We all know that content is king, but when it comes to updating our blogs that doesn’t always make it any easier.
The key to having an active blog and creating content on a consistent basis comes down to creating a system.
Now, it doesn’t need to be a complex thing or anything crazy. Honestly, all I do is use an editorial calendar (a Google calendar where I lay out what posts I will be doing and when) its really simple and easy to implement, not only that it actually keeps you accountable, which is key!
Having an editorial calendar will allow you to
- Plan your blog posts in advance
- Schedule your blog posts in advance
- Keep you organized
- And of course, keep your blog up to date 🙂
Creating an editorial calendar can be as simple or complicated as you would like.
If you use WordPress for your blog you can install a simple Editorial Calendar plugin but you don’t even need to get as complicated as that if you don’t want to. I just use a simple Google calendar. Google calendar is great because you can sync it up to your regular calendar, you can create recurring events and even tasks as well, plus you can color code everything, which is helpful.
When planning out your editorial calendar you want to shoot for 3 posts a week. It may seem a little overwhelming at first but when you consider that you can break down your posts into different categories it doesn’t have to be.
For instance, you could have posts about what is your subject is (ie. Pillar posts), fun and off topic posts, thought leadership posts (where you are taking a stand on something) and guest posts. That should help to make things a little more manageable for you. When you are setting up your calendar be sure to include what kind of posts you will be posting and on what dates.
Then you can lump your time together and create a bunch of different posts in advance and bang them out for the month. Next you can schedule them in advance, hook them up to other social media outlets and wholla you have a system for consistently posting to your blog. Easey peaasy!
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5 Responses
Hi,
This is really a good article about blogging effectively using and editorial calendar.
Did you get a chance to check the website ezedcal.com to manage editorial calendar easily for your blog and show your editorial calendar in your blog easily (optional)
Thanks & Regards
~Jo
Great post. I like how you break it down into manageable pieces. I use the editorial calendar plugin and recommend it to all my clients who blog.
Glad you enjoyed it, I find that when doing things like this its easiest to break them down into smaller pieces.
This is something I’m working on, thanks to the UBC – I already have a plan, for what gets posted to which blog (I run 4) on which days, but sometimes I can’t find the thoughts or motivation to write, even ahead of time. Thanks to this challenge, and the many ideas that I’m reading, though, it may be easier to keep up and plan ahead in the future.
Good post!
Thanks for your comment!
You are right, it can be a daunting task sometimes to write the content for the blog, especially when you have more then one blog. I have found its helpful to me to block off some time in the beginning of the week to work on these types of things, before the busyness of the week gets in the way and it falls to the way side 🙂