Challenges are popular on blogs.
I have read many blogs in which the author challenged themselves to lose weight or challenged themselves to work harder and reach a defined goal, whether it be a traffic goal, financial goal, or lifestyle goal.
To me, it is not important whether you reach your goals within the time you set yourself. I view challenges as a useful tool for staying driven. It is the carrot dangling at the end of the stick that keeps you going.
As such, I set myself a blog challenge.
Prefer to read about this challenge? Then keep reading on :)
Setting Goals for this Blog
At the beginning of this year I spoke about my goals for 2017. These goals included increasing traffic to this blog and increasing subscribers to my YouTube channels.
For my goal of increasing traffic to this blog I talked about adding more relevant content. I did not set the goal of increasing email subscribers in the article as it was not relevant to me.
One month later I closed my newsletter and started using Jetpack’s Subscription Module instead.
Without a doubt, this was a good decision. I do not want to annoy people with email blasts, but my current setup ensures that people can get updates of my latest articles via email or via their WordPress.com account.
The Quest for More Readers
I have seen my Jetpack subscriber count slowly increase from zero to around 200 subscribers since I started using it.
I value these subscribers more than those who subscribed to my newsletter before since they truly wanted to subscribe to my blog. They have not been bribed by a free eBook or signed up to enter a competition. They simply want to follow what I do and read what I write. That type of subscriber is extremely valuable.
My hope is that I can continue to grow my readership.
I have therefore set myself the target of increasing my readership to 1,000 subscribers.
It is unclear as to how this goal will affect my blog’s traffic or profitability, however if people start subscribing to this blog at a faster rate, it should mean that I am providing good content that people do not want to miss.
I am not setting myself a deadline for reaching this target, but it is a target that I am going to use to motivate me moving forward.
The whole point of a challenge like this is to motivate you to do what you need to do. Without a doubt, this challenge will help me do that.
To reach 1,000 subscribers I need to produce better content on this blog and reach a better audience. Therefore, this new target of 1,000 subscribers is simply defining my existing 2017 goal of adding good content to this blog.
What Say You?
If you manage a blog, I encourage you to set a challenge such as this to keep you going in the right direction.
Your challenge could be to reach a certain level of traffic, increase your social media presence, or increase the number of incoming links to your website.
Doing this will help motivate you and ensure that you stay on track.
Be sure to share your goals in the comment area below.
Kevin