Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

May 26, 2008

The Ultimate Guide 2: Surely You Have a Goal?

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 7:40 am

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The Ultimate Guide to a Wildly Sticky, Successful and Outstanding Blog
A SERIES

Finding A Direction — Goals, Titles, and Taglines

Whether you blog for money, or you blog for fun, a successful blog works like a successful small business. Every post is product made for customers called readers. Quality counts. So do schedule and budget. Having a mission and goals, knowing the what and how, and using the right tools for the job make your chance of success far greater.

Surely You Have a Goal? No? Gotta Get One!

A blogging goal gives a blog a heart and a direction. It’s powerful exercise in getting your thoughts focused in on why you’re actually doing this. In essence, a blogging goal provides a measure of success that is there to work toward.

  1. Should you be blogging? 23 Questions for Prospective Bloggers - Is a Blog Right for You?

  2. Wondering whether a blog is for you? Do you see yourself in this list of Top 10 Reasons to Start a Blog?

  3. Goals for New Bloggers is a straightforward outline of how approach setting up a blog on the path to success.

  4. We all have different reasons for why we invest time and sweat equity into blogging. Darren’s Blog Goals - Group Writing Project. Check out the complete list of submissions to read the goals of experienced and new bloggers who participated in the writing project.

  5. In the end, when it comes to Measuring Blog Success: It’s the Goals, Stupid! — No one else can decide the destination you’re seeking.

  6. Things changed dramatically the day I wrote My Blogging Goal. Every decision that I’ve made since has been to support what wrote in my blogging goal.

A Blog Title — Who Are You?

Names are the most important words that we know. They’re the first words we learn about ourselves. They’re how we begin to sort the universe. We say them soon after “hello” when we meet a new person. A blog name says something about the blog and about the person who named it.

Most importantly, outstanding blog titles are memorable and describe what the blog is about.

  1. If your goal is to write for yourself and few select friends, name your blog however you all might find meaningful. If your goal is to write for a large audience, name your blog using words THEY will understand and be drawn to find out more about. One way to draw them is to include Key Words in your blog title. Titles that Grab Readers are titles that simply say what the blog is about.

  2. Dorai answers the question How Do You Choose a Blog Title?

  3. For a look at the most popular keywords already being used, see How Do You Call Your Blog? Be careful on following advice in the post and comments. The information is interesting, but I don’t necessarily come to the same conclusions reading the data.

  4. Nick Wilson collected seven more articles on Killer Titles.

A Tagline — What’s Your Promise?

A fabulous tagline says what’s in it for me — the reader. It makes a promise that I can resist, a promise the blog never fails to deliver successfully.

5 Blog Taglines

Do you recognize these?
You’re only a stranger once. . . . Helping Bloggers Succeed . . .
. . . Copywriting tips for online marketing success . . .
Make money online blogging . . . create your blog free

They are: Successful Blog, Performancing, Copyblogger, Problogger, and Blogger taglines. Each one tells the promise of the blog they describe.

  1. Follow this step by step coaching session on to write a killer tagline.

  2. For more resources, you might review the 25 additional links to posts about taglines included in this piece.

A blog on its own is not really a business, but a wildly sticky, successful and outstanding blog has plenty in common with one. The more you know about your product, your readers, and what brings them together, the easier it will be to catch the attention of those who love what you do.

How are you serving the folks who read your blog?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Check out Models and Masterminds too





Filed under Basics, Successful Blog |




C'mon. Let's talk!

16 Comments to “The Ultimate Guide 2: Surely You Have a Goal?”

  1. May 26th, 2008 at 10:59 am
    Howard Cox said

    Liz,

    Fabulous post!

    Wow, there is a lot of meat in this one brief post. Although both titles and taglines are worthy of input, I am going to restrict my feedback to the subject of goals.

    Goals are the fuel for the engine of productivity. The productivity of knowledge-workers is the engine for the new economy.

    Without a goal, you cannot separate activity from productivity. Therefore, without a goal, productivity is something your leave to chance. If the productivity of knowledge-workers is the key to the 21st Century, do you really want to leave that to chance?

    The definition of productivity is activity that leads you closer to your goals. The amount of productivity is measured by the degree that the activity leads you closer to your ultimate goal. Therefore, a lack of a clearly defined goal by definition leads to being unproductive.

    All of this boils down to your advice being spot on!

    Surely You Have a Goal? No? Gotta Get One!

    Thanks,

    Howard

  2. May 26th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
    Suzie Cheel said

    This a soo good, so much meat and great information, to make lots of us really think about why we blog. I will have fun and learn a lot from the refernces you have supplied.

  3. May 26th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Howard!
    I’m thinking a lot about about goals these days. I don’t think I encountered one until I got to college . . . then they were called objectives. Goals, by that name, came in the world of business.

    Without goals we can’t measure our performance. I agree they are critical to improving and to getting where we want to go.

  4. May 26th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Suzie!
    Like I told Howard, that’s exactly the kind of thinking I’ve been doing myself. Guess that’s why it showed up here.

  5. May 26th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
    Audrey said

    Wow, you have a wealth of information here on your blog. I’m so happy to have stumbled across it. I found it listed in a blog directory. What a great post this is.

  6. May 27th, 2008 at 6:28 am
    @Stephen said

    Thanks for this list, Liz. You just gave me some more great ideas for developing the next stage of my online biz.

  7. May 27th, 2008 at 8:20 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Stephen!
    I’m delighted that you’re still finding ways to grow your biz. You take it higher. You’re inspiring all of us!

  8. May 27th, 2008 at 8:20 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Audrey!
    Thanks!

  9. May 27th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
    SpaceAgeSage said

    OK you motivator you. I changed my tagline (four words) and posted my goal/promise in a sidebar text box. Thanks for the solid words of wisdom on goals, taglines, and promises to the reader.

  10. May 27th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Sage!
    I’m thinking you chose a spectacular four words — Where wisdom fuels change. They describe what you write better than I could.

    You motivate me too!

  11. May 27th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
    SpaceAgeSage said

    Thanks, Liz!

  12. May 27th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Thank you for the inspiration you bring my way!

  13. May 29th, 2008 at 7:24 am
    Somerset Business Success Strategies » Blog Archive » Growth Tool #10; The Key to Unlocking Productivity said

    [...] http://www.successful-blog.com/1/the-ultimate-guide-2-surely-you-have-a-goal/ [...]

  14. May 30th, 2008 at 10:46 am
    ResellRightsYouWant.com » Blog Archive » Small Business Cash-Flow Killers said

    [...] The Ultimate Guide 2: Surely You Have a Goal? [via Zemanta] [...]

  15. July 11th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
    My Blogging Revelation: Too Focused on the Dollars : Performancing said

    [...] of niches – something I’ve slowly been transitioning to all this year anyway. Now, I have a goal and a plan – to be constructively critical, not just critical – and a much shorter list [...]

  16. August 21st, 2009 at 11:36 pm
    25 Lessons You Can Learn From Liz Strauss - Blogging Tips From Jade Craven said

    [...] wrote about this in The Ultimate Guide 2: Surely You Have a Goal? If your goal is to write for yourself and few select friends, name your blog however you all might [...]

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

C'mon Let's Talk!