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You’ll have set blogging goals for the new year. I don’t need to know what they are, but I do hope they are SMART goals.
Now you have your goals, it’s time to make sure each blog post you write works towards those goals. The goals you have should help you create the content you need. Don’t just write haphazardly.
It’s easy to lose track of your blogging goals after a while if you don’t focus on them, or if you don’t have a plan of attack. You start to lose the wood because of the trees, so one of the best things you can do is look back over your goals now and then.
Make sure each blog post continues to serve those goals.
Here’s how I blog by keeping my goals in mind each time.
I start with a blogging persona
When I’m blogging on somewhere other than my personal blog, which is more like the old-school blogs and purely to get my thoughts out, I don’t blog for myself. I’m writing for you, the audience.
So, I need someone to write to when I put words to my page. There are so many of you from different walks of life reading this, and I can’t focus on everyone.
I have a blogging persona, also known as an avatar, in mind.
This avatar is someone I’ve crafted into a person. I know what their interests are, what they want to gain from my content, and what they want to learn. This is my target audience.
And with that, I can make sure my content is what it needs to be.
How does this help me write with my blogging goals in mind?
I need to make sure every piece of content does one thing: helps my blog grow. I can’t do that if I don’t know what someone wants to learn when they come to my blog. The avatar helps me do that.
I assess what I want to achieve during the month
While I have yearly blogging goals, I will also break down my goals by month.
Each month, I look at what the goals are. What do I want to achieve by the end of the month and how can I do that? There’s a new plan for every month, assessing whether I achieved my goals from the previous month and what I need to achieve during the upcoming month.
This then allows me to plan out my content.
I start with a theme. Over recent months I’ve moved away from themes, but they do work best for my blogs and for my content creation, so I’ll be moving back to them this month.
With the theme, I can then create the content within the theme. I make sure everything works for the persona that I created. And the content must work for the goals I have in mind.
To grow my blog, I need the content to be actionable, interesting, and shareable. I need it to be useful to you, the reader.
I consider the products I’m promoting to meet my blogging goals
Part of growing my blogging income is through affiliate marketing. This is something I focused more on throughout 2020, figuring out the best way to share products on the blog and the best types of products to promote.
Whenever I blog, I look at the products or companies I’m an affiliate of. I’m not an affiliate of many products for blogging except for hosting and a couple of books that I love. However, this is something I’m growing on. Courses are a big one for me in 2021.
While you’ll see the odd book linked to in content, I also make sure I offer content that talks more about these products that I’ve used before. I make sure you know why I love them, why I recommend them.
And I’m not just looking at affiliate products. I want to create my own products.
This is a goal for 2021. You’ll see me blog more about product creation as I figure out more about it and how to do it. After all, if you’re looking to grow your own blog, you’ll possibly want to do the same.
MORE: How to revitalize your dormant blog
Always look back at the blogging goals you’ve set. They can change along the way, and you need to make sure you meet them each month. This will help you continue blogging in a way that serves them.