Today’s guest is Alex Felice from Broke is a Choice! He. is. INTENSE. And I’m in love with our big takeaway here…As a blogger, how can I figure out what to focus on in order to reach MY goals??
This is THE biggest problem that we all face…
There are an infinite amount of blogging strategies, tactics, and ideas to choose from. How can we figure out what to focus on?
How do we find what works for us?
This was the HUGE question Alex posed in this podcast. Keep reading and let’s break it down!
Listen to my episode with Alex from Broke is a Choice:
or listen on Apple Podcasts \ Google Podcasts \ Spotify***
How do I figure out what to focus on?
Bloggers are CONSTANTLY being bombarded with new tools, case studies, how to’s, etc.
(I’m guilty as charged. Sorry all)
It’s overwhelming.
This makes it incredibly difficult to narrow down a specific strategy that will grow YOUR blog.
Note the word “your.”
What works to grow my email list might not work for you…Jeff and Ben’s Pinterest strategies might not apply to your blog.
Traffic. Monetization. Influence. You ALONE will be able to figure out how to grow these things for YOUR blog.
Sorry for that bad news, but that’s what entrepreneurs and bloggers do. They figure things out.
That said, there are a few tips to help you:
Step 0 – The broad formula for any marketing strategy
- Know who you’re trying to reach
- Find out where they’re at
- Figure out how to put your content in front of them
- Deliver relevant content that drives a purpose.
There ya go. I just saved you 4 years and a degree in marketing.
As we keep talking about things like “what to focus on” or “what I should be spending my time on,” it ALL works within the formula above.
For bloggers, this is simple (but super difficult obviously):
- Who? Nail down your specific avatar.
- Where? Where does your avatar hang out online? FB? Twitter? Pinterest? Are they Googling? Forums?
- How? How do I reach them? What kind of content is that? Is it paid or organic?
- Deliver. Make good content that spreads your message.
Step 1 – Define your blogging goals
Not “dreams,” but goals.
Example:
My dream is for DYEB to be a world-wide brand, centered around the most comprehensive and curated learning library for bloggers (Blogger U ding ding ding), and to expand into a small team of about 20 people…which our own office space complete with 2 pingpong tables and a good parking spot for my Tesla.
But that’s the dream, not the goal.
The goals are:
- The email list for DYEB to reach roughly 100k people with a 60% open rate. That’d be insane.
- Make roughly $1M to $2M a year within about 5 years
- 100 new Blogger U members in July
Goals include numbers. Goals are measurable and trackable. Goals are lofty but achievable.
Boom.
Step 2 – Reverse-engineer a strategy to TEST.
Here’s what Alex and I spoke about on the podcast.
Everything above is the EASY part. This step is the hard part.
Why?
We as bloggers won’t ever know for certain which strategies will grow our blogs until we try them.
Neither Pete McPherson nor Pat Flynn nor Darren Rowse nor Tim Ferriss can just TELL you what to focus on to grow your blog.
The best we can do is teach, inspire, and lead you.
HOWEVER, I do think there’s a simple framework to start with:
Learn
Use my podcast, or books, or other people’s courses, or blogs, or coaching. Learn what other people have done or are trying.
Internalize
How can you adapt it to your business? Will their strategies work for your blog? (At this point you’re just brainstorming and estimating).
Implement
Choose a direction or strategy. Make an educated guess as to the “right” path, then take action.
Iterate
Did it help progress you towards your goals? No? Iterate and try something different (either drastically or slightly).
That’s it.
Take a lesson from Matt Giovanisci’s episode…that guy experiments for a living.
He’s constantly setting goals and running NON-permanent experiments to test, learn, and iterate.
Heck, I’ve currently switched my own strategy for growth over the past 2 months…moving AWAY from spending all my time trying to figure out Pinterest, and instead using that time towards a different focus.
I learned and tried to internalize Pinterest strategies for my own blog, and now I’m iterating (or even dropping completely)
So what action can you take today?
If you haven’t already, nail down your goals first.
What do you primarily want out of your blog? What purpose?
Monetization? To build a community of people around a topic you’re passionate about? Other?
After you’ve set a goal comes the hard part: You need to make an educated guess on what specific strategy might grow your blog the MOST.
Focus your time on that.
Focus on one thing at a time, but be adapting constantly.
That’s how you figure out what to focus on.
Have you gals or guys ever struggled to decide what to focus on?
Consider this your engagement call to action 🙂
I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
