It is exactly one month since my blog got launched. I took few days for installation including selecting the right theme and working on various plugins. Through all this time quarterly planning for new blogger was at the back of my mind and I was waiting to work on it. I first started to blog on July 4th 2007 and since then have learnt many things about blogging. The biggest mistake was hosting it on blogspot rather my own domain. However the experience was truly enriching and I tried almost everything related to blogosphere. Things would have been really different had I started Mystic Madness 2 years back but then its direction would have been different from what I have taken today. It is important to be old in eyes of Google for you to score high and this is something which my blog lack at this point of time. However I am happy that I took the first step and I hope this post which will help many new bloggers with their quarterly planning..

Few hours back I finished my quarterly plan. This is first time I have made the plan for my blog. It is very essential to help me remain on track and measure myself after the end of period. I have used whole of preceding month to work on intricacies of my plan and it took me whole day today to work on final details. It is important that a plan should clearly state your targets and dates around them. It will definitely help you to be on track and prevent the thoughts that keep circling in my mind. Things need to be fixed down in a paper and I am glad I have done that while working on quarterly planning. Since my blog is new I don’t anticipate many distractions in terms of new offers or projects. However I have kept some buffer in terms of the work in my office and possible delays due to social engagements. While I have made list of everything what I can assume today but I have left the space for anything which I might have missed. In a way it will help me in my next quarterly planning. Earlier I wrote about Pen and Paper as excellent tools for productivity. I have complied with that entirely and have made sure that all thoughts are right there in the paper.

My plan is based on bigger picture. The bigger picture is where I want to be in mid and long term. I consider 2 years as mid and 5 as long term. Quarterly planning for new blogger is only a start of it. However as of now I have not thought of anything beyond two years. Journey is long and I am not sure when I have to change my path. This is very helpful approach because of simple reason that it helps you to decide. Imagine a case where I am tempted to write about a celebrity, the aura of whom would fade in 2 years. So my post would also have limited life. I want my posts to have much larger life. I want my post to remain valid for time to come. You can see some posts at the start of my blog which are very specific and have lost their meaning in one month only. I don’t want to repeat that till the time I have reason to do so.

The Quarterly Planning can vary from Blogger to Blogger. The ambition of new blogger can relate largely to below four goals

1) You just want to use this as a journal

2) You are already a celebrity or have a business and want the blog to be a way of communication

3) You want more money. You want to either make your career out of it or support you income.

4) You want to use your blog to create new avenues for you in future.

The crux is that in order to achieve any of those you need to be an authority in your field. This is not easy because the space above can accommodate only few. Nevertheless if you are committed than I see no reason that why you won’t succeed. Quarterly planning is a step in that direction.

I am sure you must be wondering what I have included in my quarterly plan. While detailed plan wont help you but I am giving some pointers. There are two most important things for any Blog. The first one is content the other is traffic. I have already worked on number of posts and their frequency from content angle. From Traffic standpoint I plan to work on SEO and creating Backlinks. There are number of methods to work on backlinks and I would try almost all of them. I have target in terms of number and their quality. Apart from this I want to be regular on some forums and learn more from other people. Essentially the quarterly planning for new blogger should include

1) You goals related to content

2) Type of content

3) Frequency of content

4) Monetinizing the content in your blog

5) Marketing your blog

6) Which forums to join and level of participation

7) Networking with fellow bloggers

8 ) Any email campaign you want to start

9) The books you might want to read

10) A target in term of backlinks.

11) More ideas in order to increase traffic.

Continued Below.........

New blogger should try to quantify each one of those in his quarterly planning and make the goals realistic. Since it is your first plan make sure the goals are not very stringent and something you can achieve easily. Anything extra over and above your quarterly plan is clear bonus and you should celebrate that.

Don’t expect miracles to happen in few months. Google give lot of preference to old blogs with huge content. It has its own reason for that and we should respect its approach. Don’t expect major gains if you are new to this field and not a celebrity. If the start is good then you have fewer problems in future. Remember till certain point you have to wrestle for traffic and popularity. After a certain point it becomes natural and multiplying in Nature. Go for quarterly planning it will help you organized and successful in future especially if you are new blogger.

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