Defining goals for Location Rebel

Now that I have finally figured out my RSS feed problem, its time to actually start posting all of these articles I have written.  With that in mind, I feel like now is an appropriate time to outline some of the goals for the site.

It seems like on every blogger’s list of “steps to a successful blog” one of the first is to have clearly outlined your niche and goals for the site.

This is the one big area where I will admit, I haven’t followed their advice.  This is for a variety of reasons, but the main one is, I am not entirely sure what my goal is!

Alright, I know that more than just about anything, I enjoy traveling. I enjoy writing about traveling.  That seems like a logical place to start.

Goal #1: Within 12 months of starting this have written 50 travel related articles, either on current or past experiences.

Seems reasonable.

I hope to be doing much more traveling in the near future. One day I would love to turn this into a full fledged travel blog and write about my stories and experiences.

But we aren’t there yet, so maybe we’ll just add that to the list of long term goals.

What else?

As much as I ultimately want this to be a site that knows no space boundaries, the bottom line is that for the time being, I am living in Portland, Oregon.

Portland is a great town, and if any of you have a chance to visit, I couldn’t encourage it enough. Well, as long as you don’t come between the months of October-May.

And even June and September can be a little dicey, so I guess I recommend Portland around 1/6 of the time (unless you like rain, of course).

But I digress.

So as I was saying, I am in Portland. Seems only natural to be able to write about my surroundings.

Goal #2: For as long as I am living in Portland, write a weekly article about something interesting going on in town.

Whether it’s a cool event, a good hiking trail, or kick-ass happy hour. You can look for these to be posted every Wednesday.

Throughout the course of my life, I have had the privilege of starting a few businesses on my own.

There is something about entrepreneurship that has always been a part of me, and I don’t know, but I think this blog could be an outcropping of that.

But as it has been a part of my life, it is something that should be a part of this blog. I think starting your own business is one of the most fulfilling (and sometimes stressful) things you can do.

Goal #3: Within 12 months write at least 1 (if not 2) ebooks about my entrepreneurial ventures.

More specifically, I am thinking of writing a guide about “How to Start Your Own House Painting Business” and/or “How to Start Your Own T-Shirt Business”.  If any of you have any interest in either of these, please let me know.

This next one is more of a personal goal, that isn’t entirely measurable.

I have never claimed to be the world’s greatest writer. Sure I know the basics, but to be honest, this is the most writing I have done since college (and being a business major, I didn’t have to do a ton of it there either).

So I really am hoping to improve my skills as a writer and find my “voice”.  I think a lot of success as a writer comes from the content. You have to have interesting content, otherwise what is the point?

So goal #4 is: Live a life interesting enough to write and read about.

I hope through doing this that I get some feedback on the things I am writing and hopefully in 12 months time, someone might actually say “hey, you’re a good writer!”

Finally, what is the point of a public blog if no one is going to read it?

Sure I could write an online diary, but that isn’t what I am looking to do.

Through the process of setting this up I have realized how much there is to learn when it comes to marketing a blog. Whether its learning SEO techniques, earning link-backs or submitting to article databases, there is a whole blog infrastructure that I never knew existed.

So hopefully I can use them to my advantage to accomplish goal #5.

Goal #5: Reach 1000 devoted readers.

Whether I calculate this through page visits or RSS/email subscriptions isn’t clear yet, but basically I just want to see that SOMEONE is interested in what I am doing.

And if any of you have suggestions for things to write about or improvements I can make to the site or writing, PLEASE let me know! I would love to hear them.

Along with this, it would be great if at some point I could make a little bit of extra money doing this.

Maybe it is through relevant advertisements, maybe informational products, who knows. But this is definitely not my concern at the moment.  Right now I just want to build up my reader-base and provide interesting and useful content.

One last thing.

As I have currently been going through my quarter-life crisis, I have decided to write my list of things I want to accomplish in life.

I have found that I don’t really have much long term direction, so I am hoping that by doing this I can have something that I can begin to work towards. I think that by making this public there is a much greater sense of accountability, and hopefully should provide for some interesting reading!

Here’s how to make your own bucket list.

Goal #6: Write at least monthly (if not more often) about the progress that I have made on The List.

That’s all for today, check back tomorrow for the second happy hour of the week.

And in the meantime, let me know what you think so far!  The more input I have, the better the site will be!

Sean Ogle

Sean Ogle is the Founder of Location Rebel where he has spent the last 12+ years teaching people how to build online businesses that give them the freedom to do more of the things they like to do in life. When he's not in the coffee shops of Portland, or the beaches of Bali, he's probably sneaking into some other high-class establishment where he most certainly doesn't belong.