Songdo, South Korea
Do you want more blog comments? Where will that take you?
Do you want more traffic? Is it targeted traffic? Is it quality traffic? Is it human beings who want your blog posts, products and services?
Look carefully at your last 20 social media updates. Who do you target with each update? Who do you drive to your profile? Do the update topics deviate wildly? What is your goal there? Do you want to talk about the weather, your kids, blogging tips, sports, social media, politics, religion?
Do you run a blog about the weather, your kids, sports, social media, politics or religion? Or do you run a blog about blogging tips?
How is that working out for ya? How does attracting people interested in weather, then raising kids, then blogging tips, then sports, then social media, then politics, then religion, to your social media profiles, relate to driving high quality blog traffic and blogging income? Especially when you only blog about blogging tips?
Asking these questions is the quick way to figure out your blogging goals.
Asking these questions is also the quick way to figure out if your blogging goals are:
- wild
- haphazard
- scattershot
- inconsistent
- harebrained
because observing your content, strategies and tactics reflects your blogging goals to you.
What 2 Blogging Goals Make the Most Sense?
Drive high quality, highly targeted traffic to your blog.
Drive blogging income.
Why else would you blog?
What else do you want?
Other SMALLER goals can indirectly lead you to quality blog traffic and blogging income IF you keep the goals small, secondary or tertiary and minimal. For example, setting a goal of getting more comments on your blog can indirectly boost quality traffic and blogging income. But you darn well need to keep that goal small or else it’ll supersede the quality traffic and income goals. What happens at that turning point? You predominantly stop getting quality blog traffic and income and start trying to get people to drop comments on your blog.
So…at that point….you move away from becoming a professional blogger and towards someone who gets a high volume of blog comments.
When you buy food at the grocery store do you pay in money or blog comments?
On an even deeper, more discerning, level of clarity, people who drop comments on your blog may or may not buy your stuff and hire you. Why waste your time playing the “may” game by setting a predominant goal of getting more blog comments? Does that make sense?
Or does it make more sense to set a prime goal to drive high quality traffic and blogging income?
Spending most time and work to reach the goal of driving quality traffic and income – I joined ’em because each serves as peas in a pod – slowly but surely draws quality traffic and income to and through your blog.
Why Write the Post?
Most bloggers set meaningless or low value goals, work wildly to reach unimportant goals, struggle to drive quality traffic and income, then quit.
I suffered through this blogging problem on and off during my career. I ran away from quality traffic and income activities towards:
- getting a lot of blog comments
- boosting social media engagement
as my prime, chief blogging goals instead of making each secondary or tertiary goals and focusing heavily on driving quality blog traffic and blogging income.
Of course I struggled to thrive as a pro blogger during these stretches; I stopped doing what bolstered a full time blogging career and spent most time and work doing stuff which did not directly, clearly, drive quality blog traffic and blogging income.
Catalog Your Blogging Work Day
List what you do blogging-wise on a daily basis.
List the time frames for each activity.
Does each activity drive hungry human beings to your blog who want to buy your stuff and hire you?
Yes?
Good. Keep doing that. Stay true to the fundamental blogging goal.
But if your blogging strategies are:
- indirect
- secondary
- tertiary
you need to ruthlessly address and cull activities pulling you away from driving quality traffic and income.
Look at your social media streams. Does every – or most every – update drive highly targeted human beings to your blog who want to buy your stuff and hire you? If not, drop your current social media strategy and replace with a strategy to only publish content which attracts quality traffic and blogging income to and through your blog.
Beware Making the Less Important Become Highly Important
Generating blog comments, social media comments, social media Likes and Shares and inbox messages are less important because none directly, clearly and efficiently drive hungry human beings to your blog to buy your stuff and hire you. Each indirectly, potentially draws quality blog traffic and blogging income.
Set lesser blog comment and social media goals if you wish but keep ’em secondary or tertiary to the most important blogging activities.
What Are the Prime Blogging Activities?
- Publish detailed, targeted posts to your blog
- Publish detailed, targeted posts to social media or forums
- Publish detailed, targeted guest posts
- Publish detailed comments to blogs from your niche
Change the order of 2-4 if you wish. Being flexible is A-OK based on talents, resonance and what seems most helpful for targeted readers.
Keep #1, #1, until you have carefully engineered your blog into a complete resource which answers all pressing, fundamental questions in your blogging niche according to your blogging guidance. Reaching this goal takes a high volume of mindful, relaxed, patient work executed over a long period of time spanning years and 1000’s of hours.
Each above strategy is prime because each directly draws people who want your blog posts and business products and services to your blog without any barriers, resistance or roadblocks.
Ratio
Ballpark, consider an 80/20 split between direct quality traffic and income driving activities and indirect activities.
For example, spend 80% of your time publishing posts to your blog, publishing targeted content to social media, guest blogging on blogs from your niche and genuine blog commenting on blogs from your niche. Split ’em up by quarters or choose 2-3 from the list if you wish. Spend 20% of your time engaging on social media via comments and engaging on your blog via comments.
Follow this rough ratio to mainly do things leading to high quality blog traffic and a professional blogging career.
Conclusion
I did not write this post to condemn any indirect blogging success strategies.
I wrote it to remind you that perhaps your blogging goals seem to pull you away from fun, freedom and a pro blogging career towards stress and less important work that adds needless time and heaviness to your blogging workload.
Do mostly what brings high quality traffic and income directly.
Do a little bit of what may bring high quality traffic and income indirectly.
Take the guesswork out of blogging.
Set and stick to clear goals which directly allow you to become a full time blogger.
