NB: this is the first in a series of posts on Strategic Blogging. The following posts in the series are – Mission – Values – Vision and Goals – Issues, Present Reality and Future Direction – Strategy – Action Plan
Over the past year I’ve been meeting with a business coach who has been helping me to look at my blogging as a business rather than just a job. One of the things that has become evident to me is that good sustainable businesses don’t usually just happen by accident.
Instead they take planning, strategy and intentionality.
So as part of our 31 days to building a better blog series I thought it would be wise to start by talking about some big picture issues. Whilst these first few posts may not be as practical as some that will follow in the coming weeks – I believe that thinking through the issues that they contain could be the difference between a good and a great blog.
I know that for some this type of talk will be frustrating – words like mission, vision, values and strategy are not where you’re at – but humor me please. You see I believe that if you get these things right you’ll find many of the other tips that I share later in this series to be much more powerful as you’ll be able to use them in much more focused and effective ways.
Over the next few posts I’m going to lead you through a strategic plan process that a friend of mine gave me to think through another (non blogging) project that I’m working on – I think it’s highly relevant for ProBlogging and hope you find it helpful.
In each post I’m going to give us a little homework, a few questions to ask that hopefully will help you to think through the issues at hand. Feel free to answer them in private or to even think out loud in comments after each post.
As I post each post in this mini series within the larger 31 days to a better blog I’ll post links to them here as a central place to see the whole process.
I hope you enjoy.
The posts in this series are:
Looking forward to seeing the rest of the tips for August.
I have recently started blogging and am so inspired by your ’31 days’ post that I am setting myself a project to make my site better in 31 days. I’m going to apply yours (and other peoples) tips for the rest of August and update my progress on my site, http://www.dominicfoster.com.
[…] en Rowse
Strategic Blogging – Mission
This post belongs to the Strategic Blogging Series. 13 years ago when I started studying my Marketing […]
You may find the WordPress In Series plugin useful for creating links to posts in a given series.
I am really lookind forward your series. Sometimes I do feel like I am bloggin with no purpose. I would like to narrow down my approach, and try to make my websites sustainable.
[…] ren Rowse
Strategic Blogging – Values
This post belongs to the Strategic Blogging Series. Having thought about our mission (or why we blog) […]
Thanks for saying it is good to have “values”. I read other blogs whenever I can, to explore the thoughts of others, to see what designs look nice and load quickly, and to expand my mental process to ideas I wouldn’t have conceived on my own.
Yet there are so many blogs out there (both business and personal) that seem to exhibit little in the way of “values”.
I would like to achieve the happy balance of having steady readship and being able to generate some income. I will continue to read and deeply appreciate your thoughts and ideas here.
Very interesting and a great service to bloggers, even those who do not wish to make it a paying proposition. Thanks.
If it matters, I have linked to your site and article in my latest post.
It’s great series. We’ve joined in the spirt by posting our top ten tips for August here. Hope they are of use.
http://www.blog-relations.com/2005/08/02/ten-top-tips
[…] owse
Strategic Blogging – Action Plan
This post belongs to the Strategic Blogging Series. It’s the last one!!! We’ve reached the […]
[…] laring War on Blogger Apathy
Ok so now I’ve finished off the Strategic Blogging Series (read the full series at Mission – Values – Vision an […]
hi iwanna to earn money
[…] I started following Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger blog because I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate blogging into our various business ideas. Darren has a series entitled Strategic Blogging which shows how a blog is like a business (even non-business blogs) in that the ingredients to a successful blog are similar to those of a successful business. I’ve only gotten through the Mission, Values, and Vision and Goals posts, but I already feel like I have a better grasp on how I want to approach my blogs. permalink […]
Well done! Strategy is my forte, but discovering your series prompted me to update my game plan to support a pending campaign launch. For additional beta on developing a blogging strategy, check out Marqui’s Business Blogging 101: Management & Strategy presentation at http://blogbusinesssummit.com/seminars/presentations. FYI – your Blogging Strategic Plan matrix is the second image in a Google Image search on “blogging images” (Internet Explorer).
My main areas within linguistics are semantics (about the general linguistic meanings of words and things) and pragmatics (about how we work out what people mean in a particular context).
I have an ongoing appreciation for strategic management, so I’m happy to find a resource for strategic blogging. Thank you so much for this generous initiative.
[…] This post belongs to the Strategic Blogging Series. […]
It sounds like to me like you Darren have been speaking with Rich Schefren. This is exactly what he taught me in some of his coaching sessions. I never thought to apply it to my blogging. spirit. So many thanks to you for allowing me to reapproach some of the things I knew but wasn’t quite sure how it fit.
You are the bomb. I am just beginning for the umpteenth time and this post is enlightening.
After following you for a good while on Twitter, I have become completely sure that you are the person to teach me how to monetize my blogging efforts. I’m in the shop, fine-tuning the engine, reading your series, putting the screws on the new theme, and doing the same for my wife’s blog.
Thanks for all you do.