Welcome to day 1 of our Blog Challenge, “Blogging While Angels Sleep” 90 posts in 90 days.  Are you ready to get blogging? I am.  For our first exercise we are going back to business school and using a principal that has been around, I’d say, since writing and business became mainstream.  In order to earn money blogging, it’s necessary to treat your blog as a business.  So just like any business, the first step  is to create your blogs mission statement.

Remember this is the theory side of the blog challenge.  You don’t need to post about doing this exercise, unless you would like too.   It’s important that you continue writing your blog as you always do, however, upping the anti and posting a blog post everyday for the next 90 days.

Creating a blogging habit

This will not only create a good blogging habit for you, it will also see your posts featured in far more search results, and give you a chance to focus on your target keywords, (use google keyword tool) with the aim of getting to number one for your first chosen keywords within the next 90 days.

Blog Challenge Advantages

The other benefits of the 90 posts in 90 days, of the blog challenge is, improving your blog writers skills, through more writing, increasing your social media presence, with heaps more to share and to talk about and lastly organizing to earn money blogging.

Summary of blog tasks leading to you being able to earn money blogging after completing the blog challenge

• create a daily blogging habit
• learn to target sets of keywords to reach number one in Google
• improve blog writers skills
• become an authority blog in your niche
• increase your social media presence
• become one of the people in your niche who knows everyone in the niche
• blog writers skills will enable you to design and write information products for your niche.
• begin writing lots of product reviews for products relating to your niche and meeting the brands behind those products.
• through the next 90days, take note of how the other blogs in your niche are earning money blogging.

Why do I need to write a Blog Mission Statement?

Mission statements help clarify what niche your blog is in and your goals and objectives. There are generally two parts to a mission statement.

1. The vision
2. The principals

The idea is to have a timeless account of what your blog stands for, to you.  It may take time to write it, and you may also want to change it until you feel you have it just right.  That’s good, that’s how it should be.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Stephen Covey explain in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
the importance of He believes that they give the people who write them, a sense of direction, by tying together the values and principals that they live by and weaving those beliefs, words and deeds into their work, in a form that can be expressed and used as a motivator in times when one is feeling a little lost. It also portrays to anyone on the outside, the absolute beliefs and visions of the writer.

Read the Seven Habits it’s Awesome

Blog Mission not only for Blog Writers

Dr Covey also believes that everyone should have their mission statement. He also emphasizes the importance of all parties concerned working at creating the mission statement together, so that the groups values and principals and visions for the future will remain deeply aligned.

Examples of Business Mission Statements

Rhonda Abrams, author of The Successful Business Plan: Secrets & Strategies
shares these two mock examples of some business Mission Statements in her awesome book.

“AAA Inc. is a spunky, imaginative food products and service company aimed at offering high-quality, moderately priced, occasionally unusual foods using only natural ingredients. We view ourselves as partners with our customers, our employees, our community and our environment. We aim to become a regionally recognized brand name, capitalizing on the sustained interest in Southwestern and Mexican food. Our goal is moderate growth, annual profitability and maintaining our sense of humor.”

“ABC Enterprises is a company devoted to developing human potential. Our mission is to help people create innovative solutions and make informed choices to improve their lives. We motivate and encourage others to achieve their own personal and professional fulfillment. Our motto is: Together, we believe that the best in each of us enriches all of us.”

Rhonda Abrams author of The successful business plan- secrets and strategies. Amazon says: number-one selling business planning guide in the U.S. includes expert help, worksheets to jump-start the process, a sample business plan, tips on impressing funders, winning tips for competitions, and more. Used in the top business schools throughout the nation, including Stanford; M.I.T.; University of Denver; Hass School of Business, UC Berkeley; and Cornell. Hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs have used this book to launch their businesses.Named by Inc. and Forbes magazines as one of the top ten essential books for small business.

The Easiest way to do this exercise is to ask yourself the right questions

1. Why do you blog?
2. Who is your potential audience?
3. What is the image of your blog that you would like to get across to, your community, your perspective readers, your social media connections, your peers, advertisers, brand managers, and the press?
4. What type of products or services are you planning on selling on your blog?
5. What roles do you play?
6. How do you differ from other blogs in your niche?
7. How will you use technology, your products and services to reach your goals?
8. What are the underlying principals and values that you intend to live up to?
9. What is your vision for your blog in the future?
10. In years from now, How would you most like your blog to be remembered?
    

    Blogging while Angels Sleep Challenge

Blog Challenge Day 1

For day 1 of the blog challenge you are required to write your blog mission statement and display it on your blog.

Display your mission statement somewhere prominent on your blog.

You could put it at the top of your side-bar in the author box widget, with a picture of you.  At the bottom in the footer.  Try and get your blog mission to the stage where you can put it up today, however keep in the back of your mind that this is an area that you can and should keep reviewing until you can say that your blog mission statement is a precise reflection of you and that you feel proud of it as a blog writer.

Call to action

So the first exercise in our blog challenge “blogging while angles sleep” isn’t really blogging, but it is a part of every successful business and one you should adopt for your blog.  If you enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends on Facebook or Twitter.  If you haven’t checked out our FB page yet, please do so.

What do you think about blog mission statements, and mission statements in general? Do you think that they are an important part of a business’s make-up? You can let us know in the comment.  As always, thanks for reading,

Sharon