Develop an Editorial Calendar for Your Blog [Day 12 – 31DBBB]

I follow the topic method. I do this mainly because I post 3 times a week (I work full time and this is what my schedule allows). I don’t want to set myself up to be dissapointed if I can’t stick to a strict schedule. I want the blogging experience to be fun, and if I feel like I’m not meeting my post per week goals, blogging becomes more of a burden than I’d like it to be. Plus, I believe in quality over quantity, so if I make my goal just about numbers, I’m compromising my writing quality.

I know that I’ll get three posts out a week but I’m never sure which days of the week I’ll post. I always have a few draft posts that are ready to be proofread and published, so I’ve been able to have a looser schedule because I have a backlog of posts that ensure I keep up with 3 posts/week.

So, for this task, I’ve listed out my topics in a column (I used Google docs). Underneath a topic column I’ve written a blog post pertaining to the topic, and after I have 3 rows filled in for one week, I move on to the next row. I have more than 3 topics that I write about, so each week I’ll choose 3 and the next week I will choose 3 different topics. The result is a schedule for 3 posts a week on the topics I want to touch upon over a month period.

This tip has helped me gain some structure to my posting schedule, but still allowed me the ability to keep the post schedule goal attainable and enjoyable. I won’t be dissapointed if I have to rearrange posts, and I know I have a schedule for 3 posts a week that will keep me going for the month.

Thanks for the great tip, Darren!

Good Post Darren,

I usually write link post on Sunday, as it is holiday so everyone can check the links I have provided in the post.

I am also thinking about the Interviews to be posted soon on my blog. For this I am looking for the right day so that the visitors would come and read it.

Your suggestions are great, I got some more ideas during reading this post. Now I have to work on those ideas.

Thanks for the Post.

Good idea, I’ve been leaning towards the second idea for awhile now. I haven’t gotten around to making any sort of schedule though. I might save this for when I have more time to create it, and to implement it. Great post, I’m looking forward to the assignment!

I’m new to your blog and have been blogging since 10/2007 on my mom blog called Call Me Crazy… Life as a mother of sixteen children (http://callmecrazy-momofsixteen.blogspot.com/).

It had occurred to me that if I write about each child once per month, then I have half the month covered, so I chose the date of their birth as their blog day.

The empty days I filled in with the natural flow of our life, like family fun on Saturdays and Family Dinner on Sundays. That means I’ll have about 12 posts about each of the children per year, including birthdays, and special events like school concerts or sports. I just have to collect the pictures in a file, then save them until their day arrives and post!

The hard part is birthdays. Yesterday, #16 turned five and between the events of the day and a multitude of other daily activities, I didn’t get the photo’s uploaded. If I didn’t have to share the laptop with seven teenagers… well, that’s another post!

Darren,

Again, you take what should be an obvious (if somewhat imposing) idea and make it seem like the most natural thing in the world. I’m building my calendar as we speak. I’ve already adopted the practice of advance writing, so this will fit nicely in with my plan.

Thanks so much.

Thanks! I like the idea of having set days for my categories. Though I do have 7 categories, and I plan to post 4-5 times per week only, so maybe some categories will share a day.
For example, Monday could be devotions/daily walk
Tuesday: Homekeeping/homeschool
Wednesday: Fun ideas
and so on…

I am just not sure I will actually tell my readers this…what do you think about that? Is it something you keep in mind or do you announce the schedule?

Thanks you so much Darren, this is a wonderful idea.

Once I started having an editorial calendar, I started to have many more ideas for posts. Having more structure seemed to spark my creativity.

Another winner, Darren! I am setting up my editorial calendar now. Just have to remember where I save it *SMILE

Heidi Richards Mooney

I like your precision, routine, and details exposed.

It seems to me the big factors here are your production rate balanced with your users absorption and consumption rate.

Yesterday’s challenge helped me win my battle with writer’s block! I have a lot more material than I initially suspected. I am truly enjoying this challenge. Thank you for sharing that site Andrea R.

I found the process to be very useful in that it helps to layout the blog posting schedule so that it will be easier to manage instead of trying to automatically come up with post ideas on the fly, writing them and then posting them. Bloggers who have busy schedules outside of their blogging life can find an editorial calendar to be very helpful in maintaining their blog.

I have tried to use a spreadsheet but found that creating folders for each week worked better for me. I create a folder for “Monday” for example and then create documents that are post ideas for that day. Some I use and others I may decide to skip or move to another day. In these documents, I write the post title or at least a few ideas for the post title, which may be changed before publishing and then I go on to write topics that I want to cover within that blog post.

I also try to include URLs that are resources of information or places that I may want to link to when proving a point or providing an additional resource for my readers. I do this with each post idea and some make it to the publishing stage while others are left in draft mode or deleted.

I write 11 posts about consumer issues each week. There is so much to write about and so much news coming out all the time, especially with Twitter, it seems making a schedule doesn’t allow flexibility.

What do others think who are dealing with lots of fast-moving potential topics?

Rita at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com

Hey Darren,

I just recently started doing a weekly editorial calendar AND scheduling all posts on Sunday and it has made my life so much easier. I have 3 small kids and trying to brainstorm & write posts every day was so time consuming and stressful. Now, I have guest bloggers, daily themes and spend a few hours each Sunday writing & scheduling.

Thanks so much for another great lesson!!
Heather

I second (or third or fourth) that this is a great idea. I create editorial calendars in and out, mostly when I’m having trouble sticking to a schedule. I saw someone ask about writing ahead and scheduling publications. I typically do this…I find I get my posts get picked up by the search engines more quickly if I post at a regular time of day, so I schedule that to happen before I even get out of bed in the morning. It also relieves you from having to remember to publish “on schedule” and keeps things consistent for your readers…I publish Monday, Wednesday, and an occasional humorous post on Friday, unless, of course, something pops up that demands an immediate publication.

Laura
http://bridging-the-gap.com

is there a way to get the signature to also show up on comments like we have for the forum posts?

I already do this for my Literary Lunch blog. I have an entire month’s of ideas written out. Of course, since it’s author biographies I don’ t really have to worry much about titles.

I’ve been doing an editorial calendar of sorts. I’m really trying ot set aside a writing day so I can I sit down and draft several posts in one shot. Since most of my posts are “how to” posts I’ve been scheduling the revised versions of my prewritten posts to conside with a few of weekly blog carnivals like Works for Me Wednesday or Thrifty Green Thrusday when applicable.

A more formal process would probably save me a few headaches. Thanks.

Darren,
thanks for the last couple of challenges. Though I am new to this, the process works great.

I do this on a pretty informal basis. I normally post longer travel articles on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and participate in a “Photo Friday” blog carnival (usually one, or a few photos, with a bit of text).

I often open files in Word as I decide what to do in the coming weeks and maybe put a title on it with a few notes or a few links, so I have something to start with as I sit down to actually write the article.

I’ve really concentrated on trying to get at least a post ahead and schedule them for upload on my regular days. That’s made me plan a little more and taken the day-to-day pressure of coming up with entire articles on the day I want to post them.

I do this regularly.
I write for 4 blogs so organization and forethought is a must. I use a calendar for the month and write a rough outline for the month and then each week I flesh it out with the topics for my recurring themes-one blog has Tuesday Tips and Walt Disney World Wednesdays another has Monday Motivation. I also work in 2 giveaways and 2 product reviews a week on one of my blogs.

Thanks again Darren for the great info. I have so many “I should have thought of that” moments when I read your posts. So simple, so effective!

I would like to offer a suggestion to your readers that takes these last two challenges one step further. After finishing the brainstorming exercise, go ahead and write at least 5 or 6 of those posts if not more if you can.

I do this and from a creative standpoint it works really well for me. Whatever the topic is, it is fresh in my mind after finishing the first post. I may have had to do some research and that is also fresh in my mind. I may have come across other information while researching that pertains to one of the other posts that I want to write. It is much easier to keep on writing about the same topic. The creativity flows much easier. If I jumped from topic to topic every day, it would definitely slow me down.

From an SEO perspective, it also save me hours of time. Because all of those future posts I just wrote are on topic, I will want to link them to each other. I can go through older posts and decide which of those I want to link to/from as well. When I set up my calendar, I make notes beside each future post of exactly which pages to link to/from so that when it is time to publish most of my SEO is done already.

This really ends up being a great time saver as well as making writing easier.

This assignment helped get a jump on planning posts for my two week vacation – how nice! http://budurl.com/qszs

Thank you again for another terrific exercise. It reminds me of what one of my favorite teachers used to say: Prepare for everything; creativity lives there…
I like outlook calender for the annoying but quite effective reminders. Google calendar, I will go look at as I dont recall much about it.
I am pleased that I have finally pushed through some of my time/mind restraints and wrote 2 blogs for 2 of my sites. I still have the list post to complete and I am pleased.
This course is priceless!

Something is broken Darren, I’ve received 10 identical emails so far about this topic.