Darren Rowse’s Secret: How To Become A Successful Blogger

Recently, he organized a Question and Answer podcast for  buyers of his "31 Days to A Better Blog."

In answer to one question, he said:

My own strategy in the early days of blogging was much more about setting myself traffic goals and trying to increase traffic by 10% or 20% a month. That was really I remember probably about a year into my blogging and that was my goal 10-20% extra a month I wanted to have in terms of traffic because I knew if I could sustain that kind of growth over 2/3 years that I would have quite sizable traffic. So instead of setting massive goals set yourself those types of goals and see how you go.

What's the secret in this?

Well, the secret is setting up goals correctly! I have seen many bloggers fail because they do not set their goals right. They have that flair, that passion, that skill but they waste themselves without clear goals.

How Setting Goals This Way Can Help You

One thing that caught my eye was Darren's suggestion of setting up goals marginally higher for each month. Following his advice can help you a lot.

1. You Know The Ground Reality: First thing you need to know is the real ground, where you stand and what you can achieve. Most of us are of escapist nature. We do not want to accept reality. When you analyze your current situation to set goals, you become aware of real situation and can be more realistic.
2. It is not Difficult: Achieving 10% more is not much difficult for anyone. By spending a little more time everyday, you can easily achieve your goals.
3. Results can be Mind Blowing: Now, 10% is not something big! You might say! But if you look closely, the results can be great. In about a year or two, you will have lot of traffic.

Important Areas To Set Goals

Here are some important areas in which you can set up goals and the questions you should ask yourself:

• Traffic: How much traffic do I get and how can it be increased?
  Tip: Track your Visitors.
• Content: What kind of posts should I write and what should be frequency?
• Community: How to attract more people to become loyal readers and how much?
• Monetization: How to make money, from which source and how much.

How to Stick With Goals?

Sticking with goals is most difficult part and this was my question. How to stick with the goals/strategy?

Darren's answer was simple, using a Calendar.

At first, this does not seem a great idea but believe me, when you get that feeling of satisfaction after marking a task done, you can easily form this habit.

On first day, I set the goal to write 2 posts. I ended up with one full post and one half. These days, I am using HiTask, an online task management service. It's free version has all the features you can ask for and I recommend trying it.

That's it for this post, now give me permission to mark this post's task as done.

Do not forget to share your thoughts in comments!