This is a Guest Post by David Edwards. David is the founder of an on-line publishing company www.asittingduck.com, currently working on several animation projects and works with a team of creative people in the UK. To keep in touch with future videos subscribe to www.youtube.com/asittingducktv.

Over the last 3 years I have made unrealistic goals. The reason was that I had no real perspective on what it takes to build an audience with a low budget (Under $5,000). Now I'm in my fourth year on-line I have gone from 0 to 8,000 subscribers within 40 months. To break that down that's 200 subscribers a month.

So now I know I can pick up 200 new subscribers a month, I can plan the next year much better in terms of product launches and working with top youtubers, I can tell them exactly what I can bring to the table in 2012.


That's the biggest mistake that newbies can make, to look at an established website of 5 years plus and think that they can jump start their site to get ahead 10 times quicker. Even with a large budget (Say $100,000) you'll find it difficult to pay for traction, it takes time, but it's not impossible!.

Here's my top 5 tips for setting achievable goals:

1. When you start out, rather than setting a goal of 1,000 subscribers, why not set a goal of publishing 100 posts. That way even if you only gain 5-10 subscribers you'll have set up a really strong foundation for search engines to pick you up.

2. Once you have 100 posts, set a goal to get to know 5 website owners. Don't worry so much on how successful they are. The only thing you want to find out is that are they in it for the long run (5 years+).

3. Getting to the stage of 100 posts and having a network of 5 website owners will ensure that you will continue to publish good content on-line. Your next goal could be to get out to industry events to speak to people in person and publish some photos onto Twitter or Facebook.

4. If you can achieve the previous goals of publishing content and getting involved, you'll start to build on your confidence to reach out more to the industries established experts. Set a goal to make sure you have links to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Make sure that they are updated at least once a week to keep the momentum going.

5. This goal has nothing to do with marketing on-line or building a successful website but it can save you from giving up altogether. Your goal is to make sure you have a focus outside of your online business. For instance I publish animations on-line but I always make time to weight train once a week as that clears my head for fresh ideas!.

As you start to get momentum online its easy to become lazy with setting goals, but they will give you a structure to where your site is heading. Maybe you want it to stay as a lifestyle business or you want to grow it and sell it. Either way without a plan it will be difficult to know what exactly you are going to achieve.