Blogging Objectives for 2009
Ajith | Jan 2009 | Updates From Us
At the outset, I would like to wish you all a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2009! (I just realized that I wished only my twitter followers). New Year is also the time to remind everyone of the resolutions and goals setting for the year. As for the personal resolutions I do not have any for this year – as two of my major resolutions were already fulfilled in 2007 and 2008 respectively – i.e. paying off my home loan and quitting smoking (Probably learning how not to loose money in the stock market for several years in a row could be a personal objective)
My career goals – documented as SMART objectives by my employer every year – were almost always met expectations (or exceeded) and I had reasonable career growth, if not an explosive one. And this time around, I thought of setting an alternate career objective for what I consider now as a potential long term career option – i.e. blogging, in one form or the other
What are my blogging objectives for 2009?
My blogging objectives for the calendar year ‘09 can be summarized in the following statement:
Establish myself as a professional blogger who will be considered one of the persons/brands to consult on tips related to blogging, blog optimization and monetization and who has reasonable acceptance and visibility in the blogosphere
Now, if that sounds more like a mission statement, please find the measurable goals that are to be reached until Dec 31, 2009, as part of the stated mission.
- Maintain the current post frequency of 16 posts per month or improve on it, if possible
- Provide innovative and unique blogging tips that you will not get to read elsewhere
- Educate others and self-practice advanced SEO technics that result in upto 80% traffic from search engines
- 2000 page views (~1200 unique and quality visits) per day. Quality of visits for me is measured by a bounce rate of < 60% and average time per visit > 1 minute
- Invent/Discover and talk about monetization mechanisms that convert 1 reader per day into 2 dollars per month consistently
- Improve and establish the brand Dollar$hower in the blogosphere (Technorati Top 10000, Moving on to a professional theme with new branding, $25,000 in brand value in case of a take over bid)
Stretched goals
Time permiting, I would like to contribute more towards the WordPress plugin development by adding at least two useful plugins. Also, I would like to move my other blog (my cricket blog) into a WordPress self-hosted blog with a lot more frequent updates and content.
I feel that if I am able to put at least two-three hours of focused effort in a day on my blogging activities, the above goals can be easily achieved.
What I do not care about?
Inflated RSS counts (ie. if that is not improving the reader quality), increased twitter follower count, writing an eBook etc are not part of my goals this year. Also, I believe that cleaning up and optimizing the content has to be given more importance (which I could not do in 2008) so that I can focus on the stretched goals in 2010 as shown in the picture. I expect 2009 to pave way for the long term bullseye hit is pretty much imminent!
Over to you…
What do you guys think about the above goals? Are they too stretched?
What are your blogging goals for the New Year 2009?
Have an exciting year ahead!
I think the goals you set out are very achievable if you work hard at it. Its like a few other blogger setting out their goals for the upcoming year. I haven’t set any goals of yet because I have been working on a self-awareness thing for myself.
I particularly like your specific goals, such as “reaching so and so position on technorati”, “posting xx posts per month” and similar. I read somewhere (forgot where) that the only way to go forward is setting specific goals rather than generic. Examples of generic goals are, “getting well known”, “making more money”, etc.
In my opinion, DollarShower is doing an exceptional job in the blogosphere and if you manage to attain the stated goals (which I am sure you will), we can see Ajith as the next big person in the “make a living online” circle. Just hope you do not start publishing a “crappy” e-book documenting your journey after this achievement :p
“What you don’t care” section is rather interesting. Why is Ajith not interested in increasing feed readers whist other bloggers spend countless hours and money just to increase the numbers here?
Domain Marvelous’s last blog post… Welcome, 2009
Wow. Nice clear goals. I wish you best of luck in achieving them.
I think they’re reachable, assuming that you regularly work towards them. Although, the Technorati top 10K seems a bit ambitious… although, I might be saying that because I’m around 130K.
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Ajith, you have a very good and clear goal in your mind. This clarity will definately make you reach the goal easily. I will also learn something from you and try to define some goals for my blog
Nihar’s last blog post… December 2008 Blog Traffic & Income statistics
@Bruno, goal setting and announcing it publicly (as yet another filler post
) is a fashion now and hence I did it 
However, even before announcing it, they were my goals…
@Forsaken, thanks for elaborating
Yes, SMART (Specific-Measurable-Attainable-Realistic-Timely) goals are the way to go rather than setting generic goals.
As for your question on the feed count target, it’s not that I am not at all bothered about it. But for my other goals (quality visits, conversions, etc) I need to focus more on search visitors looking for specific topics now that I have a repository of posts on various things. SEO is one of the key focus areas for me this year. I found out that out of my 200 RSS subscribers only 7-8 are clicking back to the blog, commenting or subscribing to what I sell
In other words most RSS subscribers are very passive and they just read the updated content! For monetization goals it’s better to have good number of search visitors but with reduced bounce rate. RSS reader count can be of use for those who post every day or more than once a day but not for those who don’t post every day. It’s just my view 
most others may defer (and it doesn’t mean that I won’t take part in the next blogging idol 
)
@Shirley, In fact, reaching technorati goals may not be as difficult as my SEO and monetization goals. I am already around 70K on technorati and I reckon that from here onwads it might take 150 in bound links to achieve that… In the first 8 months I got ~75 links and hence the next one year I hope to get another 150
@Nihar, thanks for your encouraging words. In fact, traffic-wise you are far ahead aleady, may be the only improvement is the conversion rates? I think you deserve an income between $500 to $1000 per month for the kind of traffic you have.
Ajith,
I wish you good luck on achieving your goals.
What ever you’ve set as “I do not care about” is what I care about and set as my goals.
2009 goal: RSS subscriber count to 2000.
Apart from that, I’ve defined 12 monthly goals. I’ve given one of them below as a sample.
My Jan 2009 Goal: Complete an eBook. I’ve completed 50% of the book already. I started this on Dec itself.
@Ramesh, oops… no offence intended
In fact, your niche is so different (from mine) that people can actually draw maximum value out of it via RSS reading… It doesn’t work for me, though, where competition is very high. And the eBooks I talked about are the typical eBooks that are prevalent in blogging/make money online/internet marketing/seo niche and I am sick and tired of them. In your case, I am sure you must be working towards a real technology eBook which won’t be a bad idea.
Good luck with your goals! And I really liked that you have actually defined monthly milestones and hence the goals are easily tracked.
Really seems to be a mission statement huh? but anyway I think they are very possible… I also set some goals on my blog which hopefully could be feasible to me.
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I agree with Domain, you did pretty well on the specifics. I prefer to see the “how” as well as the “what”.
Dennis Edell’s last blog post… Do You Have Blank Blog Advertisement Slots?
Its a great feeling to have your home loan paid off…all the best for 2009
@Melvin, mission (successfully) getting converted into goals and intermediate milestones is the key… I hope something can be really achieved this year
@Dennis, thanks for your feedback. Being in the corporated world, I am used to setting and getting objectives the S-M-A-R-T way
ZK, thanks buddy. Hope 2009 is a great year for bloggers
Very nice and feasible goals. Keep it up and aim for the success. Even I blogged about my goals some time ago.
“”Invent/Discover and talk about monetization mechanisms that convert 1 reader per day into 2 dollars per month consistently”"
This one stroked my mind
I have to keep a watch on you lol. 
Kurt Avish’s last blog post… Quatre Bornes Police Win The F*cking Chicken Award!
@Kurt, thanks… And as for the money part, haha, why not think BIG
great blogging objectives for 2009. I think to raise 2000 page views / day is still to hard for me
, all the best for 2009.
You have set very realistic goals for your self and looking at your great content, i am sure you are going to achieve them by the end of this year. All the best
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@Dewaji, 2000 page views is roughly 5 times of the page views I have today… Hope that will be realized over an year
@Madhur, thanks buddy… As you mentioned, I am going to focus on the content alone and hopefully the rest will fall into places at the right time.
Hi Ajith,
I finally made it over to your blog.
Happy New Year to you. I hope you get to achieve most of the targets you’ve set for yourself this year.
Paying off your mortgage and quitting smoking is no mean feat. Perhaps you could start a blog about quitting smoking since you’ve conquered it yourself and there are people out there who could do with the support from someone who’s been there.
take care…
2ThePoint’s last blog post… Oh My, a Cheque from American Consumer Opinion Panel…
I like what I see here, Ajith, but don’t discount the RSS feeds. The thing is, if you’re getting more readers for your content, it means you’re reaching a wider audience, and hopefully it also means that people like what you’re writing. I think RSS subscribers are more important than unique visits, because you know those people are getting your content regularly.
Good luck on all of them; great to have goals.
Mitch’s last blog post… Antivirus 2009
@2TP, Thanks for your wishes… In fact, I do not have any tips on how to quit smoking
The Government of India’s health ministry took care of it by banning smoking in work places and public places. When it came to a situation that I have to actually walk half a mile outside my office campus to smoke, I had no other go but stop!
@Mitch, by no means I intended to disregard RSS readers. For me, RSS is also a strong channel to spread the information that I share here. Since it’s more like a natural extension, even without setting some targets, it might still grow. I thought of concentrating on several other things that I need to control better.
Just wanted to make sure, Ajith; gotta take care of you young guys. LOL
Mitch’s last blog post… Antivirus 2009
Wow – reading this makes me feel like such a slacker. I didn’t make any personal or blogging goals. Well, a little weight loss but I just decided randomly to start that today. Are you planning on providing updates throughout the year?
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@Mitch, haha… I can only worry about my current audience, not somebody like Darren Rowse right?
@Kim, thanks… yes, definitely there will be some interim milestones and follow ups.
Exactly, Ajith. And your current audience loves what you do now.
hey Ajith
those are really promising objectives you have for 2009. its really gr8 that you grow step by step. best of luck to achieve these objectives.
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