For this week’s blogging chat, I thought it would be interesting to talk about people’s blogging goals. That’s not to say that you need to have goals; there’s nothing the least bit wrong with cruising along at status quo.
Posting frequency might be one area where people have goals for their blog. My plan is posting 6 days a week, but it’s not a goal in the sense that I care whether or not I stick to it. If it happens, it happens, but if it doesn’t, I’m fine with that too.
Stats is another area where people may have goals. This is tough, though, because your control over stats is very limited. In addition, a lot of stats aren’t very meaningful. Follower count is a good example of a stat with limited meaning; less than 1% of my “followers” actually follow my blog. I used to come up with an estimate at the beginning of each year as to how many followers I’d have by the end of the year. My guesses were actually fairly accurate, but I’ve stopped doing that because I just don’t care at all about the follower number anymore.
I have a very vague goal of increasing the search engine traffic to my site. I say vague because I don’t have any numbers or timeframe in mind. Rather than caring about it as a vanity thing, this is primarily about sticking to one of my core purposes for blogging, which is getting the word out about mental health-related issues.
Another potential goal area I can think of is learning new things. Ever since I started blogging it’s been my goal to keep learning more about blogging. Search engine optimization (SEO) was my focus for a while, and now I’ve shifted my learning focus to coding. I would eventually like to be able to create a child theme of the blog theme I’m using and customize it to do what I want it to do. That’s not going to happen anytime soon, though.
Now it’s your turn. Do you have any blogging goals, and if so, what are they?
The blogging toolbox series has tips to support you in your blogging journey. It includes these posts:
I think my blogging goal may be to help connect with others somehow. It’s pretty vague.
That’s a big part of blogging for me too.
I would like more followers. My main goal is to get paid for my blogs and articles but that hasn’t been panning out very well.
Yeah, that’s tough to do.
I got a TON of views (some new followers)by covering the Johnny Depp trial from my view. That was cool.
Nice!
Good post Ashley – l have lots of goals and so far l am on track 🙂
Good to year!
I’m new to blogging. It has been therapeutic to write and I love it so far. I have no concrete goals yet and I have a lot to learn but my main purpose is to help myself release and to help others in the process. Only yesterday I was wondering if I should work towards a goal of gaining 1000 followers to start making this a full time thing as for some reason I thought you can then start making money from it. Is that not true based on some of the other comments?
It’s quite difficult to make much money as a blogger. It depends how you’re trying to make money, but if you’re trying to make money off ads, for example, you’d need to be getting a ton of traffic to your site.
I see that’s good to know. I almost feel like your blog post is guiding me back into not worrying about followers, stats or money but for myself and for others. Thanks 😊
I think that’s definitely the more fulfilling approach.
One blogging goal I have is to make friends 😊 💕
I think blogging is a great way to do that. 💖💖
Engage more with the blogs I follow and read more blog posts – not just those that follow me, I mean discovering other bloggers, including those that are not on WordPress. 🤗
Sounds like a great goal!
I didn’t have a blogging goal. I just used it as a diary and hoped people would read it and comment. It’s different from writing in a private journal. I actually felt like I was talking to someone. I felt ridiculous putting my business on blast when no one even read it so I deleted all my blog posts. Might unsubscribe. Not really sure at this point.
If it helps you to write, I don’t think there’s anything ridiculous about putting yourself out there.
This is a very good question. In the early 2010s, there were several Jewish bloggers whom I casually followed, and I thought that I too, could write a blog of my take on various Jewish related issues in society. I was sure that if I started this blog, it would become very popular. It turned out that:
1) When I finally started my blog in 2020, the Jewish blogging trend had definitely peaked, and everyone was on Instagram and/or had a podcast instead – two platforms I have zero interest in.
2) Thoughtful content about Jewish issues takes time and energy to write well. I usually didn’t have the time/energy to do this well.
3) An anonymous blog with a supportive community became a really attractive place for venting posts.
4) The addictiveness of the WP stats, combined with the active poetry community, made my blog a really attractive place to post poetry.
TL;DR, I had a goal at one point for my blog, and my blog has not lived up to it. At least I updated my About Page recently to admit this. I like blogging, but I do feel a little bit like, “where exactly do I want to go from here?”
I suspect blogging has probably peaked more generally too, but I’m like you, I’m not interested in Instagram or podcasts.
The supportive community is an appealing thing. That didn’t start out as a goal for me, since I had no idea it would even exit, but it’s one of the major factors that keeps me blogging.
I think you do brilliantly with your blog, Ashley, whether you drive up the numbers from Google or not.
My current goal is simply to get the goddamn fricking hosting sorted. Still having problems with it and now the internal permalinks are buggered again. No idea why. I changed the format for URLs from having the date, to having no date. The rerouting was set up. Suddenly it’s no longer working and all posts have 404 errors for the internal links. I think I should have given up blogging maybe. I can’t keep up with any of it, let alone writing an actual post, and I’m pretty sure I suck. I don’t know how badly I suck, but I know I do. While I can’t consider a goal beyond fixing the problems at the moment, it’s interesting reading the comments to see where others are at and what they’re hoping to focus on. Goals are great, but I think they need to be without too much added pressure or self-criticism. xx
Oh no! I think I would be sobbing and seriously considering giving up if I had to deal with that. Between that and dealing with Lyrical host, you’ve had a lifetime’s worth of blogging bad luck all in a very short span of time.
Blogging goals and who my blog reaches is something I am looking into
🙂
Love to blog to understand myself better!
Yeah, blogging is great for that.
I’m among the “no goals specifically” crowd. The vague ‘aim’ of my blog, if aim is the right word, is to increase my education and have support for my writing and poetry. Plus it’s been a gift to discover bloggers like yourself who have knowledge of mental illness and have educated me on terms and facts that have proven useful in my real life. Bless you. And my week isn’t complete without seeing your beautiful piggos. <3 Otherwise que sera que sera (whatever will be, will be).
Whatever goals I may come up with or discard along the way, this amazing community will always be the most important part of blogging for me.
My current goal is to post two blogs per week for the next 90 days. I’ve created a content calendar with focuses for the month and broken down those focuses into potential blog post topics. I’m just starting out, but so far so good.
That’s great!
I just made that goal myself. I love the idea of writing out a content calendar with my focuses! Thank you!
That’s great!
Though I’ve been on WP for some time now, I’ve only started blogging regularly recently. I’m aiming for 3 posts a week and getting my blogs noticed. Not easy, but trying.
Good for you!
My goal is to be able to keep on blogging for as long as I can.
I like it!