First Year Blogging Goals
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Happy New Year! Are you setting your first year blogging goals and aren’t quite sure how to set blogging goals for yourself? It can be easy to get overwhelmed with all the goals for bloggers you find on Pinterest but setting blog goals doesn’t have to be difficult!
Read more to learn my favorite blog goals for beginners and how I structure my goal setting as a blogger!
It’s easy to set goals for your blog once you clarify what’s most important. When you’re first starting, everything seems important. Let’s clarify some things!
The Most Important First Year Blogging Goals
When everything seems important, it can be hard to figure out what’s actually important. I’m coming up on my first year blogging anniversary (though this is my 2nd website this year but that’s a story for another day!) and you can 100% learn from my mistakes!
Try your best not to get shiny object syndrome. There is time to learn all the things. Make a list for all of your ideas and try your best to stay focused. You’ll know when it’s time for something new!
Don’t Try To Do Everything All At Once
This is the best advice I can give to a new blogger. It’s very easy to start working the moment you wake up and not rest until it’s way past your bedtime. There will always be something else to do, especially when you’re trying to start everything all at once.
Instead of completely overwhelming yourself, try instead to focus on one or two things at a time. In my opinion, the three things you should focus on first are getting your website up and running, starting an email list, and setting up your Pinterest account.
Website
This is pretty obvious but as a blogger, you need a website. I was using Bluehost and WordPress but if I’m being completely honest, I was spending WAY too much time figuring out how to make things look nice and not nearly enough time actually doing things that will make me money.
You’ll often see bloggers tell you to stay away from Squarespace but I really like the platform. It’s VERY easy to use, you don’t need to know how to code, and it looks great. I may migrate away from Squarespace when I have money to learn how to use WordPress and can pay someone to migrate my site but for now, Squarespace works!
I purchased my domain from GoDaddy. I’ve found GoDaddy’s customer service super helpful and it’s really easy to set everything up with Squarespace!
Email List
Maybe I’m missing something but building an email list with no money is HARD to do. But the earlier you start, the better off you’ll be!
After you set up your website, watch a Youtube video or two on creating an Email Opt-In or a Freebie. It can be one page long if you want, you’ll likely create more and improve what you have as you continue on your journey.
I use Mailerlite for my Email service. It’s easy to set up, free for under 1000 subscribers, and really customizable. Even if you only have 10 subscribers on your list for a while, get in the habit of emailing them regularly!
And if you’re ready to level up your email for a VERY affordable price, check out my post on Liz Wilcox’s Email Marketing Membership!
Pinterest is a beast but it’s still the best way to drive free traffic to your website! My very, very basic advice would be to create at least 5 pins per post and pin one per week for 5 weeks, ideally to different boards.
There is a lot of very outdated Pinterest advice out there on, ironically, Pinterest. When you’re doing your research, look for articles and posts published in 2022 by people who actually “do Pinterest” for a living.
My FAVORITE person for Pinterest is Nadalie Bardo! You can check out her Pinterest Popular course here, it will change your Pinterest life!
Do What’s Easiest
As I mentioned above, I try to do whatever’s easiest for my blog. Rather than spending hours formatting each post, I slap the words on the screen and hit publish. I don’t spend hours perfecting my colors or editing TikToks or looking for the perfect font. It’s VERY hard for me not to focus on making everything perfect but it’s what’s kept me going this year when I’m basically working for free.
Squarespace is just easier than WordPress right now. Shopify is easier than creating a shop from scratch. Etsy is even easier than Shopify. Pinterest is much easier than Facebook and Instagram.
Focus on what will give you the most bang for your buck in the easiest way possible and do that. You can always complicate it further, later when you have more time, money, and experience!
Set Blogging Goals You Can Actually Control
My biggest piece of advice for setting first-year blogging goals is to set goals you can actually control. You, unfortunately, can’t control how many subscribers you have to your email list, page views you have to your blog, or how many people will buy your digital products.
You can control how many times per day you post, how often you’re on Pinterest, the number of videos you post to TikTok, the hours per day you spend creating digital products…these are all very important things within your control.
Instead of setting goals like “Have 10,000 page views” think of those more as milestones. Instead, focus on posting 1x per week for the entire year. Or creating 1 Idea Pin per week. Posting 3 TikToks per day. The goals you can control lead you to the milestones you cannot!
How to Set Goals for Bloggers
Now here’s my specific goal setting system!
Start with a Theme for the Year
The best way to have a cohesive goal you’ll actually work to achieve this year is to pick a theme for the year to center your goals. Maybe it’s focus or exposure or create. Whatever your theme for the year, make sure it aligns to what you want for your experience and work as a blogger this year. If really want your website to have a full product line by the end of the year, picking exposure as your theme would be a terrible idea because you won’t have time to build your social presence and your product line. Create would make more sense.
Once you have your theme, you can sit down and think about your big goal for the year. Big goals would be having a product line launched, becoming an expert at affiliate marketing, or creating and implementing a comprehensive TikTok content calendar.
Set Your Quarterly Goals
I like to set and plan my goals for Q1 and Q2 at the beginning of the year and then have a tentative plan for Q3 and Q4. Things change quickly! You don’t want to spend too much time planning something for 6 months from now when your website could be completely different by then!
When setting a quarterly goal, it’s important to think about how to break your main goal into smaller pieces. If your goal is to become an affiliate marketing expert this year, maybe your Q1 goal is to find and complete an affiliate marketing course!
Set Your Monthly Goals
I like to do this at the beginning of each month. I think about my quarterly goal and set a smaller goal for the month that supports that goal. For the affiliate marketing example, my January goal would be to research and sign up for a course.
Set Your Weekly Goals
This is the best part, in my opinion. I set my weekly goal and then think about what I can do each day to achieve that goal. For example, my February Week 1 goal could be finishing Module 1 of the affiliate marketing course I signed up for!
If this method of goal setting resonates with you, check out my New Year’s Resolution and Goal Setting Planners!
They come in 10 colors and sizes A4, A5, and US Letter!
10 Goals for Beginner Bloggers
Post at least once a week, every week.
Send one email to my list each day.
Consistently post new and old content on Pinterest.
Create one Pinterest Idea Pin per week
Use Canva to create one new email opt-in per month
Learn how to create a membership/course/digital product and create it.
Become an expert in affiliate marketing.
Focus on TikTok and learn as much as possible about using TikTok to grow your business.
Launch one new product per month.
Develop one new income stream.
There you have it, my advice for setting first year blogging goals! I hope this helped clarify things for you and that you learned something new you can use on your blogging adventure! Let me know in the comments what your 2023 blogging goals are!