Coming up with a simple blog post schedule has helped me to be more productive with my blogging.
One thing that’s always been a challenge for me is blogging on a regular basis – I know I’m not alone in this. I have all good intentions of publishing a post every week but life and business often take over and my posts aren’t always as regular as I’d like them to be.
I’m determined to publish more regular posts after what I learned at the recent Problogger conference. I know how important the posts are for establishing authority and maintaining my Google ranking for the keywords I wish to rank for. In order to establish a simple blog post schedule which is workable for me personally, I’ve come up with the following steps.
7 steps to developing a simple blog post schedule
-
Determine your blogging goal
What are you trying to achieve with your blog posts? Are you trying to establish your authority on your topic of choice, build your email list, get new consulting clients or persuade people to buy your product or service? Or are you writing and posting articles simply to boost your search ranking? Before starting, it’s important to clearly identify what you’re trying to achieve, just like everything else in business. An ad hoc approach will most likely provide lacklustre results.
-
Brainstorm your topics/categories
Make a list of all the topics you cover or want to cover on your blog. These will also be the categories you use on your blog posts. This list will provide you with an overview of the direction of your blog. A mind map can be very useful for getting ideas down on paper.
-
Identify your niche
Most blogs and websites cover one particular niche, such as business, home, family etc. If you’re a small business owner, your blog won’t necessarily be about business, it needs to be about your product, service or whatever it is that interests your customers. Do you have a niche? Having a particular niche can help provide some direction and shape the strategy for your blog.
-
Identify your target audience
Before you start writing it’s also important to know as much as possible about your audience. Who are you “speaking to” with your posts? Do you know the age group and gender of your readers? What are they interested in? What problem do they have that your product or service can solve? If you can gather this vital information, it will really help you to write the posts in a way which targets your ideal customer and makes them think you’re speaking only to them.
-
How often and when will you post?
Consistency is key. If you think you can write and post daily, then go for it, but don’t post daily for a week or two, then stop posting as this can make you appear unprofessional. It’s better to commit to posting weekly, fortnightly or several times per week and be consistent about it. Post on the same day each time and share your post to your social media pages to generate interest.
-
Monitor and measure on a regular basis
Install Google Analytics on your site and use it to monitor and measure the traffic that’s coming to your site and where it’s coming from.
-
Use tools to help track what and when you will post
It’s a great idea to keep a file of post ideas either in a notebook or in Word, Evernote or a similar online note taking tool. Once you’ve mapped out your posts for the next weeks or months you can use a plugin called WordPress Editorial Calendar to plan out which posts will appear on particular dates.
I hope these tips for developing a simple blog post schedule help increase your productivity.
Can’t find the time to write blog posts? This article has some great tips.
Looking for some fresh ideas for blog posts? This article has a list of them.
Want to know how to write to engage your audience? This article has a range of tips for you.
