What Does Blogging Success Look Like for You?

Success looks different for each blogger, and it’s really easy to get caught in the trap of measuring your blog’s success (or lack of) to some popular blogger. Don’t. Instead, find your own key to growth!

A New Blog Success Story

“In just one month,” I announced to my students, “your blog reached 716 unique visitors and had 2,509 page-views.”

They looked at each other and then at me. Finally, someone raised their hand, “Mrs. Ojeda, what does that mean?”

“I’d say it makes your blog a success,” I said with a laugh. “I blogged for four years before I had that many people visit my blog in a month.”

They started to smile and give each other high fives. I waited for their celebration to die down a bit. “And, you did it all by sharing on Facebook and tweeting,” I told them.

“Yeah, because Pinterest banned us,” one of the students grumbled.

“Right. I still haven’t figured that one out. For now, we can count our social media experiment a success, though,” I assured them. “Now, what should we set as our next goal?”

Celebrate Success and Set a New Goal

While I had no problem celebrating the success of my students’ blog, I confess I didn’t take the time to celebrate the success of my own blog very often. Maybe because I hesitated to set goals for my blog.

For my students, the goal seemed easy—start a blog and have people read it. We used Facebook (both our personal accounts and our blog page), Twitter, and Instagram to share the posts they’d written, and the success of our social media campaign shocked me.

This school year, our goal entails having a post scheduled for each week from March to September. I still have a lot to teach them about the process of blogging, writing, designing graphics, and social media. For their posts last February, I did all of the graphics, headings, and tweetables. I want them to learn how to do this on their own.

As novice writers, it takes a long time for my students to write, revise, peer-edit, respond, revise, and create a final draft of anything. Some days, I feel overwhelmed by our goal. But I know that a dream without a plan is just a wish.

Everyone's journey to success will look different–and that's ok. #blogger #bloggrowth #write28days Click To Tweet

That goes for my students’ blog and for my own. This year, I set a goal for my blog: double my blog traffic. Some days, this goal overwhelms me. It seems audacious and unattainable. But I know that I will find success in the journey towards the goal—even if I don’t reach it.

The Key to Finding Success

If you want to find success in achieving your goals, you have to understand the importance of the journey. Everyone’s journey will look different.

For my students, success lies in improving their writing abilities in ways that will prepare them for college and the real world. Our blog numbers and how many posts we have scheduled don’t really matter.

For me, success lies in improving my writing ability and my workflow. If I actually double my blog visits this year, I’ll celebrate. Even if I don’t hit the mark, I’ll still celebrate at the end of the year because of the hard work I put in while working towards the goal. My attitude about a ‘successful blog’ has changed a lot in the past two years.

I used to yearn for reach like Jennifer Dukes Lee or Holley Gerth. When my friends shared posts from other popular bloggers on Facebook, I felt sad that they never thought to share my posts, too. I fell into the comparison trap. Climbing out of my pit of self-pity took a while—I had to learn to reframe my reality.

I’ve learned to celebrate more often and to measure my success by how far I’ve come—not by someone else’s success.

What does success look like for you? Create both short-term and long-term goals and celebrate more often. Learn to reframe your reality.

Instead of saying, “No one ever visits my blog,” (a generalization), say, “I don’t have a lot of blog traffic yet, but I will learn how to create authentic engagement with the people who do visit.”

Go ahead! Share your goals—however audacious—in the comments. Share a goal you already achieved or a goal you’ve set for this year. Let’s celebrate and encourage each other on our paths to success.