Let’s start with what previous goals I did not reach shall we:

I had a previous goal to reach 50,000 unique visitors and minimum of $500 per month for DragonBlogger.com by December 2010. These goals were not reached for a few reasons, primary being that I am picky about what I am willing to promote as an affiliate and the other part that I haven’t put enough time into promotion or sales. I instead write articles with information and relied on services like PayPerPost, SocialSpark, SponsoredReviews, LinkWorth…etc to contact me when an advertiser wanted a review. This is a very “reactive” way to try and make money with your blog and is not proactive which for blogs that haven’t yet established a huge traffic to attract advertisers is not an the most effective way to monetize your blog. Note these systems are fantastic and I make most of my money through blog review and link programs, combined with AdSense.

Knowing this bloggers should realize that one of the most effective way to make decent earnings is to sell products and earn from commission whether it be from products and services you create and sell or promote and take a percentage. This isn’t the only method out there and I know plenty of bloggers who earn just by selling posts, links and such and make up to 4 figures a month from their blog. I don’t know any bloggers personally who make five figures a month from their blog though I have read about their claims like anyone else. There are very few in this figure and those that are are very well known, or have very popular sites that earn from affiliate sales.

For 2011 I decided to not focus at all on my blog earnings or traffic, I have a new attitude and since I am also diverting some of my time and attention into a new business venture with my wife, I am taking a different approach to DragonBlogger.com. These blogging goals will be very different than most bloggers, and I have always mentioned that I am only a part time blogger with no intention to make blogging a career but do it as a hobby for fun.

Dragon Blogger Goals For 2011

• Showcase more blogs

I want to write at least 1 article a month showcasing some other blog which I find would be of value to my fans, this can be a literary blog featured on my poetry blog Wanderer Thoughts, a Technology Blog featured on this site or just about any other blog that I find appealing. I want to focus on blogs that are not very popular and well known to give the blogger maybe a little boost in attention.

• Hire More Writers

DragonBlogger.com is a multi author blog and I would like to bring in more writers who can produce quality content and help establish their own following here.  I have some great writers already on the team like Kim Crawley, Damien Riley, Victor Salazar , Jeevan Jacob John, Vinay Gowda and Joel Sawyer and want to have at least ten writers and no less than 50 articles per month publishing on DragonBlogger.com by summer time.  I say hire more writers because I have a payment system in place to pay my writers from a % of my site profits, I pay writers on a per article basis and the amount is based on how many articles are produced and how much site profit has come in for the previous month.  I try to average paying my writers no less than $2 and up to $5 per article, and have so far been meeting these target payments with the team.

• Manage Time More Effectively

I am always trying to figure out how to manage to keep my blogs growing while still trying to put no more than 15 – 20 hours per week into my blogging sites.  I don’t let blogging consume my life and become an obsession like it can for many, I also am not looking for a magic “make money online” bullet that some are when they desperately turn to blogging hoping it can become a 2nd job or eventually replace their primary job.  Time Management is most critical, should you be spending 2 hours a day socializing on Twitter, Facebook or use that time to visit, read and comment on other blogs.  Where to spend your time whether its writing content or keeping up social media presence affects your popularity and reach in the online communities.  I do want to spend more time engaging with other blogs and networks and to accomplish this I have to spend less time writing articles, this is one primary reason why I turned DragonBlogger.com into a multi author blog.  I can’t meet my networking goals when I am tied up writing 80+ articles per month myself for my blogs, I need to offload some of the content creation to others who want to be a part of this growing destination for technology, blogging and SEO tips as well as Entertainment reviews.

In Summary

So for my 3rd year of blogging my friends, I have absolutely no goal for how much I want to earn per month, or how much traffic I want this site to reach.  I just want to continue providing valuable content, build networks and grow my site through increasing the number of writers who are contributing and hopefully this will all translate into more traffic and earnings.  I will point out that DragonBlogger.com has increased its earnings year over year since starting on August 21st 2008 and I will do a separate article on where earnings have come from and what I consider the best sources of monetization.

So, what are some of your goals for the 2011 New Year?  What do you hope to accomplish with your website or as a person?

-Dragon Blogger

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Before I write about how you can increase traffic and links, I want to establish my belief that content is more important than making money on blogs. If I stopped making money today, I would still blog because I love it. Having said that, you need traffic and links to make money with your content. That’s what this post is about.

I have learned to run my own race.

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