How to Develop a Winning Blog Strategy
For those bloggers who hope to use passive income” href=”https://allblogroll.com/8-best-ways-generate-passive-income/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>blogging as an income-generating tool, it is important to have a winning blog strategy. A winning blog strategy is one of the best determinants of blogging success. You see, success doesn’t happen by chance. Success in blogging happens with careful planning and purposeful execution.
Anything less will not produce the desired results. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that starting a blog and making money from it is as easy as 1-2-3 because it is not. It certainly is not as simple as writing a few articles and publishing them online. In today’s article, I will be sharing with you how you can begin to develop your own winning blog strategy.
Establish Some Goals for Your Blog
Every strategy session should begin with goal setting. You have to be clear in your mind about what it is you want to accomplish from blogging. What are the main objectives that you want to meet from your blog? Some questions that you can ask yourself are:
- What is the number one thing that I want to achieve by blogging?
- What are my other secondary objectives?
- Why am I blogging? Is blogging the most effective way for me to achieve my objectives?
- What do I hope to accomplish along my blogging journey?
These questions will help you to establish goals for your blogging. Is your main reason for blogging to establish yourself as a thought leader? Is it to gain exposure for your personal brand or to build your brand image? Is it to market a product or a service? You must decide on your reasons or blogging.
We all have different ambitions and it is those ambitions that will help us to better achieve our goals. My primary objective for blogging
for example, is to build my personal brand image and to use that as a means of gaining exposure for the services and products that I have to offer.
You shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that every blogger’s goal is the same. Some persons blog just to make additional income. Some blog to gain influence. There are myriads of reasons why people blog.
So since different bloggers have different objectives, then it means that their strategies should also differ. It is not wise to blindly emulate another blogger’s strategy based upon the assumption that your blogging goals are similar to their’s. That may not be the case at all.
Therefore, you must establish your own blogging goals bearing in mind that your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.
Take Inventory of Your Resources
Coming up with a winning blog strategy necessitates the taking of stock of the resources that you have and the resources that you need to get the job done. Time is definitely a resource that you are going to need if you hope to become a “successful” blogger. “successful” here, I don’t necessarily mean financially successful.
Successful means that you have achieved your blogging goals and objectives whether they are monetary or not. It takes time to achieve success in every single area of life. Blogging is not a set it and forget it endeavor. It does require considerable amounts of time if you plan to do it well.
So decide how much time you have at your disposal to dedicate to blogging. How many hours during the day will you dedicate to it? Bear in mind that apart from writing the blog posts, you also need time to conduct research, to find or prepare acceptable blog images, to edit, and definitely time to market or promote your work. All these should be taken into consideration.
Money is also a resource that you need to operate a profit blog. If you are not blogging for profit, then you can get by with a free web host and free services. But if you are blogging for profit, you will need to purchase web hosting, a domain, and other products and services.
You may want to pay for marketing or advertising or you may want to pay someone to help you to write articles. Whatever the product or service is, you need to consider the financial requirements.
You will be more successful if you also surround yourself with a network of persons who will support you in your efforts. Whether it is other bloggers, influencers, or peers, you should look at your network and decide if it is sufficient to support your efforts.
Perhaps you may need to expand your circles to include other persons who can help you to achieve your goals. A winning blog strategy gives due consideration to the resources that you have at your disposal.
Have a Realistic Plan of Action
It is all well and good for us to have goals, but without a plan of action, we will be stuck at square one. A plan of action is what is going to guide us as we seek to accomplish our goals. Your plan of action essentially outlines the steps that you need to take to achieve your objectives.
For example, you may decide that you will publish one (1) blog article every week and that each article will be around 700 words long. The plan would also include the steps you would take to gather information for those articles, when you will write them, which media you will advertise or market through and so on.
There are numerous action plan templates online that you can use if you need help creating an action plan. It is always best to not only write down your goals, but to also write down your action plan as well. This way, you are less likely to forget and it also adds a level of seriousness to your plans.
Take the time to really think about all the goals and objectives that you have set and what are the necessary steps to achieve each of those objectives. All those steps should be included in your plan of action. Be certain to answer the tough questions like what steps you will take to market your blog etc.
In addition, you should always have a plan B to fall back on if your plan A does not work out.
A Winning Blog Strategy Must Be Executed
Execution is an area that many of us fall short in. We are great at setting goals and at making plans but when it comes to execution, we lack the discipline to follow through. Well there is no cure for lack of execution except execution.
It requires self-discipline and it requires determination. We just have to do it. No excuses, no procrastination, no time wasting.
All the best laid plans and strategies in the world will come to nothing if they aren’t executed.
Napoleon Hill puts it this way:
Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday
Conclusion
Developing a winning blog strategy is a matter of establishing some goals and objectives, taking inventory of the resources at your disposal, creating an action plan and executing those plans. Success in blogging does not happen by chance. It happens through careful planning and execution
Start developing your own winning blog strategy today!
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