If you ask any successful blogger today what is the most important thing you need to do to grow a successful blog, you’ll hear one resounding answer: consistency.
Yet, most bloggers fail in this category. When asked why most bloggers will tell you, the problem is a lack of time.
This isn’t surprising, considering the array of responsibilities required to maintain a successful blog.
Bloggers are not just writers, they are also marketers, editors, social media managers, and graphic designers, to say the least. So, the time required to produce consistent quality content is often hard to come by.
But what most don’t realize is that time is only one factor in creating consistent, quality content. The other piece of the puzzle that many bloggers miss is planning.
Planning your content will help you stay consistent by keeping you organized, efficient, and motivated.
It is what makes the difference between blogging as a hobby and blogging as a lucrative business strategy.
In this post, we’re going to go over one of the most potent tools in blogging today: a content calendar.
Are you ready? Let’s dive in.
What is Content Calendar?
Let’s start from the beginning. What is a content calendar?
A content calendar, also known as an editorial calendar, is used by bloggers to plan upcoming content such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, email newsletters, and social media campaigns.
Why You Need A Content Calendar:
1. It Keeps You Organized
Most of us are guilty of sporadically noting content ideas across post-it notes, random journals, and digital note-taking software.
It’s understandable – when you have a great idea, your main priority is to record it quickly.
However, with content ideas flung across various media, it can be hard to find topics when you need them.
Don’t think it’s a good idea to turn your daily planner to record blog ideas, either.
Your daily planner will likely also contain appointments, social events, meeting dates, kid activities, and more.
Adding content ideas on top of that jumble of responsibilities won’t be beneficial to your blog’s organization.
Keeping a calendar that’s entirely dedicated to your blog is the only way to go.
Having a location solely dedicated to all content ideas will make your planning efforts more effective.
You can check on deadlines, blog topics, images, and other content-related information in one place.
Having a calendar dedicated just for your blog will save you time by eliminating the need to hunt for a specific post-it note whenever you need to create and publish content.
2. It Helps You Create Better Content
With a content calendar, your content is mapped out for the weeks or months to come. This allows you to iron out any potential issues ahead of time.
For instance, by looking over your content calendar, you may realize some of your content isn’t focused and targeted to your customer persona.
You may also realize that your content lack diversity, and you’re not covering other central topics around your niche.
By planning, you have time to address these shortcomings before the content is due to post.
3. It Helps You Stay Consistent
By having your future content laid out, you’ll be less likely to find an excuse not to write.
Since a content calendar forces you to set due dates ahead of time, it provides a sense of discipline and accountability that you need to stay on schedule.
A content calendar also enables you to track your progress much easier by allowing you to see your content plans at a glance. This can be motivating to see over time if you stick with your schedule.
How do You Create a Blog Content Calendar?
1. Determine Your Blog's Categories
To make brainstorming content ideas much more manageable, I recommend you begin by determining your blog’s main categories and subcategories first.
Most bloggers determine their content categories at random.
It’s not uncommon for bloggers to choose their blog categories according to the first few blog articles that you ever wrote.
But, to grow a successful blog, you mustn’t treat these categories like separate islands. They should all work to serve your goal with your blog.
For instance, for my blog, pixelsandwanderlust.com, one of my goals is to sell travel photography courses.
So, my blog’s main categories are travel, photography, and recommended gear.
My blogs’ subcategories are travel tips, travel destinations, photography tips, camera, and travel gear.
These categories are relatively broad, but each serves the interest of my ideal customer.
There’s no specific number as to how many blogging categories you should have. But, generally, five to ten classes for your blog articles should do the trick.
2. Do Your Keyword Research
Once you’ve decided upon your blog categories, you can move onto doing keyword research.
Keyword research means to research words or terms your ideal customer commonly searches in search engines for their queries.
This process is a critical step in your content calendar creation for three main reasons:
- It will give you a clearer picture of what your audience is interested in reading about.
- It will make it much easier to come up with topic ideas.
- It will help you choose a topic that will bring you the most ROI on your content marketing efforts.
There are several ways to go about keyword research.
The first thing you should consider is whether you are willing to invest in a tool or prefer to use free tools online.
For free keyword tools, here’s what I recommend:
- Keywords everywhere
- Google Console
- Ubersuggest
For a full tutorial on how to do keyword research, you can check out my article here.
3. Brainstorm Blog Ideas
Once you’ve done your keyword research, the next step is to generate topic ideas.
I recommend starting by brainstorming ten blog post ideas for every category. While this may sound like a lot, it will be an enormous help in the planning process for your blog.
Brainstorming is all about unfiltered ideas. So, settle down with a pen and notepad for around 15 minutes.
Allow yourself to jot down anything that comes to mind.
Don’t cross anything out, even if it seems silly. It’s often the ideas that we think are too “out there” that prove the most effective.
When planning your content, focus on topics that showcase your expertise and serve your audience.
Don’t prioritize blog topics that are centered around making money.
Rather than acting as advertisements, your blog posts should provide useful information for your readers. This strategy will drive the most traffic to your site and help you gain your customer’s trust.
Remember, it’s all about the customer journey. If you want your visitors to open their wallets, you have to give value first.
You can use the keyword tools mentioned to help you if you can’t come up with ideas.
Besides finding keywords, these tools are also great for showing you what the most sought blog topics around certain keywords are.
4. Validate Blog Post Ideas
Once you’re done brainstorming ideas, validate your ideas by asking yourself the following questions:
- How will this topic benefit my readers?
- What amount of resources will go into the creation of this content?
- Will I need outside help to create this content? If so, where will I get that help?
- Is this blog post only relevant to current events, or will it remain relevant over time?
- What role does this content play in my big-picture blog strategy?
5. Determine Your Blogging Schedule
Once you have a content calendar set up, designate a date for each topic that you’ve brainstormed.
When creating a blog schedule is to try to come up with a realistic time frame from the start of content creation to publication.
It’s ok if you find if you can only realistically post once per week, even if you prefer to do a post once a day.
Remember, it’s more critical to your success that you blog consistently than frequently.
Trying to write all your content ideas at once will only lead to frustration, disappointment, and discouragement in the future.
As I’ve said many times here, blogging is a long game. So, take your time and be reasonable with yourself and set achievable deadlines.
6. Keep Seasons In Mind
As you set dates, make sure to account for holidays and seasons.
Seasons present opportunities to create unique blog content. In just about any month, you can find a seasonal theme.
For instance, in September, everyone is thinking about back-to-school. In February, the focus is on love and romance for Valentine’s Day. And in July, cookouts and pool parties are all the rage.
Creating content-based on seasons and special occasions will keep your blog content fun and relevant all year round.
Also, if your business runs special promotions for certain holidays, be sure to factor them into your blog content calendar.
Special events categories may consist of:
- Holidays that pertain to your business
- High traffic times for your business (i.e., if you’re a swimsuit company, your peak selling season would be late spring and summer)
- Industry-specific special events.
7. Add Categories
In a spreadsheet, organize your content calendar by category.
I love working with Google sheets for this task. It’s completely free, easy to use, and allows for real-time collaboration.
Here are seven key categories I use for my content calendar:
1. Content-Type
Before creating your calendar, you need to iron out details about your blog’s Content.
What types of Content do you want to develop, and where do you want to share that Content?
The most common types of post you share include:
- Blog posts
- Social media campaigns
- Images/ Infographics
- Videos
- Podcasts
- E-mail newsletters.
You can include one or all of these formats in your content calendar.
2. Title
Having content titles in your calendar bring organization as well as diversity to your Content.
Any redundant content will become evident once recorded in the calendar. This way, you can fine-tune your topics before you start working on the Content.
3. Completion Due Dates
Completion due dates are essential in every content calendar. These are the dates when your article should be completed and edited.
4. Publish Date
Publish dates specify when each blog post will go live on your site. If possible, include a link to each published post in your content calendar so that you can find it easily.
5. Keywords
Having keywords in your content calendar will help you create a more organized and diverse content.
When you have your targeted keywords laid out, you can easily recognize if your blog content is repetitive and monotonous. It will ensure that you are covering all the core categories in your niche.
6. Social Media Platforms
Social Media Platforms are a great place to connect with your audience. Which platform is best will depend on your goals.
But, if of all social media platforms, the most effective for driving traffic to your blog is Pinterest. So I highly recommend including it your calendar.
7. Links
Include all inbound and outbound links related to your post to keep track and stay organized.
8. Implement Color-Coding Schemes
Color coding helps navigate your content calendar with ease.
There are no rules for color coding – you can implement any strategy that you wish.
Just make sure that the color makes sense to everyone using the calendar.
Consistency is also crucial in any color-coding scheme. Once you pick a color for a given element, it’s best to stick with it.
If you start switching colors around, you and or your team members could get confused, and the content may be compromised.
You’ll also want to select a simple, intuitive color scheme to avoid confusion.
There are multiple ways to set up a color-coding scheme for content calendars. A few options are according to:
1. Campaign
You can color-code the individual components of different campaigns across platforms.
2. Channel
If you’re creating different posts for different channels, you can give each channel its color.
3. Team Member
Color coding, according to team members, can help everyone quickly find their assignments within the calendar.
These are just a few examples to try. Feel free to develop a scheme that more effectively suits your needs.
Conclusion
The daily grind wears the best of us out. But, to be a successful blogger, you have to stay diligent. Continue to brainstorm ideas, hone topics, research keywords and update your content calendar.
It may sound boring and tedious, but the cost of maintaining your content calendar is minimal compared to the price of a major breakdown in your content production.
Staying on top of your content calendar to ensure that blog operates at 100% efficiency at all times.