Today is Day 13 of the Be A Better Blogger series. We’re using the outline offered by Collis Ta’eed in his article titled 31 Days To Becoming A Better Blogger, and our topic for the day is:
Day 13: Work out an editorial calendar for your blog. It’s a lot harder to put off writing a post when you know exactly when your blog is due for an update. Working out an editorial calendar can help give your blog a sense of rhythm. It can also make you more productive through setting firm deadlines for new posts...
This is something new for me as I simply sit down and write every day, going with the flow of my business and my current thoughts. But I love the concept, and so I went in search of a blogger who might be able to shed some light on the actual how-to of setting up an editorial calendar.
I hit the jackpot. Andy Wibbels not only discusses it, he offers a free download that you can use to set up your own blogging schedule:
...pick a topic to cover for each day of the week and stick to it. That way, there’s no friction in figuring out what to post for a given day. You can choose certain topics for each day of the week, a certain category to post in, a certain type of post format (interivew, top 10 list, etc). The important part is that you are removing another brick of potential writer’s block... source
Go to this post on Andy's blog to download the free editorial calendar, and also read the directions for using it.
I'm off to do the same 😉 I'm going to grab the free PDF & Audio mentioned there as well. Its an interview on blog traffic... Enjoy!
Best,
About Lynn Terry
Thanks Lynn - I do well with deadlines and sometimes struggle with blog topics if I leave them to the last minute. Be a good tool for me - thanks for mentioning the PDF and audio, had to keep going back for more!
How far ahead are you going to plan?
At first I was completely resistant to this idea and didn't even read this post. But I'm coming around a little now. I'm still not embracing the scheduling aspect, 🙂 but I think I'll adapt it to an "idea organizer." Right now I have post ideas all over the place (blog drafts, folders on my desktop with article drafts for all my sites, in my head, and on paper). I can adapt the calendar to a list of topics and keywords by site instead of by day and date.
Maybe I'll warm up to the scheduling part later on... I can see the advantages.
I too didn't like this idea at first, but I found a way to make it work for me. There ARE several categories of my blog (the one in particular I'm using for these challenges) that need more posts.
So here's what I did - I decided on two categories that could use weekly posts. I set reminders on my Yahoo Calendar (my homepage is MyYahoo, so the calendar stares at me first thing every morning) to repeat every week. That way each week I'll have a reminder to post in that category for the day.
I probably could do this for every day, but I'm thinking I'm more likely to stick with it if I start with just too and create a habit. I know we are suppose to try and post days ahead and I do that too, but daily habits keep me more focused.
Some great thoughts and ideas here! I love the concept, and I've seen this on a lot of blogs - where they'll have "tuesday link love" or "the friday round-up" for example, and then do it each week consistently. I think it gives your readers something to expect and look forward to, which can be a great thing as well.
Hi Kara.. good to see you. I like your idea of concentrating on neglected categories too. And I'm right there with you on making smaller goals. We can always do more, but if I make my goals too ambitious I either end up feeling bad because I'm not reaching them or I just give up. Don't want to do either!
I've never been one for "To Do" lists in written form, tend to keep everything in my brain (which frustrates the heck out of some family members who just have to write it down), but I'm also big on good, free software to get organized so thank you!
As for what to write about, the blog world teems with great ideas and inspiration - so far so good! Guess I'm sort of a seat of my pants type writer 🙂
I can relate to that Diane 😉
Smaller goals are a great start. And if you come up with someone consistent like a monthly stats post or a weekly round-up, I think you'll find your readers will respond positively to that.