blog success? come out of the fog

I have come late, as usual, to an interesting blogosphere discussion.

This one on Catez's blog Allthings2all is on whether one’s blog is successful or not. It specifically asked for comments addressing "What is a successful blog?" and "Are you a successful blogger?"
As is often the case, I left the site (after reading the post and all 28 comments) thinking pretty much everything had been said on the matter. Later though, I realized something was bothering me; something was missing from that discussion. Let me try to tell you what I think it is.

Let’s start by looking at the word ‘success.’ Success is defined "a favorable or desired outcome of something attempted." Successful is: "obtaining what one desires or intends." Both of these definitions contain the idea of something attempted, desired, intended. Implicit in the concept of ‘success,’ then, is aiming at something, attempting to reach a target, intending to realize a purpose.

You can apply this component of what successful means when evaluating your blog and yourself as a blogger. Here’s how in three steps:

1. Start by listing your purpose or purposes for blogging. You may have one or many.

Here, for example, are some common purposes:
- To keep in touch with family.
- To share the good news of Jesus with people who have no Judeo-Christian background.
- To converse with colleagues in an area of interest (e.g. homeschooling, writing, photography, theology etc.)
- To provide a Christian perspective to world events.

And of course, once you get involved in the blogosphere, you probably very quickly realize that in order to achieve any or all of the above, you also want to
- Increase traffic to your blog.

2. Now in order to achieve these purposes, you need to set goals for each purpose you have listed.

What are goals? Dr. Mark Lee, in an old book I pulled off my bookshelf ('How to Set Goals'), describes two main differences between goals and purposes:
i] A goal is a specific action, whereas a purpose is not.
ii] A goal is a measurable action, whereas a purpose is general.

With these two criteria in mind, here are some goals you could set, for example, to realize the purpose of keeping in touch with family:
i] Put up a weekly post about something related to the family.
ii]. Email family members immediately after posting, alerting them to the update and giving them the post url.
iii] Immediately change your email signature to include your blog URL and always use it in family emails.

Now go through the same goal-setting process with each of your purposes – making sure each goal is specific and measurable.

3. Evaluate. Set up a time frame in which you will evaluate whether or not you have lived up to your goals. Dr. Lee says: "A time frame is the clearest factor in measuring success or failure in goals."

For the keeping-in-touch-with-family purpose, after six months of blogging, say, you can go back into your blog archives and see - did you, in fact, post something family-related once weekly. The email to family thing is something you could note at the time you send the emails - if you’re serious about this, and whether or not your email signature includes your blog URL is easy to check.

If you have five blogging purposes and after your six-month evaluation you see you’ve achieved the goals you listed in all bit one of them, there’s nothing foggy or touchy-feely about it – your blog and you are 80% successful.