A baby takes their first step any day after 12 months of watching his mum and dad running around to care for them, and the desire to be up and running like their parents shows in baby's eye.
It isn't a fast process and you can't expect him/her to be running around the house soon.
Blogging is the same process which also takes a lot of time to be up and running at full speed. Many bloggers start blogs these days with grandiose dreams of making lots of money and getting thousands of readers.
While there's nothing wrong with dreaming big, because it is absolutely possible to build blogs that are widely successful and profitable, but the reality is that it takes a lot of time and hard work to achieve it.
Focus on first step Blogging Goals:
Babies can't dream of running overnight; they take the first steps and learn to walk slowly. So new bloggers can also do well if they spend more time thinking about the first steps and setting proper blogging goals that will bring them closer and closer to the bigger dreams they have.
I had a chat with a brand new blogger sometime back who had some very big dreams and blogging goals, I reflected back to him that instead of the big dreams he could benefit more by setting some realistic, short term goals.
By short term I mean something where he could see results over a period of “3 weeks” or “2 months”.
Here are some examples of short term blogging goals that I would suggest every upcoming blogger set during their first steps:
- Publish 20 quality blog posts
- Work on the design of your blog to make it stand out and easy to navigate
- Leave a 20 awesome comments on other high visibility blogs in your niche for engagement
- Get your first comment from someone you don't know
- Get your blog indexed by Google using Google Webmaster Tools
- Build a readership with more than 20 readers per week
- Hit a level of 200 unique visitors a day
- Do your first guest post on another blog
- Hit the level of 100 RSS or email list subscribers
- Get your blog earning $100 a month
For new bloggers these blogging goals can be really helpful to take their blog to new level quickly. These short term achievements will boost your confidence and give you the encouragement you need to keep growing.
Now you might think those are great goals and all, but how exactly one would accomplish them? How does one get people to visit a blog that is completely isolated on the web? How exactly is it the few random visitors I get would like my blog and my content? Plus I know that the readers of the blog should be the main source of promoting it, but how do I get the first readers?
Well, spend some time reading the information here on Basic Blog Tips, this is where you can find answers to all of those questions and more.
When babies achieve the first step, they work towards the next steps to be able to walk or run, maybe with the help of parents, but the babies also work hard and sometimes they even fall down too. I'm sure that you can relate to this experience on your blogging journey thus far.
So, now if you've hit the target of your first step goals, start to increase them and double the numbers for your next step.
For newborns to blogging setting realistic blogging goals can be the key to keep your sanity. It's really great to have lofty ambitions and to keep them in mind daily. It might be a small accomplishment that will keep you going everyday, and then it starts to get easier to keep the momentum moving forward for your blog.
Final words:
In today's world we are thinking about instant gratification as a way of getting things done. We sometimes forget that it's a journey to get anywhere in life and too often we think that the end result is what which matters the most. In fact It's a process of getting there which matters the most and which is meaningful.
Being able to build a blog as well as following requires you to be honest with yourself like a baby and learn the idea of taking it one step at a time.
Now I turn it over to you:
Do you agree with me on this? What do you think of those short term and first steps for new bloggers?