The purpose of your blog is to produce well-thought-out, valuable, and easy to read blog content.
Blog content is the bread and butter of what you do, and great blog content ideas will pull in readers.
Knowing when to write, what to write, and how to write blog content are skills that you build-up over time. A content schedule for your blog will help you set those all-important goals.
You can read our previous post on Creating a Blog for Brand Optimization to learn how to create a blog.
How do you keep producing blog content articles, and what is the importance of a content schedule on your blog?
Organization
Making notes on what you want to write about is going to benefit you in many ways. How you write those notes will have a huge impact, though. Writing in a notebook is an excellent way to start, but to keep things organized, a content calendar is better. It helps you begin to create a plan for your content, you will spot gaps that should be filled with content.
You will be able to see if there is too much focus on one subject or not enough on your niche. A content calendar will help you organize your marketing content better than a pen and paper.
Idea Generation
You can generate blog content ideas in so many ways, and you should be doing a broad mix of them. When you see all of your intended topics laid out in calendar form, you can make connections between the topics and produce ideas for extra content that links more of it together.
Using some of the keywords for the topics you have, you can generate more titles around that topic and start aiming towards a cohesive and valuable content schedule. Several blog post title generators can help fill those gaps.
Consistency
You have probably heard of the three Cs of excellent content marketing.
- Company
- Customers
- Competitors
These are the perfect places to dip into your data to see what people are reading and when. Then you can add an extra C - consistency. Posting 4 blog posts over the space a month isn't going to get you as much traffic as producing 16 pieces of content will.
Having days that you post, or even times that people can expect that email notification will mean you are at the forefront of people's minds. Your calendar can keep your blog content on track, and keep that traffic coming in.
When you have everything laid out via a content schedule, and you have that consistency, you will automatically produce meaningful blog content. In turn, you will see an increase in engagement - because you are consistently resonating with your audience.
Current
Your content calendar will most like be pre-filled with a range of important dates. These might be specific to your country, or global. This allows you to produce content that will be trending and relevant at the right times of the year.
Ideally, you will plan your content a month in advance, but you can plan your Christmas content in July - for example. This allows you the time to craft, something well written, and relevant to your readers.
Allowing yourself to be current and create content in advance means that you never have to rush to produce your high-quality blog content.
You can read our previous post on Creating a Blog for Brand Optimization to learn how to create a blog.
Fully Rounded Campaign
Your social media should be used, in part, to further the efforts of your content. When putting your content calendar together, a social media content calendar should be done simultaneously.
You are most likely always publishing content that is ideal for your audience on your social media, so make sure to add in your highest-performing organic content to capitalize on your social media impact.
All of your posted content on social media can (and should) be used to support your efforts on your blog.
Performance Tracking
Behind every piece of content, there should be a 'why.' Why are you posting on this topic, why are you linking to those media outlets? The 'why' of your content will guide you as you create your content schedule, and ensure that you are delivering value to your readers.
Tracking these blog posts' performance will give you insight into which topics are the highest performing and give you a 'why' to write some more on that topic.
Your content schedule is the fuel to keep your blog fresh, informative, and in front of the right eyes.
In summary, there are several ways that you can build a content schedule in excel, but it is often better to use a framework. Tedbree has a product stack that can help businesses of any size with everything from funnels to event planning. Putting the power in your hands and increasing your reach.