MEDIA
Celebrate Your Blog—
Accomplishments That
Deserve Recognition
by Edie Melson
A
s many of you might have noticed, I love blogging.
But what you may not know is that it wasn’t always
that way. When I first started blogging it felt like
I was writing into a void. Days—and sometimes weeks—
would go by without feedback from my online audience.
However, I knew the importance of growing an online
platform, so I kept at it. And some of the things that kept me
moving forward were celebrating milestones—even the small
ones. I didn’t always announce them, or even share them with
many people, but I noted them and gave myself permission
to consider them proof of a job well done.
Blogging Milestones to Celebrate
1. The first post. There are a lot of folks out there who
haven’t gotten past the fear of failure and actually
published the first post on a blog. You did, and you
deserve to celebrate!
2. The first ten email signups. Ten is a number you can
work with. It’s a diverse enough group to begin to
spread the word. Do not despise small beginnings.
3. The first six weeks you kept your blogging
schedule. I’m always educating bloggers about
the importance of keeping on a regular blogging
schedule—publishing posts on the same day, at the
same time, every week. If you’ve done it for six weeks
straight, that’s something to brag about. A lot of life
happens over the course of six weeks. Give yourself
a pat on the back when you’ve made blogging a
priority, in spite of the insanity.
4. The first email you get about a typo in your blog
post. This may seem like something to be ashamed
of, and I’m definitely NOT advocating sloppy
writing. But the truth is, we all make mistakes. If
someone cares enough to make you look good, you’re
in a good place. And you’re building a tribe of people
who care.
5. The first request from someone to appear on your
site as a guest blogger. If someone thinks enough
of your site to ask if you accept guest bloggers, that’s
definitely something to celebrate.
6. Getting 100 unique hits in one week. This may seem
small, but it’s really not. One hundred people have
stopped by to see what you had to say. That’s a definite
milestone.
7. Getting an email and/or comment sharing how
your words impacted a life. This is why we’re doing
this. It’s so easy to get caught up in the numbers and
forget that they’re not really numbers at all—they’re
people.
8. Comments on five posts in a row. It’s hard to get the
right mix of subject matter, open-ended questions, and
blogging magic to get comments on every single post.
If you’ve gotten them on five posts in a row, you’re
doing a lot right.
9. The one year anniversary. This shows real
commitment. Don’t look back with an eye toward
what you did wrong. Look at what you did right. Build
on the positive, otherwise you’ll discourage yourself
into a bad case of writers block.
10. Hitting 10,000 unique visitors in a single month.
This doesn’t mean 10,000 different people visited.
Unique visitors (hits) are time sensitive. If I visit
your blog, log off and then visit again in an hour or
so, I’ll be counted twice. But it’s still a number to be
celebrated.
11. Getting more than ten comments on a single post.
Pay close attention when this happens, it means
you hit a nerve with your audience. Build on what
works.
12. The 100th blog post. Writing 100 blog posts means
that you’ve published around 65,000 words (probably
more). That’s almost an entire book. You have proven
you can do it and it’s time to celebrate.
There are other milestones to celebrate as your blog continues
to grow. The important thing is to mark them with a pat on
the back and a mental “job well done.” n
Edie Melson is the author of the bestseller
Connections: Social Media and Networking
Techniques for Writers. She’s the co-director of the
Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference,
Social Media Mentor at My Book Therapy, and the
Senior Editor for Novel Rocket. Visit Edie on her
blog, Twitter, and Facebook.
Southern Writers 5