Maintaining a blog takes more than just writing a bunch of blog posts. You should develop a strategy and planning for your content (especially if you are writing with multiple authors). Also, you should interact with your audience and respond to their comments. In this post, I’ll explain the importance of content planning and give some practical tips on how to effortlessly plan your blog posts.
Blog Post Planning: Create a Plan!
If you are serious about blogging, you should make a plan for your content. If you have a personal blog, planning your content will be relatively easy. Planning becomes much harder if you are working with multiple authors writing about different topics, or invite guest bloggers. I’ll give you five important pointers that will help you to create a plan:
1. Create an Editorial Calendar
A plan starts with a calendar. You should create an editorial calendar in which you plot out all the posts that you (and your co-workers) are going to write. This could just be an excel sheet, but you could also use a plugin or service for this, for instance, Trello or MeisterTask.
2. Sit Down and Brainstorm
If you want to create an editorial calendar, you could start by brainstorming. Invite all your blog authors and sit together. Ask everyone what their ideas are and which posts they would like to write in the near future. Make a list of these ideas and wishes, and then plot them out on a calendar. Make sure your authors finish their blogs a few days before the post date so you can proofread, edit if needed, and find or create accompanying illustrations or photos.
3. Use News and Current Events
When planning content, you should take a look at your calendar as well! Are there any major events coming up which are worth mentioning in your blog post? Or should you write some seasonal posts? Make sure to mix these ‘current-events posts’ with the other posts you have lined up.
4. Blog Regularly
You should blog regularly. Giving exact numbers is hard. For a company blog, a daily post will be totally acceptable. For a personal blog, this will probably not be doable at all. Try to establish some frequency and stick to it. Your readers will appreciate a reliable schedule. Once you know you can commit to your chosen schedule, make sure to communicate it to your audience somehow, so they know what to expect.
5. Add Variation
If you often write about similar topics, make sure to mix things up a little. Don’t write articles about nearly identical topics one after the other. Of course, you can still write blog series but try to vary between subjects as much as possible. You could also make variations in the form of your content. A video post for example spices things up!
Conclusion
If you take your blog serious, you should create a calendar. It’s a must-have if you are working with multiple authors. Creating an editorial calendar doesn’t have to be hard at all. Good luck!
This post originally appeared on Yoast, and is re-published with permission.
Image Credits
Featured Image: ra2studio/DepositPhotos.com
In-post Photo: konejota/DepositPhotos.com
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