How to Create an Editorial Calendar for Bloggers
Being a blogger is not always easy, there’s so much that goes into it, and forget about dedicating all the time you want if you’re combining your blog passion with a 9 to 5 job and/or a family!
Your time is important and so is your blog, even more so if your blog is helping you attract customers. If you have an indie business, an Etsy shop, or are getting ready to start selling your handmade goods; you need to know how to make the most with the time you have.
The bottom line is that you can’t afford not having an editorial calendar. If you’re not sure what your ideal reader is, you can follow this step by step guide that will make it really easy for you.
An editorial calendar is not a “thing”, is not just a calendar where you set the dates to publish your blog posts. An editorial calendar is a process you follow to:
- find out what you really want to blog about
- come up with more blog post ideas than you ever could before
- realize you probably have been blogging about things that don’t make you happy
- get creative and push yourself to try new ideas
- create content that you’re happy to write, content that will benefit your readers and bring you results!
The process:
1.Write all the things you want to blog about, write them ALL down. Use whatever makes your heart happy: a nice set of pen and paper, your tablet or phone, or that pretty travelers notebook you’ve been waiting to use.
This is the time to be creative and come up with all kinds of blog post ideas. You are NOT committing to write about all these things, you are just getting all your ideas out and making them feel more real by having them in a list.
2.Now that you have all these ideas… hopefully more than 50, it’s time to be picky and honest.
Out of all those ideas, eliminate the ones that don’t feel right, eliminate those topics you know might not be the best fit for your blog.
Go through the list and read the topics, one by one. Be honest with yourself and eliminate what you don’t see yourself being able to/or wanting to writing about.
3.You will start to see that similar topics appear. How many ideas are about food, DIYs, art, traveling, etc. Make another list and group those ideas that can fit a category.
These categories might be similar to the ones you already have in your blog, or you may find new ones that you never used before but now feel just perfect.
4.Try to map out what would be the best way to mix and match those blog post ideas. What would you like to blog about on Monday? What about Friday?
Look at your categories and blog post ideas with your reader’s eyes.
What would they like to read? and what would you like them to read?
5.Now get your calendar. Again, go with digital or paper depending on what makes you happier and assign a date to your blog post ideas.
You can use a big paper calendar, or wall calendar and post-its, this way you can write the blog post ideas on the post its and move them around, trying different days of the week.
Spend time moving your ideas around, and know you CAN change your mind later and that’s ok.
The key point here is the brainstorming session. That’s what helps you come up with content ideas for months. Another important point is the fact that you’re setting up dates, you now have a due date for each blog post.
6.Now what you need to do is set a date to write those blog posts.
- Will you be creating one blog post a day, including photography?
- Would you be writing the all the week’s content, and then finding images?
Decide what works for you. Some people think working on one blog post at a time is better. Others find that writing 2 or 3 posts in one day is easier, and then they take care of the photography. Try both ways and see what works!
You now have 2 calendars:
One that has all the blog posts on the date that you want them to be published.
Another with the dates you’ll write those blog posts
And now you’re done.
If you follow this process you will never run out of ideas to blog about and you will have a structured schedule that will help you use your time in the best way possible to fit your lifestyle.
