Does Your Blog Have a Business Plan?

Are you blogging to make money?  If you are, you are building a blogging business. No matter how big or small your blogging goals are, you should have a business plan outlining those goals.  How else can you monitor your progress if you don’t know what your goals are, right?

I admit, I am not the best at writing down my goals, but when I do write them down and focus on the goals they get completed, and I make bigger strides towards reaching my blogging goals.  The following is what I’ve learned first hand from working on 3 separate business blogs.   I have not found any content online outlining a step-by-step process for creating one, so I’m using my experience to create a blogging business plan.  I call it my Blogging GPS.

How do You Craft a Blog Business Plan?

Creating a business plan for your blog should not be some arduous task.  A great place to start would be a short business plan template i.e the One Page Business Plan for starters and including blog oriented tasks for action steps.  And you certainly can use business plan templates you have found and worked for you for offline marketing.

The Following Points Should Be Addressed In Any Blog Business Plan:

1) Why are you Blogging?

Ok.  This breaks it down to the bare basics.  Why is it that you blog?  Your answer should be more than simply to earn money.   If you blog for a passionate cause, passion will keep you driven, even when the times are rough.  Ask yourself, “what is my ultimate purpose to blog?”  It has to be more than just pure monetary gain.

Is it to become known and market your products (physical and or information) or services?  Is it to to provide more quality content and be known as that juicy blog with great content surpassing others in your niche market?  There may be many multiple reasons you blog.

The more you write and think about it the clearer the picture will become.   It’s like your vision statement.

2) What is your Blog’s Business Monetization Model?

Are you monetizing your blog by promoting:

a) Affiliate Programs

b) Coaching

c) Physical or Digital Products

d) Your own e-books and or books?

e) Ad revenue (more when you build your audience and reach)

f) A combination of the above or other creative methods?

Decide your primary source of blog revenue and make sure to work hardest on that one.

3) What do you Hope to accomplish within Due Time?

Ever hear the quote: “goals are nothing but dreams with deadlines?”  It seems hokey, but if you don’t have a deadline, it’s hard to reach your goal.  Just like if you were to drive out to a friend’s house that lives 2 hours away, and you have an idea about how to get there, but you forget to bring your GPS.  You get lost.

To make achieving your blogging goals more realistic, set a time limit.

• 7 day – what can I do this week?
• 30 day – what can I do this month?
• quarterly – what can I do within the next 3 months?
• yearly – what can I do this year?

I find that the shorter your time limit, the more realistic you set your goal.   It’s psychological.

For instance, if you say your goal is to go back to old blog posts and make sure your meta tags are in tact, and you set it as a goal for the year, chances are you may or may not get to it.  And heavens forbid your meta tag is not in place!

However, if you say this week I will go back and edit my last 5 posts and make sure meta tags in place, chances are you will do it instead of setting the monstrous goal.  When you set a goal that is easier to digest you can get it done.  It’s like eating an elephant one bite at a time.

4) Set Specific Blogging Goals

Just as the Example Above, the more specific you get, the easier it gets for you to accomplish it.

For instance if your goal is only to increase your readership, and don’t set a number, do you think you will make big headway?

Let’s say your goal is to increase your readership by 250 in one quarter.  What can you do each week for 4 weeks that will help you move in that direction?

If you leave the number up to the imagination, you’ll do a little bit of everything, but won’t have a number to aim for, so your actions will be more unfocused. On the flip side, if you set it to 100 or even 50 new readers, that makes little action steps more reasonable to accomplish.

Do you want to sell a few more time slots for your personal coaching?  By how much?  And how will you get there?

Outline the action steps.  One step in front of the other.

5) Whose Help Do You Need?

Whose help would you need to help you make progress?  List and make sure to tap into your relationships and blogging pals.   Do you need to hire a VA?  These resources can become a part of action steps i.e. “Contact Jane Doe this week about a guest post for this week.”

6) Things to Keep In Mind While Building Your Blog and Following

1. Learn and Implement basic SEO (search engine optimization) principles in your blog.  To learn more about SEO read about the Sen SEO Firefox plugin and browse the SEO posts here.
2. Maintain an active presence in Social Media while watching how others are using it to build their following.
3. Don’t just rely on one way to market your content and your blog.

7) Develop a Mindset that Your Blog is Your Business

It did take me some time to really sink in that my blogging was not only for fun and to be known as an authority, but that taking blogging more seriously and organizing my time so that I can do the necessary tasks that would take me toward my goals.

Treat your blog like it’s worth millions.  Develop an positive expectancy that your blog will work!  It will take time, but as long as your goals are realistic, tangible and broken down into steps, you are way ahead of most that start blogging for their business.

Have another tip for creating a blog business plan?  Please share with us.

About The Author

Dali Burgado, also known as "The Dali Blogger" teaches creative entrepreneurs how to carve a web presence that connects with their Inner Guru and their target audience. Her first online marketing love is SEO. She's an avid connector on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. When she's not coaching or teaching, she's tweaking sites for Search Engine Visibility, working on her PHP and Javascript coding skills, Singing Opera, or learning about gardening. Circle Dali on Google+