Blogging not only requires writing and posting your content. It also requires managing the blog to come up with quality posts consistently. One of the key factors of good blog management is scheduling. If you want to grow your blog site, you need to post not one excellent post but a series of excellent posts. In the following article, we cover how to create a blog schedule.
If you are doing other activities for your website, such as developing products and services, running a newsletter and posting on social media platforms, you have lots of things to do. You should plan and make a blog schedule so you don’t forget to blog the content you need to. This is to ensure that you can still write quality posts and never miss posting on your site. Let’s be honest, nothing becomes successful without a careful plan. So, whether you’re a newbie or a pro in blogging, this post will help you out in your blog planning!
Did you have a blog schedule in the past?
The frequency of your blog posting affects the performance of your site. You can assess how your site is doing by looking at your blogging pattern. One way of gauging your resources and skills is looking at past performance. So when did you first start blogging? How many blog posts did you start with? How many times have you blogged since then? Once a week? Once a month? Less often than that? Gulp.
Do you have more blog writers or fewer?
You have to consider this point. If you wish to grow your blog and you need to post more blogs more often, then you might need to add writers. However, the number of writers is not the only consideration. How quickly and well they can write is another factor. Are there subject experts in your organization that can write? Search engines really like knowledgeable writers and those articles are more likely to rank higher. And their knowledge will really shine with alternate keywords and expertise that is hard to outsource.
Are the blog writers motivated to write?
Motivated writers certainly make higher-quality output! Quality should always be the priority, even though the quantity of posts is important. You, as a writer, can only write something worth reading if you have the motivation to do so. You do not expect someone to have great ideas and type right away. There are many times that even though you have the idea, you can hardly put it into words. In another article, we discussed writer’s block while blogging. How about your other writers? If you experience this, unquestionably they also do. Thus, it is always wise to check on yourself and your writer and help them identify the barriers to getting blog posts done. Organization of thoughts does not happen overnight. If you have a dedicated blog editor, they can help schedule their content. They can also help find keywords and topics to cover with the blog. They could even outline a blog post with a title and some headlines for the sections of the blog. This can help with blogging SEO immensely.
Can you hire outside blog writers?
You can hire outside writers, but it will again depend on your need. If you targeted to roll out blogs every week and your pool of writers cannot meet them, then you can decide to take on outside writers. But the downside of that is that, of course, you will have to let them know the goal of your blog and the way you want the blog to be. Unlike your writers, they are already familiar with your manner of blogging and meeting deadlines. They often are excellent at time management and search engine optimization.
AI writing tools to Meet a blog schedule? How?
AI (Artificial intelligence) writing tools have been gaining wide popularity in content writing. There are pros and cons to using AI tools. Here are some positives and negatives of using artificial intelligence.
Efficiency
Undoubtedly, AI delivers more efficiently than humans. On average, a human can write a 1000-word article in an hour. AI can do this in less than a minute. So, if you want quantity, AI can do it for you. Likewise, efficiency in writing for humans is affected by their expertise on a subject. Since we do not expect them to be acquainted with all the topics, research and reading other content is needed. But AI can generate content on any topic. It actually goes out and reads the internet while making a blog to research a topic and be able to write about it. It is a method of doing research, albeit with machine learning.
While AI can meet efficiency, there might be risks in quality and plagiarism issues. You cannot question the superiority of human minds. We know what is reasonable and what isn’t. AI mainly depends on data algorithms and analysis. If it goes out and reads worthless information, it will output inaccurate information. Also, at least of the time of this writing, AI is bad at writing concluding paragraphs and comparing different ideas.
Cost cutting
In blogging, you may need additional writers if you need to write topics that you have no expertise in or if you just want to finish more articles. This is another consideration that you have to ponder since you will eventually need funds to pay for additional writers. However, in AI, they can generate content in any field or topic with little extra cost.
Can write in languages you are not proficient at
AI can localize languages important in your geographical region. Learning a new language is not so difficult for a machine. For example, if English is not your first language, it probably is very hard to write a blog post that sounds natural. AI could allow you to jump to a more finished article quicker.
Cons of AI Writing Tools
Using AI is not ideal with Google because they are against it. There might be issues with search engines devaluing your content. Google aims to help people find original and unique content. It implies their preference for content that is written by humans. You may save money from paying writers, but it does not assure you of getting the same amount of traffic for your content.
The bad part of this is that it lacks creativity and originality. What makes human writing exceptional is the feeling and emotion that you can grasp from their content. You cannot expect this from AI content. They don’t have this ability yet.
Above all these, yes, you can use AI tools. However, it is best to limit its use to a writer’s assistant instead of writing finished articles. Although it can guarantee you a high number of blogs, quality is best be left to humans. You might use AI for a first draft or to make an outline and consider having it find your headlines for paragraphs. Then have a writer or your editor heavily edit the output or start fresh after reading the AI content. This is also a unique way to break writer’s block.
Source for pictures to meet blog schedule
Pictures and images help your blog stand out because not everyone is a fan of reading, just text. Images add to the appearance of the blog, which reduces fatigue. If you look at this blog, EVERY post has at least one image. It is vital in blogging that you have a source for pictures and images. To help you out, these are some points that you might want to think about:
How to Get Good Pictures
Although you can search for free pictures and images on the internet, there will be issues with originality. The safest option will always be to create unique images. But to get excellent pictures that are perfect for your blogs, choose your subject, invest in a good camera or phone, and editing software.
Do you have a Graphic Designer?
Another option that you can take is to employ a graphic designer. You can never go wrong with someone who has expertise in creating visual concepts. Not only will they be providing you with the pictures and images that you need for your blog, but they can also do the layout and add text to the images.
Sites for Getting Stock Photography
You can get images from stock photography sites which may either be free or will require payment. The following are some sites to get stock images:
Canva Pro
Envato Elements
Shutterstock
Pexels
Depositphotos
How often should you post new blog posts?
Many believe that frequent blog posting or even daily posting is the best practice. It may increase traffic, subscribers in social media or newsletters, social media shares, and customer feedback or comments. But it will be a drain in resources and time.
The usual estimate is to post at least three (3) to four (4) blogs a week or increase it depending on your set goals. If you have good blog planning, you will have a guide on how many posts you can finish and post a week. You will know the amount of posts that are beneficial in growing your website. This blog post looked for numbers driven answer to this question and came up with 2 to 4 times a week. https://contenthacker.com/how-often-should-you-post-on-your-blog/ Of course, we know that is difficult and may be difficult to get time and personnel resources to blog that often. It might be easier to get resources if you have blogs that are getting good traffic, links and leads. Making sure what you do blog gets traffic is important. As they say, “Success breeds success”.
What time and day should you post new blog posts?
Timing is everything! You know that this applies to blog posting, too. The time and day of blog posting plays a vital role if your goal is to make that blog post go viral. Many studies examine the best time to post blog posts. This yielded varying results on different blogs and topics. Without this study, the general thought is posting on a weekend when people will not be busy at work, school, or doing personal activities would get the most readers. However, the studies reveal a quite different view.
People usually read their emails when they wake up, so to get more traffic, blog posting in the morning between 7 AM to 1 PM is usually good. The peak hours will be between 9 AM to 11 AM. However, in considering the period in posting, you should also know your target audience. To get social media shares, posting Sunday can be the best day to post them, given the minimal activities done on Sundays.
Those are the times best for posting to blogs. It may differ as to your audience and geographic location. The best practice is to check the analytics of your blog, to test which the suggested days and times which work best with your blog.
How to how to create a blog schedule?
To make a blog content schedule, the first step is knowing your goals as to topics, frequency of publishing, due dates, and status. Then create a template that fulfills those goals. Having a schedule/calendar template is easier with the below included template. You can click below to download this template, print it, and fill it out. If it does not work for you, you can make a personalized template. The important thing is that the points that you want to see in your calendar are there that can help you manage your blog posting. The template should have:
Channel
This is where your content will show. It will help you define the content that you should focus on. Usually it would be your blog on your domain. But it might be shorter posts on Twitter or Facebook. It could also be on industry blogs or guest posting on other blogs.
Topic
This helps you identify topics or ideas to be written.
Persons in charge
This is the persons editing and writing the blog post.
Date of submission of Drafts
The schedule of assigning topics and drafting will keep you analyzing the frequency of your posting.
Due Date of Publishing
It is important to set a publishing date to help you stick with your goals in posting.
Status
This will help you track the publish date and check whether it achieved the goals.
How often should you reconsider your blog content schedule?
When you have created a blog content schedule, it is best to stick with it as long as possible. Changing it will not be good as it will confuse the stakeholders. Your schedule is your plan, so you should follow it. If it is not followed, the perceived importance of scheduling will be diminished, and you may not meet your goals. But you can reconsider it or change only when it is needed to make it responsive to your new goals. Sometimes companies might do a new business plan in the new year, like January. It is a good time to review what has happened in the past year.
Conclusion to How to Create a Blog Schedule
Blogging encompasses a lot of things. It is more than picking a topic, writing, and posting. Your goal should be to grow it and be successful. The only repeatable way to do it is to have a blogging plan and follow it. This is crucial in building your blog’s success. The blog content schedule is not only a guide but a strategy for crafting quality blogs posts and getting more readers and customers. You hope this guide helped you know how to create a blog schedule.
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