7 Deadly Mistakes You’re Making while Setting Blogging Goals

Close to 99% of the blogs that are started in 2022 will fail.

It’s a dreary fact, but it’s true.

The difference between blogs that succeed and blogs that fail is how these Bloggers set their blogging goals and move toward them.

Why set blogging goals?

When you set blogging goals or define what your blog is going to look like 5 years from now, you can develop a systemized plan to actually reach those goals and become a successful blogger.

Success varies for every blogger.

You might want to speak globally at events.

I want to establish a legacy of beautiful and functional digital products for bloggers and online businesswomen.

I also want to walk down a red-carpet while people compliment my generosity and my red dress. That’s a goal for 50 years from now. 

Someone else might want to make $10K each month via client coaching alone.

It’s important to write down your version of success so that you can develop a mindset and a blogging routine to move closer to it each day.

Why do most blogs fail?

Most people who fall in love with the idea of blogging are very keen on starting a blog. Once they start a blog, they have zero clues of what to hope for. They set goals like:

“Achieve 10K page views in the first month of blogging.” or

“Get 10 Brand sponsorships on Instagram in the first week of blogging.”

Because they read other bloggers’ income reports and believe that it is the right goal to put down.

They then mindlessly churn out blog posts, hoping for their bank accounts to explode with money and when that doesn’t happen in 3 months, they write lesser and lesser – leading to a slow and painful death for that poor, poor blog.

All of this can be avoided by setting realistic and meaningful blogging goals.

If you haven’t started a blog yet, I highly recommend that you read my step-by-step guide on starting a blog from scratch and this post on writing a business plan that will lead you on the right track to making a full-time income.

In this post, I’m going to cover the major mistakes that bloggers make when setting their blogging goals and how they can fix that so that they can actually reach success.

This post includes affiliate links to products I truly (from the bottom of my heart) recommend, meaning at no extra cost to you, I may earn a small percentage which I will use to feed my sweet, adorable pooches.

1. Setting pointless goals

In 2019, my goal was to hit 100K followers on Instagram with my second account. I had done it before, so I knew it was easy. I wanted to be a famous Comic Artist.

My Instagram account and being a comic artist had nothing to do with my blog because my blog was about blogging and online business. At that point, I used Instagram to get illustration clients and brand sponsorships which really worked for me.

This goal was good.

But working on 2 separate things that dealt with 2 completely different businesses was hard work.

I had time to draw hair comics and create blog posts on blogging but they were not aligned. It was hard for me to keep switching my mindset between two beautiful businesses.

I realized that making money with my blog was easier because the digital products sold on its own and it was more fulfilling because I was helping countless women make money from home.

So I slowly gave up drawing portraits and it dawned on me that my Instagram account was pointless in contributing to my blog income.

The likes and engagement made me feel good but the link conversion rate was terrible. So, I gave it up.

It was painful. But I cut that cord and I don’t look back.

Blog comments and social media likes and followers can make you feel really good, but if they don’t do much in helping you reach your blogging goals, cut the cord.

How to set reasonable goals

Understand the why behind your goals.

If your goal is to hit 2K followers on Twitter, ask yourself why. Is it because you want to build brand-authority so people will book you for your services? If so, that is a good goal.

If your goal is to hit 2K followers on Twitter, because you want to beat your competitors, that is a bad goal.

Bad, bad, super bad. 

Once you understand your Why, it becomes easier to set reasonable goals. It also helps if you are more specific with your goal.

How to set a specific goal?

Instead of setting a goal to reach 30K followers on Pinterest, set a reasonable and specific goal like aiming for a certain amount of traffic that comes from Pinterest.

Because at the end of the day, your followers don’t really matter – your traffic does. Especially if you’re trying to monetize your blog with ads and affiliate marketing.

Once you set a goal, break down this goal into daily, weekly and monthly tasks that actually help you reach your goal, like:

• Create 2 pins each day
• Start pinning on Tailwind Tribes weekly to increase Pinterest reach
• Optimize my Pinterest account monthly to include relevant keywords and boards

and so on…

2. Trying to focus on everything

If you have a full-time job or have 3 children under the age of 10 or both, you cannot expect to write 2-3 blog posts a week and still stay sane.

This is the point where you need to focus on the essential goals and let go of the rest.

You have to work smarter – not harder. Otherwise, you’ll burn yourself out. 

Focus on the essential tasks, cut out the rest

For instance, I spend a lot of time writing blog posts on my website because I manually hand draw every single illustration. It’s close to impossible for me to start a YouTube channel and continue to maintain my blog posting consistency, so starting a YouTube channel is not a goal for me right now or in the near future.

As a blogger, writing high-quality blog posts and marketing should be your top goals. Because without these two, your blog cannot run or get traffic.

If your blog runs on ads and affiliate marketing, your traffic is directly proportional to your blog’s income. If you are selling eBooks or services, your blog’s income is proportional to highly targeted traffic.

Either way, prioritise your monthly or quarterly goals that will directly contribute to your income and focus each day of the month climbing toward those goals only.

If your goal is to increase your traffic, focus on:

• Writing more good quality content
• Promoting your content on Pinterest
• Shape up your SEO
• Write email newsletters

Do no more.

When you say no to unimportant tasks, you’re saying a HUGE yes to tasks that will actually make a difference to your blog.

This eBook will help you with traffic and SEO.

3. Not focusing on the right monetizing strategies

When you’re starting a blog, you cannot create a huge, full-fledged signature eCourse in the first 3 months and expect to make $1K per month blogging.

Why?

• You haven’t built a readership
• No one from Adam knows you
• Nobody is going to pay $99 for an eCourse when you have 2 posts on your blog

I’m sorry, but this is the harsh truth.

When you’re starting a blog, your only goal should be to build trust and a loyal readership that keeps coming back for more. If you are keen on creating a digital product, create a tripwire or a small digital product like an eBook to test the waters.

I boarded this train too late but it was definitely worth it. I make around $600 per month just with my $7 tripwires. I explain how you can build a $7 tripwire in less than 3 days and make $200 each month in this eBook.

Don’t start big.

Start small.

When it starts making consistent sales, focus on creating another ebook and another and build your way up to an eCourse.

Once you have lots of eBooks and eCourses and you are making at least $2K per month from them, consider adding a membership or a podcast.

Here is my free 25 page ebook guide that will help you write and launch an ebook in 8 weeks!

4. Focusing on new strategies instead of fixing what’s there

How do you make money blogging?

It’s a very simple roadmap.

1. You write solid posts that attract people to your blog
2. You capture that traffic by giving away a lead magnet
3. You continuously nurture your subscribers by providing insane value in your emails
4. You lead them to a paid product or service
5. They’re so happy with your work, that they share it with others and become your loyal brand ambassadors

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve just broken down the concept behind a sales funnel.

If you’ve successfully done all 5 steps correctly, you will have a continuous flow of money each month.

Instead of trying to figure out how you can throw in 1 more type of income-generating task in the mix, fix what’s already there. How do you do that?

Ask yourself where you’re falling short:

1. Are you failing to attract people to your website?
2. Does your lead magnet suck or is not related to your posts?
3. Are your open rates low?
4. Are your sales pages bad not converting clicks to buys?
5. Are people not coming back after buying 1 product?

Once you understand where you’re losing customers/clients, work on fixing your sales funnel. You can also download my free sales funnel workbook to help you build a solid sales funnel.

If you promoted an eBook or your coaching service last quarter, and you didn’t make enough sales, start tracing back your sales funnel to figure out what went wrong, so you can make it better.

If you don’t reach your goal in the deadline you’ve set for yourself – you haven’t failed. You’ve just had a minor setback. So modify, tweak and try again!

You may also enjoy:

• How to build a profitable sales funnel from scratch!
• 7 deadly ebook mistakes I made + how I fixed it
• The Definitive guide to building an extraordinary Sales Page

5. Not paying attention to your strengths and energy levels

Understand something very important – everybody has different energy levels and strengths.

Most bloggers suggest that waking up early will boost your productivity. It works for a lot of people. But not everyone. You might feel most comfortable writing at night after your kids go to sleep – do that.

Figure out when you’re at your peak, and when your energy levels are low.

Do not do high-energy tasks during your down lo’s. It will not work.

High energy tasks include:

• Writing a blog post
• Having a client call
• Creating a digital product
• Writing your sales page

Low energy tasks refer to mostly administrative tasks like:

• Replying to comments
• Replying to email
• Scheduling pins on Tailwind
• Tweaking your blog’s design

These are tasks you can do half-asleep or on the toilet.

For instance, I feel super tired in the afternoons between 2-4 pm. I don’t write or draw sketches during this time.

I do low-energy tasks that are fun like replying to my emails or watching 1-2 videos in an online course. I may even finish coloring an illustration I’d outlined earlier as it’s very de-stressing.

I am most productive and alert in the mornings – so this is when I write or create or edit my work.

A cool time hack:

Additionally, batch-work your tasks. Dedicate 2 days a month to creating only Pinterest Pins or Instagram posts. I’ve even started scheduling my newsletters in advance. You can do this once you have a solid content plan and have decided what you’re going to promote each quarter.

That way you can focus the rest of the month on writing and marketing only.

This is a huge time-saver because switching our attention between different tasks can be extremely counter-productive.

Likewise, don’t sacrifice the quality of your life and your mental peace by trying to do everything yourself.

Delegate or automate boring tasks:

Understand what you’re good at and what is easy and fast for you to do. Delegate the rest. I cannot dedicate 3 hours to daily pinning manually.

I tried.

I went bat-shit crazy.

I bought an annual subscription of Tailwind.

When Pinterest went through all that drama in early 2020, I stopped using Tailwind to see if they preferred manual pinning. Tailwind still works for some people and that’s good. :)

It saves bloggers time. It brings them traffic. It will make you sales. I explain how I use Tailwind in this post.

But I am currently using manual pinning and you can read my pinning strategy here. 

Likewise with social media scheduling. I don’t have the time to write a tweet, and write a separate facebook post separately. I use SmarterQueue. It recycles my posts and creates different variations of each post so that it looks like I’m active on Social Media every day.

So, although I look like I’m everywhere, I’m actually not.

When running a blog, it is important to be everywhere because you need to show your audience that you’re active. You need to do this so that your clients and customers know that they can depend on you. These two tools will help with that and save you so, so, so much time.

Both of these tools will come to less than $30 per month. It’s a small price to pay so that you can focus that same time on something that will directly increase your income.

You will also enjoy: How much does it really cost to build and run a blog

Your time is really valuable. If you can focus your time on creating digital products that will directly increase your blog’s income, why you are spending it manually pinning?

Use tools to help you automate repetitive tasks so you can focus your brain space on what matters.

6. Following everyone’s advice

Every blogger/mentor that you follow will give you different advice – mostly advice that’s worked for them. I’m not saying that it is wrong, but it might not be advice that is tailored for you.

What eventually happens is we end up trying to do it all –

• Posting on Twitter
• Creating a podcast
• Pinning 5-10 times a day
• Writing blog posts like there’s no tomorrow

And we see close to zero results which then leads to burnout.

Don’t compare your tiny blog to someone else’s mega blog (that they’ve been working on for 7 years or more). It’s not fair to you or her.

You need to spend some time alone with your blog to see what works for you.

When I started blogging – the general advice going around the block was to write more content. This works beautifully for a lot of bloggers.

But I tried and I burnt out. I didn’t want to write 1.5K word posts when my 5K posts were doing well. So eventually, I gave up writing more posts and focussed on writing only 1-2 a month.

It only brings me 50K page views a month – but I make around $4-5K a month. I don’t have any high-priced digital products – 99% of my products are below $100.

These huge posts fuel my digital product sales massively. It’s what works for me.

I don’t do Facebook Lives, I don’t do paid ads and my reach is completely organic.

I tried to be everywhere at once and failed. So, I stuck to posting on Pinterest mostly and posting a couple of updates on the other Social Media via SmarterQueue, and it worked for me.

I definitely work lesser hours than I used to but I’m happy with my schedule and my income.

Likewise, what works for someone else, may not work for you.

7. Not letting go of blogging goals that are not working

Every single quarter, you need to do an analysis of what worked and what didn’t. If you don’t, you’re not going to grow.

There are some strategies that others swear by that didn’t work for me. Different factors can play a role.

But it’s important to let go of strategies that just don’t work despite what others are telling you.

This even goes for activities that you enjoy that brings you zero ROI (return on investment)

For instance, I enjoyed spending time on Facebook Groups but it doesn’t bring me a very big return on my time. So, I’ve minimized the amount of time that I am active on Facebook Groups – just enough to network with my peeps, but not too long that I lose track of what’s really important.

My main focus is creating digital products that bring value to my readers – and I intend on honing in on this small task that brings countless people joy.

You have to be honest with yourself and find out which activities suck you in while not helping you reach your goals.

Likewise, keep what is working or showing you even the smallest returns. See how it’s panning out next quarter and decide to truly make it better or let it go.

Conclusion

In the end, we all choose to become bloggers because we want to do what we love. But what most bloggers don’t know is that in order to do what we love, we have to work 3 times harder than a normal person and do the things we don’t enjoy doing.

This requires willpower and persistence and it’s not easy.

Every blogger that has become successful has this 1 trait in common – they know how to focus.

Give them a task however boring, they will finish it without procrastinating if it will take their business 1 step forward.

Additionally, if you’re in need for a blog and business coach, you can simply email me@straycurls.com or if you’re not ready for coaching but want to learn everything I did in my 2 years of blogging, you can get this masterpiece:  50 Practical and Insightful Hacks that Helped me reach $5K per month Blogging

This eBook will teach you:

• The basic but most ignored tips which are crucial for building a successful blog
• Included are all the important Traffic and SEO tips I’ve implemented to land on the front pages of Google Search
• The steps that helped me discover my brand and voice
• The best monetization methods that will bring you money quickly
• My productivity tips that you can use instead of hiring a VA
• My personal strategies for maintaining a positive mindset even when nothing is going right

Understand that every tiny step you take toward your blogging goals may not reap the rewards you are expecting right now, but will slowly snowball into something much bigger – this is called the Compound Effect.

Now that you know how to set the right blogging goals, I want you to go ahead and start working on your Business Goals for this year and let me know what goal you are going to focus on right now.

Here are some posts you’ll enjoy reading if you like planning:

• How to plan your blog content for the whole year and crush it!
• A step-by-step guide on writing a kickass business plan
• 23 ways to use a blank notebook for blogging