What Blogging Impact Will You Create In 2015?

Usually bloggers at this time of year are bouncing with verve and excitement at the prospect of a brand New Year, brimming enthusiastically with intention and resolution.

But not me. I’m exhausted. Last year was a tough one to make my blogging impact, and the coming year will be equally so. Not that I’m daunted, I’m just realistic at the task.

But as with all long journeys, you need to start with that first step. Get the momentum going, create a plan or strategy, focus on what is important and off you go…

A New Year’s Present!

Here’s a little something I cooked up for my newsletter followers before Christmas, and now you can have a chance to view it too. Enjoy!

You know, it’s not difficult to create one of these Slideshares. All you need is Powerpoint, a message or story, some images and a desire to share!

Work With Inspiration

One of the many reasons I try to make a blogging impact is to inspire more people to blog. Over the past months I have been doing a heck of a lot of research. Apart from being very informative and exciting, it has inspired me to recreate and transform what I have learned into some new blogging courses especially for you.

What have you been working on lately? Have you managed to get it ready for the New Year? Even though I haven’t – yet – suitably prepared myself, it is in progress. I’ve also been very busy in collaboration with two colleagues with an exciting new course – if you want to know more, sign up to my newsletter!

So, fuelled with inspiration, knowledge and desire, let’s tackle the New Year head on.

Are You Prepared?

All the boring stuff marketing gurus spout forth about planning, scheduling, looking at goals, etc, really ought to be explored. We can waste an exorbitant amount of time just faffing about and playing at being busy.

I suffer very much from this. I think that constantly learning, reading stuff, commenting and engaging on social media in order to increase my blogging impact are a good thing, but not when it takes over your life! Sometimes a whole morning goes by and I haven’t done any of my own work – something I want to stop doing in 2015.

Time spent in preparation saves time later when you get down the real work. Time is always a big issue for bloggers and entrepreneurs, strangely there is never enough of it. But you would never attempt to bake a cake without making sure all the ingredients are ready and in the correct amounts. And this is the same with blogging and digital marketing.

Getting Things Ready

Carrying on with the cake scenario, preparation also includes cleaning the utensils and clearing the surfaces in your kitchen. Have you got your bowl and wooden spoon ready? Are the weighing scales accurate? Is the oven heating up?

When did you last back up your blog? OK, if you are super efficient you will have in place applications and services that regularly do this for you, giving you peace of mind and a sense of security. New Year’s Day is always when we update our computers, clear out any old stuff, and store content that is no longer needed at that time. We free up space, replace old software and prepare the ground for the next big drive at creating a better blogging impact.

Of course backing up and updating programmes, software, plugins, themes, etc should be carried out regularly throughout the year. Many a time have I been truly thankful for a backup that saved the day. And are you aware you are leaving yourself open to hackers if you don’t update your WordPress plugins and themes as soon as they need to be done?

One of my many tasks is to update my username and password. I had a shock last week when someone requested my password through WordPress, having guessed my username. Of course the email came to me, but it was a wakeup call that prompted an action I had been putting off for too long.

Start Your Blogging Impact

Now your blog has been prepared for the New Year, let’s get started.

You may have heard of the old adage “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.” I advise you to heed this if you want to achieve a viable blogging impact. But just because this is something none of us relish doing, it’s so much easier to launch straight in, and not bother with the instructions. Remember if you don’t stretch before you go on a long run, or read the manual before putting together a new piece of furniture, you’ll soon find you come a cropper before long.

Yeah, we all know we need to write down our tasks into a to-do list, but this can become quite daunting. I suggest look at the end result, and work backwards. Write the thank you page before you compile the sales page. Look at your final goal and create the smaller goals you need to achieve before you can reach it.

Choose five things a day to do. And don’t avoid the most difficult ones either. Get those done first and out of the way before you can enjoy doing what you want, like eating up your greens before enjoying your mashed potato. This will create a sense of achievement that stimulates well-being, accompanied by the justified reward.

Strategise what needs to be done each day. Create a diary of events for each week. Include within it tasks that take little effort yet bring in big returns, to give you that necessary boost you are doing things right. Prioritise your actions according to your goals, understanding that completing these will bring you closer to creating your blogging impact.

Ready, Set, Go!

Now it’s up to you! And remember, unlike the majority of New Year resolutions, this shouldn’t be for the short term. If you want to be successful in creating the kind of blogging impact that will make a real difference to you and your readers, you need to maintain the consistency we all know that keeps a blog happy, healthy, and wise.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I don’t write nearly enough. But having a plan of action, an editorial calendar and regularly brainstorming topics, headlines, call to actions and reactions to research will make a difference if I can keep the momentum going.

It’s like loosing weight or getting fit. If you really want to do it, you will. I have achieved these in the past, so I know it is possible. But it does require hard work, perseverance, determination, passion, belief, and being totally bloody minded. So are you ready to create a blogging impact in 2015?

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