am in a position to become a little more business-oriented with the blog – as a first step, I am going to define some of my goals, and really put a lot of thought into what I want my blog to evolve into, or what purpose I would like my blog to serve. What I know for sure is that I want it to be helpful to parents, especially moms, it’s not a place that I rant, but I try to convey my stresses and strategies as a mother, and I know that if even one mother derives some benefit from my words, then all my effort has been worth it.
What makes your blogging efforts worth it?
I collected my prize from Wendy last night, it was an hour long conversation with her and Shoemoney aimed at helping me grow my online business. It was eye-opening to say the least.
At some level I felt undeserving of the prize because I am hardly an internet marketer and I think I may have sounded like a complete dork because I really didn’t know what questions to ask! But they were great to speak with, and certainly gave me a lot to think about.
It was a very interesting experience having experts critique my online business strategies, or lack thereof! Some of the projects that I thought could possibly be a good source on online income turned out to be not-so-great ones, and surprisingly the projects that I am doing just out of love were the ones that they both thought had the potential to succeed. I got some really good ideas to make the things that I am already doing more successful, and also a lot of general tips.
The most important things for success, according to Shoemoney are:
And for online businesses:
Wendy had awesome ideas for my personal online pursuits, which I will be blogging about in the coming weeks, as I start implementing them. It was a great opportunity, thanks to Wendy!