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First Blogging Milestones to Aim For in Your Blog Income Career
By Valentina P Bellicova

First baby step taken. First bike ride without training wheels. First day at school. The firsts in life prepare us for the journey that awaits us and so it is with anything we do. The "firsts" in your blogging career will also prepare you for a lucrative blog income. The right "firsts" will lay down a strong foundation of fundamentals that will carry you through the ups and downs of blogging for money.

Here are five important yet easy to achieve milestones to put you on the path to success. If you are not currently employed, at some point or another in your life you have been. When you got your first job you needed to present some credentials: a diploma, a degree, or some experience at the very least, preferably a combination of the lot. Indeed, acquiring each credential was in itself a major milestone in your professional career. The same applies to blogging.

1. FIRST 30 POSTS

This is your entry into the world of blogging. It tells the internet that you are serious. Do you know that up to 90% of all blogs ever started have been abandoned after only a few posts? Thirty posts also sets the tone for your blog, a culture of your own begins to emerge. Now it will have an appeal to a certain audience. You begin to develop a style. Blogging will always be a work in progress but this is your beginning, one to build on.

Hint: post the 30 as quickly as possible - one a day if you can, three a week at the very least.

Next step: 100 posts.

2. FIRST 50 VISITORS

When you first begin to blog you will feel like the Lone Ranger. No one knows who you are, no one drops by, even the spiders and bots are ignoring your efforts. But lo! One day the stats show that your site had a visitor, and the next day there are two. For some the cumulative 50 visitors will be quick, for others it may take a month or even more. Nevertheless, it is an important notch in your belt.

Next step: first 50 visitors day

3. FIRST COMMENT

This can happen before the 50 visitors, especially if you have promoted your blog amongst family and friends. More than likely if you, like most bloggers, have decided to keep your newly embraced blogging career as your best kept secret from friends and family, the first comment will take a little bit longer (or a lot longer).

Getting comments on your posts is important. It is a vote of confidence by your readers and a signal to the search engines that your readers like what you write and are willing to take the time to interact with you. This is big in the eyes of the bots and spiders that come crawling through your posts.

There are strategies that you can employ to help this along. I have found that the best strategy is to find blogs that write on a similar topic as yours and just go and visit them. Whilst visiting drop a little comment, perhaps a compliment on the blog or the post, or a short thank you for having presented something new to you. Make it a comment that is thoughtful. It does not have to be long but please do not write a one liner that could be applied to just about anything, "hey dude cool stuff" just doesn't cut it and what's more may not even get published by the blog owner.

Next Step: Visit 50 blogs. Post 25 comments. Rinse and repeat. Guaranteed: you will have visitors come to your blog and start leaving comments.

4. FIRST DOLLAR EARNED

Earning your first dollar on the internet is a validation that you can earn more. It is so important that Ed Dale who hosts the annual 30 Day Challenge makes that the foremost goal of that free course. If you have not participated in the 30 Day Challenge I encourage you to do so. Every year in August Ed Dale puts up his 30-Day Challenge. Word is that he will be taking it down soon but will be replacing it with something even more powerful.

Next Step: Eliminate one monthly bill with your blog income. Start with the smallest one you have. It might be something as small as $4.99 for your evoice service.

5. PR1 - GOOGLE PAGE RANK 1

While there may be life without Google it is a difficult one. Google is the world's largest search engine and confers page ranks on blogs and sites from 0 to 10 - the higher the better. Yes, you can be below 0, it just shows up as "-" when you look at your stats. Page Rank, PR of 1 is a good starting point. Google only updates a few times a year, so if you have been blogging for a few months and still nothing from Google, don't despair. Your tenacity will eventually be rewarded.

Next step: PR2 and upwards.

There are other milestones that you will want to aspire to, but these are good building blocks and should be included in the goals section when developing your blog income business plan. What is good about them is that like muscles, continued repetition builds strength.

About the Author:
Want to make money blogging? Valentina's ABC's of Blogging is an easy to read and implement ebook that can be downloaded at no cost at http://www.abcsofblogging.com You can also follow her day to day blogging activities on http://www.blogincomelife.com