One of the secrets of writing a weblog that quietly shows your expertise is coming up with measures of success that match the stage that your project is in. A project in its early stages demands some feedback to show that you're heading in the right direction, but you're too early to deploy sophisticated analytical tools to optimize your efforts.
When you're at the very start, look for any sign that the project is working for you and your first readers. Any sort of traction is worthwhile. Be happy just to start. A good short term goal is simply to get some people who are friendly to look at what you are doing and to give you some helpful feedback. When the first stranger sees what you are doing and comments favorably, you have reached one milestone.
Some people get stuck before their first post in sorting out the design. I'll assume for now your good sense to use a blogging tool that has some default designs that are pleasant enough to the eye to be OK for a start, and where editing the first post doesn't require enormous amounts of decision making.
It is worthwhile to install page tracking tools like Google Analytics to track progress over time, for a longer and much more satisfying view of progress measured in months or years. There will be plenty of future opportunities to measure even more fine grained performance indicators, but you don't need to obsess about real time traffic when no one is reading, not yet at least.
What you really seek in the long run is the ability for people to think of you when a topic comes up, that "top of mind" sense for expertise that generates leads and referrals and introductions to other experts. It helps tremendously to have a blog post ready to back up whatever information you are ready to share with someone. Until you've built up a body of work, you might not have that level of detail handy - make sure that whatever schedule you have has enough flexibility to work up a publishable answer when the right question comes up out of the blue.
Success - at the start - could be measured in one person looking at one post. The right person, the right posting makes all the difference. Celebrate small wins.
The "small wins" idea comes from Karl Weick. A small win is a "limited doable project that results in something concrete and visible."
Install Google Analytics now; it's not hard, and it's helpful for later work.
Most of the truly ugly and hard to use blogging tools have quietly been replaced by other systems that are easy - perhaps too easy - to use. Wordpress, Blogger, and Tumblr are all reasonable free blogging tools; I use Typepad, which costs a modest amount each month.
I like the concept of celebrating small wins. I started my blog a bit over three months ago, and I have a few regular commenters (and probably more readers than I know) now, which really encourages me.
Posted by: Chris Lovie-Tyler | 07/30/2012 at 03:57 PM