This post is part of the ongoing series on how to build an irresistible blog. You can follow along by entering your email in the box to the right.

So before we develop the world’s most irresistible blog, we first need to answer the question: what are we trying to accomplish? What are we even blogging for? Answering this question will help dictate how we proceed. Too often I see people launch sites and subsequently drown out their message by spreading themselves too thin with the content they generate. I’ve made the mistake myself.

What Are You Looking To Accomplish?

Why are you interested in starting a blog in the first place? Is it because you love blogging? Is it because you want to make a living from blogging? Perhaps you are so passionate about something that you want to simply share that passion with the world. Whatever your reason for developing an online publication is, you better be clear about your objective. When I started AllFacebook my personal objective was to “build a popular blog”. That was all I wanted to do. But how can I measure success?

At the time, I was aiming to get the blog listed in the top 100 blogs on Technorati. Since then, Technorati has become much less meaningful, however I was able to reach the top 50. That happened to be my measurement of success, but what is yours? And more importantly, how will you know when you’ve succeeded or whether or not the actions you are taking are getting you closer to where you want to be?

So step 1 in building an irresistible blog is to clearly define your objectives and how you will measure success or failure. Write this down!! If you are blogging for money, becoming one of the most popular blogs in the world may not be necessary because the only indicator of your success will be how much money you generate. Any action you take will be focused on increasing your bottom line.

Some Common Objectives

When it comes to blogging there are a limitless number of objectives that you could go after. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted when I started blogging because I was simply feeding my addiction to Google Analytics. I literally would do just about anything within reason to figure out how to increase my traffic. I’ll fully outline each of those tactics throughout this series. But let’s go over a few common objectives that I’ve seen people set:

• Feed your traffic addiction - This was how I started and to be honest, this tactic alone can result in a worthless site. You’ll spend day and night trying to increase the volume of mediocre posts in an attempt to generate traffic. Then you’ll try to write killer articles but for some reason your traffic won’t jump because in reality, the post isn’t that great. You’ll build an audience but the audience doesn’t matter to you because all you want to see is numbers move up and to the right. I don’t recommend using this one ;)
• Become known as an expert - Want to get published on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications? I managed to pull this one off by becoming the leading expert on Facebook. You can do the exact same thing on literally any topic in the world. Becoming an expert is typically best for generating consulting gigs.
• Get hired - I wrote about this in a previous post, “The Secret Formula To Never Being Unemployed”. Blogging is literally a guaranteed way to start getting job offers. If you write often enough on a niche topic, many people will assume that they can’t hire you because you cost too much. Trust me, that’s a great position to be in.
• Build your personal brand - This goes along with getting hired, but it works for anybody. Whether you’re a writer who wants to get published or an investor who wants to get access to top notch entrepreneurs, building your personal brand can change your life.
• Generate “passive” income - I put the word “passive” in quotes because I’ve never heard of a passive income system that didn’t require a massive amount of up front work. However if you can generate a large volume of niche content, there’s definitely an opportunity to create a passive income stream.
• Promote an existing business - You may already have a successful business but most businesses can benefit from having more customers. Building a blog can be an incredible way to boost your customer base.

Know What You Want

The point should be pretty clear by now: blogging can dramatically improve your life but before you start plugging away at new posts, you need to know why you’re blogging in the first place! Write down your blog objectives, hang them on your wall or put them in a place where you can see them every day. By the time you’ve finished following this series and have begun writing, you will be well on your way to building an irresistible blog.

Make sure to subscribe to this ongoing series entering your name and email in the box to the right!