For the longest time, I was guilty of not having an editorial calendar. I was an organizational mess. If you want to be consistently posting on your blog, you need to get organized. An editorial calendar will help you plan out relevant content ahead of time, and it just might result in better blog posts and more readers. Here are some tips for organizing your editorial calendar that work for me.
1. Pick a type of calendar that works for you. I am old fashioned and I love pen and paper. Other people like to keep things digital. My calendar is a list of dates in my notebook, it isn’t fancy, but it works.
2. Once you have a calendar that you like, focus on the four weeks ahead. Do you have any sponsored posts? Fill those in first to make sure you meet any deadlines.
3. Check to see if any holidays or events are coming up and mark them in your calendar. The Super Bowl is on 2/1 and Valentine’s Day is 2/14 – since I am a food blogger, both of those are big topics to cover on my site. I filled in my calendar with posts on these topics first, paying attention to the timing but spreading them out. A post about where to make reservations for a Valentine’s Day date needs to go up a month before the holiday, while recipes can go up 1-2 weeks before. Topical posts are good for SEO, and Pinterest, so make sure to add some in to your calendar.
4. Add in any posts that you have already written. My New Years goal was to be ten blog posts ahead, and not matter what I recommend trying to get a week ahead – especially if you have a full time job.
5. I like to have my content completely planned out two weeks in advance, the posts might not be done, but I know what they will be about. I leave one opening a week for weeks 3 and 4 of my calendar to make room for opportunities that might come up.
Do you have any tips for organizing your editorial calendar? Share them in the comments!
Kit Graham is the writer behind The Kittchen, a WCBC founder, and a data privacy expert at Groupon, who is desperately trying to convince her husband that she needs a puppy.
photo via The Trendy Sparrow