Hi everyone, this week I decided to begin the Blogging: Branding and Growth course in order to audit this blog and improve it. For the first assignment, I was tasked with making three new goals for this blog.
What Are My New Goals?
After looking at the course materials, I was inspired by the list of examples given. I will heavily borrow from it in creating my list:
Goal 1: Reach 700 Views for the Month of November.
Of course, I have followers and follow blogs with far more monthly views. But the good news is I have made tremendous progress (for me) since earlier this year.
When I took my first Blogging U course, it put me in contact with some wonderful people. I discovered new blogs, followed some, and gained new followers. And it served as motivation to write better posts.
As a result, my blog gained a ton of new viewers and I gained more followers than my modest goal of 50. Also, monthly views have always increased since April 2016. I would like to continue that upward trend and see where it goes.
Now, I know that much of this is on me. I will do more to bring attention to my best blog posts and get people talking about them. My use of keywords and social media will be more, effective, too.
Speaking of the Blogging Community, this leads me to the next goal …
Goal 2: Be a Better Citizen in the Blogging Community.
You have to give in order to get.
I have been slagging behind, but I need to read a lot more blog posts from my followers, the blogs I am following, and from blogs I have yet to discover. Also, I need to leave more comments.
Additionally, more visits to The Blogging Meetup are in order. The group helps everyone find new blogs with its “Like, Follow, Share” Mondays. Every once in a while, a member of the group will come up with some insight questions and share awesome posts. The site is a really great place to meet new people, share links, and find great posts.
Here are some actionable steps to be a better member of the Blogging Community:
- Leave at least 3 comments on the blogs I follow each week
- Leave at least 5 comments on some of my followers’ blogs each week.
- Leave at least 2 comments on new or non-followed blogs each week.
- Like at least 10 blog posts each week.
This means that I will leave at least 10 comments (outside of The Blogging Meetup) each week and read even more blogs each week. This might seem small, but I have to start somewhere and build from there.
Also, sometimes, it’s hard for me to comment. That doesn’t mean I haven’t read many blog posts, but there are times when I feel I cannot really add to a conversation. With this goal, I would have to push myself to reach out to more bloggers and restart conversations with some bloggers whose websites I have already visited.
On top of that, talking to more people can lead to helpful tips. I need an effective social media strategy and asking the right people could help me tremendously.
Finally …
Goal 3: Establish a New Weekly Post by the End of the Year.
As I shared last Wednesday, I am thinking about having an end-of-the-week post to go over current events. Please read the post for more detail.
I am still mulling over the details. One of the biggest solutions I need to find is a submission feature. That way, readers could suggest weird or pressing stories I should cover for the week.
It would require a lot of reading, writing, research, image searches, and proofreading, but it is a worthy goal.
In any event, I will have a new feature. If I keep up with my goal to read more posts from others, I will be inclined to share links I like via social media and this blog.
What Do You Think?
Do these sound like reasonable goals? I think they do, but I would love some feedback on this.
Shmaltz and Menudo 
you know, when I want to comment yet have nothing valuable to say I simply tell them thanks for posting this. no one has ever complained yet.
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Haha, that’s brilliant!
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you have my permission to use it…..lol
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Personally , I enjoy blogs with factual support the most. However, I seemed to be turned off by pedantic reminders of academic redundancy that were so common in my professorial past.
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Basically, I want to have fun with the new featured post idea. This will kinda bring me back to school, so to speak, but I want the post to be enjoyable for my readers. This might involve a trial run before it’s a permanent feature.
Also, after I published this post, I thought of having a new feature that would involve the blog posts I read during the week. Those types of posts would be posted on Fridays, if I went through with it.
I’m still kicking around ideas.
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Blog help to share your views with others!
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Lovely…might adopt your goals too haha 🙂
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