How To Create A Blog Schedule You Can Actually Follow

Are you struggling to maintain a consistent blog schedule?

You already know that content is extremely important to build a relationship with your audience and sell your product or services, but it can be a pain the butt if you can’t find the time when everyday life happens.

When you’re looking to create content, you shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel with each piece.

Instead, you should have a clear and repeatable process in place that allows you to produce blog posts, ebooks, webinars, and more in an efficient manner.

I call this content creation framework. This is a simple process that helps you remember what to do what in a given time, thus setting you up for success.

Your content creation framework consists of:

• smart and realistic content goals (i.e. growing your list to 1,000 subscribers)
• timeline for creation and publishing (i.e. 1 month)
• an editorial calendar for scheduling (i.e. Every weekdays, 7pm-9pm)

So why do you need a content goal?

Because you want to see results and that happens only if you’re focused and know what you really want to accomplish.

And why do you need a timeline for publishing?

Because you want to be consistent in providing value to your audience, this way they see you as someone who knows what they need, thus building trust and bond.

And what is an editorial calendar for?

An editorial calendar enables you to follow through with your goal and timeline, this is also the first step towards achieving a sustainable content creation process.

Having a content creation framework to follow enables you to stay consistent with your blogging goals and makes it easier for you to follow through (when you don’t feel like it).

 Use this Google Sheet template that we created to help you build your own framework.

**Click File –> Make a Copy** so you can start using it.

(see the template image below)

Tip: To stay on track with your timeline, make sure to create tasks associated with your goal and add them to your calendar.

Also, make sure it doesn’t overwhelm you, shoot for 1-2 task per day.

via GIPHY

The key here is to make progress and build the habit of working on your blog regardless of how busy you are or how much time you have available. #JustDoIt

If the only blogging task you know is writing a blogpost, then you are setting yourself up for a disaster and possibly a major dissappoint (if you ever want to monetize it!).

So what are the blogging tasks that you need keep in mind or atleast, be aware of?

First off, bear in mind that not all blogs are the same, if your blog is new, then your tasks will be different than others who already have an email list, product or services or team that work for them.

To help you with this, let me give you an overview of the key blogging tasks that you need to consider. Feel free to add or remove anything that doesn’t apply to you.

Blogging tasks to add to your schedule

• Researching for an article
• Drafting the article
• Editing the article (making sure you don’t have any grammar or spelling issues)
  • Searching for stock photos as blog featured image
  • Adding rich, colourful pinnable images (you can use these templates)
  • Optimize your article with SEO keywords, alt tag on images to boost traffic
• Publishing the article
• Re-purpose the article, this means creating different formats such as:
  • ebook, infographic, video or audio podcast
• Promoting the article on your given platforms such as:
  • email list, social media or pinterest scheduling

Ah yes, that’s the simplified version.

Oh why? Because when you consider monetizing your blog it goes a little crazy with affiliate links, adding related content, creating content upgrades and more.

Don’t worry about that for now, I’ll help you with the in the upcoming series! 😉

Managing your blogging schedule

There are a lot of great tools out there that will help you create To Do lists, tasks or even goals.

If you’re tech savvy and collaborate with other people, Google Calendar is a great choice. It’s free, it updates real time and you can access it on any device that you have.

TIP: You can create a calendar for your blog (as you can see in the image below) and use color coding for each task and assign it on a given day.

For example, in our blog we know that every Monday is “research day” this is non-negotiable even when we’re travelling for business or have personal things to attend to.

(See example below on how you add tasks on your calendar)

If you’re the type of person who likes to write ideas for brainstorming and to do’s all in one place, I recommend you check out this Living Well Planner. I personally use it to take notes for my blog post ideas, future series to write, and even managing our finances as a couple.

How to beat overwhelm and burnout

Finally, if you’re someone who easily gets overwhelmed, I’d suggest you focus on one strategy to meet your goals. Like, we all know social media is great, it’s fun, it could be a really powerful tool to grow your blog and business but also. it’s straight up exhausting 😛

If you want to drive massive traffic to your blog, then I highly recommend you consider Pinterest (regardless of your niche it’s effective!) you can check out this post on how to use it to grow your blog.

To build relationship with your audience, you can create a Facebook Group, start a Twitter chat, create your own hashtag on Instagram if that’s what you like.

Or, if you’re smart (ah yes, I know you are!) create your own email list so you’re not dependent on someone else’s platform. More on that on our upcoming series for email lists.

The important thing here is that you are having fun! Take the pressure off and keep blogging!

Now, it’s your turn:

What does your blog schedule look like? Let’s chat in the comments!