How to Set Your Goals to Relaunch Your Blog – 7 Question To Ask Yourself

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Time ago you stopped blogging and don’t even remember why.

After a long holiday, you come back home and don’t feel like updating the blog for the first couple of days. You changed your routine and find it hard to start writing a new blog post (can’t find the inspiration right?)

Without even realizing, the time passes by and what was days it’s now weeks and months… you did it! You let it go 🙁

But let’s not dig into the reasons, life is busy and things happen.

What really matters is that you want to come back and… that is what matters!

I need to confess something.

I can’t hold it any longer…

…

I also let my blog die slowly and painfully, FOR 2 YEARS!

Even after making over $1,600/month, but….. how? As said before, let’s not dig into it, all would be excuses – sigh!

BUT, today I can say that I relaunched my blog successfully and with more energy and commitment than ever. Coming back to blogging wasn’t easy, and it felt like starting over again – but with a twist.

I’ve planned my relaunch for over a month. A month of hard work and nights of coffee in one hand and the mouse in the other.

During this time I’ve learned a lot!

You would be asking how come, I didn’t publish anything, that’s a month wasted! And that’s far from the truth. In the last month, I’ve created and executed a strategy in the background to help me successfully relaunch this blog.

Today I’m starting these new series about how to relaunch a blog. I’ve done loooooads of research and I didn’t find much information. So, I decided to start this series for you.

If you are in a similar situation that I was a couple of months ago, this article – and the coming ones that I’ll be posting in the coming weeks – is for you.

The first chapter of this series is about setting up your goals.

Are you ready? Ok! Let’s jump in!

Set Your GOALS First

The first step to create any strategy is usually the most important, and this time it’s not an exception.

Setting your goals can be the difference between a super successful blog, and you quitting AGAIN in a few months (or weeks).

I’ve included below the 7 questions you ask yourself – I did ask every single each of them myself and wrote them down, I still re-visit my answers to check that I’m on the right track.

Why am I re-launching my blog?

This is an open question. Try to be sincere with yourself, don’t give the standard answer you think people want to hear.

Your blog is yours and your purpose should align with your goals.

If your goal is to make money, be honest, and admit it. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make a living from your blog. In fact, that’s partially why I wanted to re-launch my blog – and I’m saying partially because I don’t want it to stop there.

I want to make a living from my blog and create a successful business that provides a diversity of income streams. My blog is my face towards the world – I want to make clear that I’m here ready to achieve my dream.

And you?

What should I blog about?

Is it the same topic as you blogged before? or will you change the direction of your blog?

It’s very important to get these right since the beginning because they will be the foundation of your blog. You can also change them later, of course, but try to avoid that mindset, changing constantly your goals will keep you distracted and away from creating valuable content.

What is my target audience?

The next question to ask is who will be your target audience?

It seems like a trivial question but it’s really important to address it well – BECAUSE depending on the answer, your blog strategy will swift towards one are or another area.

For instance, if your target audience is mom bloggers, you might want to explore Pinterest as a source of traffic. While if your target audience is software developers, you will benefit from having a strong presence in GitHub.

Where do I want to be in a month’s time?

In a year? In 5 years?

It wasn’t easy to answer these questions in my case. Especially the last one!

Close your eyes and try to visualize how would you imagine your future in 5 years. You’re allowed to dream… DREAM BIG!

Imagine how a normal day would be since you wake up until you go to sleep – recreate yourself in the details (what car will you drive, where will you be working, what type of people will you be working with)

By doing this exercise you’ll realize that many things from your daily routine are not included in your dream day. Maybe it’s time to get rid of some of those to start making a change.

What does success looks like?

This question really depends on your own definition of success.

For some people, success is a synonym of recognition from family and friends. For others, success means having a strong online presence and driving sales.

When I answered this question I realized that for me success means growth. Every time I achieve any sort of personal development I am fulfilled, but not for long, I need to keep moving towards the next milestone.

That’s why I call it my path to success. I’m not going to the next step. Steps are abrupt and sometimes hard to climb. Instead, a path is a journey that changes over time leading to your goal.

And the last question…

How will the best version of myself be like?

Envision who you want to be in the future, how does that person behave? You can be that person one day (and I truly hope you will).

You need to believe in yourself – behave like the version of YOU that you wanna be and you’ll start believing it.

You will start changing!

The moment you believe in yourself, you’ll start projecting that image of you on others – you will create trust, respect, and a reputation.

A mistake some bloggers fall for is trying to mimic other bloggers. It’s good to have models, but trying to become that person won’t lead you to your goals, you would be following somebody else’s path, even worst, a dupe of his/her path.

Always, always, always commit to your values and make what makes you happy, not what makes others happy.

Set realistic goals for your blog

Now that you have answers to all these questions, it should be easier to set your goals.

Write them down, AND read them every day – it will help you to keep focus during the first few months until you have them engraved in your ADN.

It’s QUITE important to mention that you should set up realistic goals for your blog. You can dream big but you also need to know yourself and decide what you can really achieve in a month’s time.

As always, when you are learning something new, (or re-learning in this case) things move slowly at the beginning. You don’t want to setup unmanageable goals that will make you feel miserable while you drown in your own work – INSTEAD gotta start slowly but consistently.

Examples of goals setting you can use

Below I include some examples of goals that you as a blogger can set up when relaunching your blogs:

• Write X articles per month,
• Create X pins per week,
• Set up your email list,
• Create X freebies,

You get the idea! 😉

They are easy to track and escalate or reduce for the coming months.

How NOT to set your goals

Traffic. Followers. Income.

These are not really goals, these are results, you really can’t control them – AND it’s really dangerous to set them as goals.  There is nothing more disheartening than working hard towards a goal that you might not meet.

In fact, this is one of the reasons why many bloggers quit. They try to mirror the results of other bloggers, and if they don’t get the same results (not goals), then, they get demotivated and gradually let their blogs die.

Be smart when you set up your goals and make sure they are achievable.

Now it’s YOUR Time!

I hope this article helped you think about your goals, not only for your blog but for any other aspect of your life.

You can set up your goals for your family, your job, your hobby.

Preparation is key when setting goals, so when you move to the execution phase you won’t have any doubts about why you are doing this or that.

Did you let your blog die? Are you planning to relaunch it? Or maybe you are planning to set new goals for your active blog?