Strategy and Goals for 2008

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So,  it’s time for an installment of what I believe Road2blogging.com will achieve in 2008.  I’ve been working numerous hours each day putting together articles, posts and a small newbie steps section of the blog – which will be going live soon

I’ve written a detailed version of the goals I’m setting for 2008 and what strategy and tools I will implement/use to get there.  As from the end of the month I’ll be posting a monthly ‘status’ report on how I’m doing (stats and visitors/readers), and what will be the ‘small steps’ for the following month.  As mentioned above, I’m introducing a section in the blog called ‘small newbie steps’;  I’ve written some posts (or steps) and they total about 50 – all will be posted on weekend days and will come out every week.  I was wanting to put all of these together in an ebook (which I may still do – free of course ;-)), or on a newsletter/training course type of subscription, but I thought having the information accessible on the blog would be better – also, it would mean that by the middle of 2008 there would be increased and substantial (and more importantly continuous) content on the road2blogging.com blog.

 

Goals

I’ve put together some goals I want the blog to achieve in 2008.  You may think some of these are far fetched, but I believe that they are achievable for a newbie blogger, and I’ll keep you updated at the end of every month on how I’m doing.

 

Technorati
Getting into the top 5,000 of technorati rankings will be on the cards for 2008, with the additional task of getting to an authority position of at least 800.

 

Alexa 
Making sure Alexa rankings have decreased in the last 30 days hasn’t been that hard – I’m now sitting at just under 300,000, with a 1 week average of 99,000.  By the end of the year I want road2blogging to be in the top 30,000.

 

RSS Subscribers
This has been a tough one, and I’m quite surprised how much blog subscribers fluctuate (yes I know feedburner isn’t that reliable – but that’s for another day), I’ve got a small steady reader base, but with competitions and regular posting I want to reach the 1,000 mark in 12 months.

 

Money/Income
Always one that I really don’t know where to place.  But I’ll take a shot at it – I expect that after June I’ll be earning around $1000 per month – I like to keep this area below expectations – and at the turn of 2008, I do think that $5,000 a month wouldn’t be an unrealistic figure to look towards.

 

Status
Becoming a blogger, providing quality content and regular posting, as well as advice on certain make money online aspects is a key target for me this year.  This will be shown by the above analysis and by being ranked in the top 200 of 45n5’s top 100 money making blogs.  I’ve already produced some guest posts for blogs and expect to be doing at least one of these a week – hopefully, I’ll be posting onto an A-list blogger’s blog in the months to come.

 

 

Strategy

Having a strategy to build on your profile, I feel, is a must.  If you don’t have a plan, or some (clear) direction of where you are taking your blog, then you really need to start thinking about one.  I’ve been doing some thinking for the last couple of months and this is what my strategy for this blog is:

 

Great Content Posts
Posting great content on a daily basis is what’s going to be happening from now on.  If your readers/subscribers haven’t a clue when they are next going to receive a post from you, then you’re pretty much going to lose them as readers – that’s my thoughts anyhow.  I’ll be covering some posts on great content and type of content a post should cover in the next few weeks too.

 

Market and Promote
Promoting the site at this early stage is difficult, you don’t really know anyone and it’s hard to communicate with influential bloggers, so forums and entrecard are the ways I’m going to go to promote the road2blogging.com blog to the blogosphere.  I’ve got other areas I’m also covering below to add to the ‘noise’ about the blog, but these two ‘tools’ I consider to be directly related to marketing and promotion of the blog.

 

Articles
Writing crazily for the past 6 weeks, I been reading that submission of articles to online directories such as ezinearticles.com can bring you great traffic.  Well, that hasn’t happened yet, but it is bringing me a small trickle, and that is better than nothing – I will continue to write and submit articles.

 

Guest Post
I’ve already produced a couple of guest posts for other blogs and want to continue to do this throughout 2008.  I’m not intending to guest post on an A-list blog, as this would be very naive of me, but I’ll be posting on other ‘like minded’ smaller blogs to build my profile and establish me as a recognised blogger.  If you would like me to guest post on your blog, then please contact me.

 

Start other Blogs
Having a couple of blogs does keep me busy, especially with a full-time job too, but I’ve already got my eye on another 4 blog launches in 2008, all in different topic niches – maximising my chances to reach the goals that I’ve set myself.  There is just something about blogging that has become like a virus to me, and pretty much to you reading this now – I love sharing with people my thoughts and understanding on certain topic areas, and stirring up some controversy is always a bonus to interact with readers too.  I’ll be letting you know of what other blogs I’m working on over the coming months, and hopefully posting on them all will become easier as time goes on .

 

Podcasts/Videos
I am currently testing podcasting and videos, and these should be out shortly on the blog, most probably over the next couple of weeks, and definitely before the end of the month.  I’m not sure what I’ll be video posting about in the long-term, but I’ve definitely got around 5 tutorial-style video posts that I want to make, allowing readers to become more aware (from my point of view anyway) on how to complete certain tasks on their blogs.

 

Monthly Contests
Contests are big in the blogosphere world, and I’d be silly to leave this blog out of all of the excitement around them.  On the 15^th of this month I’ll be posting a competition that will have a variety of prizes, ranging from entrecard points, to ad placements.  This is in effort to increase my RSS subscription and general readers who will interact on the blog over the next year or so.

 

A Resources Section
Creating a place where you can go to and read about certain products that can help you with your blogging ‘career’ is another project for me in 2008 – reviewing products and services that are available to bloggers, with interesting links and thoughts from others will be a good taster to see what you should actually be using to learn about and promote your blog.

 

Tools

I’ve been using a few tools lately to help me understand blogging, promotion and sustain-ability of online ventures.  There are many tools that I do use online, but below are some of the more generalised ones that I will be using that are specifically linked to blogging and blogs.

 

Blog Mastermind
I tutorial style program that releases weekly podcast and videos that teach you how to become a blogger.  I’ve been on this for about 5 weeks now (just completed lesson 5) and am learning a-lot.  I will be using the forums, other bloggers on this program and the actual course material to boost this blog’s profile – I’ll of course keep you updated on what is happening and how I’m benefiting from the information I’ve learned.

 

Stompernet
An invaluable resource I mentioned in a post earlier in the week – and a resource that I will be staying close to over the next few months to see what other fantastic things they can teach me about online internet marketing.

 

E-books
Whether paid, or free I’ve found many e-books to be useful, as well as some others to be absolutely pointless.  I’ll be sharing my learning with you over the next couple of weeks, and looking at what are the best e-books in the make money online niche, to help you grow your revenue.

 

I know that’s been a long one, but at least there’s a little detail in what I’m going to be doing.  If you’re interested in keeping up with my progress, you’re probably best to subscribe to the road2blogging RSS Feed.

 

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