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Starting a blog without a road map is like beating against the wind. Creating content randomly will not produce a good result, unlike when your content is organized. As such, learning how to create a content schedule is a plus for every internet marketer.
This article will not just address how to create the calendar, we will also take a detailed look at its importance.
Table of Contents
What is a content schedule?
Borrowing a definition from Backlinko, a content schedule is also known as a content calendar is an arrangement of your content. It shows in details where and when you plan to publish specific content. It is done in such a way to indicate upcoming content, promotional events, required updates on existing content.
Why is Content Schedule Important?
Many of us use our blogs for several reasons. Some use it to keep memories; others take it as a hobby while the majority take it as a business. If blogging is your business, using a content schedule will be a good idea. Below are six important reasons why you must use a content schedule.
- Helps in Planning: Planning is an event in blogging, just like every other business. A content schedule will help you plan your content. So doing, you are not disorganized, and you do not just post when you feel. But you post consistently and not waiting for motivation from above before you get to work.It makes multitasking easy, and not clumsy. With a detailed plan, you can batch your work into separate units. Writing your posts before the due date becomes quite easy.
- Help you meet up with holidays. Holidays are important events. They are cash cows when you know how to use them. If your contents are planned, publishing content promptly becomes easier.Let us use the poultry niche as an example, the Christmas holiday is a sales time for chicken. Planning your content, you can make affiliate sales on day-old chicks and boxes in September and October. It is the period when people are making purchases.
- Help reduce making unnecessary mistakes: Content Schedule helps you plan your content. By this, you will be able to reduce mistakes. By allocating enough time to editing your work and vetting it with both proofreaders and your legal advisers
- Consistent Posting: Whichever platform you engage an audience, one primary advice is to be consistent. When you are consistent with your work, your audience naturally looks out for you. A well planned out content schedule will help you lay your post ahead of time, so you show up on timely bases.
- Reduce Audience Spamming: Spamming your audience always have a negative effect. Remember it is majorly about delivering unwanted mails. If your content is well planned, you will post the right content at the right time. Thereby reducing the rate at which people unsubscribe from your list.
- Instant View of Content A well laid down content schedule gives you an overview of your content at a glance. As such, you can pinpoint content you need to update and content that needs to be linked together.
When should you create your Calendar?
When to start creating your calendar is not cast on stone. But the earlier, the better; you can create it every month or yearly or even weekly basis. It all depends on your convenience. Most bloggers advice you create it every month. Creating a yearly calendar is good, but you must be open to more adjustment as time pass by.
Planning gives room for several levels of adjustment; each form has its advantage.
Content Schedule Layout
Having a specific format for your content calendar is very good and advisable. It helps in making your work very organized. You can use the simple Microsoft excel, Google Sheet. Google sheet is excellent when you have a team of 2 or more people using it.
It makes your content calendar easily accessible to team members at their convenience. Based on needed access, they can edit it and share it amidst themselves.
The size of your template depends on the amount of information you want to make available on your sheet. A simple spreadsheet will allow you to create content based on what you want. It is good I show you my first content calendar created without any form of training. I created multiple types of sheets for each category of my articles. I tagged it SEO, blogging and so on.
Below are four formats you can use for your layout
1) Traditional Calendar
Just like the name sounds “a calendar”, it is simple. You can use the traditional calendar to achieve this. It can be a paperback calendar or on your phone using the Google calendar. The thing is to know what you want per time.Its limitation is that you only can publish date and attach it to articles and nothing else. It is highly limited in scope.
2) Excel or Google Sheet
It is a more robust way to plan data. It can help you keep all your data in one place. One good advantage is a comprehensive view of your data at once, and it is easy to learn. For spreadsheet, understanding them is quite easy, and they can integrate into other content management app. So many of the so-called content management app is on the same principles.
As such, moving your content across platforms is made quite easy.
3) Content Management App
When it comes to content management, some tools take the form of calendars. The good thing is that they do not stop at the calendar format. They include tools for content management and team collaboration.
It is an old calendar that has a lot of shortcomings; I have only shown you to show that you can plan it to your convenience.
Let us get started on a basic model you can use to lay it down.
Drafting your Content Schedule
1) Highlight your Existing content
As marketers, we are always out to create something new. Our mind is at pushing out a new write-up, a new video, and so on. We forget that we can repurpose our existing content and draw up more income from them.
Below are types of content that you can repurpose
- Existing data and research: you can create stories from your data. It can be presented in forms of video or used for training.
- Reports: you can easy atomize your content here by breaking down a voluminous report. You can break them down into smaller blog post.
- Slide Decks: they can be republished into PowerPoint for presentations as videos or slides.
Understanding how to repurpose your content will save you the stress and energy of producing fresh content often. A piece of content can be used in several forms to achieve other sellable and relevant content.
Another very instrumental event in creating a calendar is content atomization. It is the process of breaking content into smaller pieces without losing its relevance.
2) Highlight the days you want to push out content.
While some people will not publish content every day, others post multiple contents daily. It all depends on your audience and the size of your business. Whichever way, the most important thing is keeping up with a consistent posting pattern.
Been consistent is very important in content marketing, with the time you will discover the best time of the day, week or month you should produce content. Depending on your type of audience, your content may enjoy readership on Monday, Wednesday or even during weekends.
3) Note Events
Now you have marked the days you will like to post, it is time to take note of important events. It will go a long way to help you save time.
4) Mark the remaining space with themes:
Diversity makes things beautiful. A change in the theme is essential to keep things going. Also, you can alternate your content types, your target audience. This variation will help you test other things and pick which works best.
5) Schedule Editorial meeting:
Organizing editorial meetings between those involved in the content production process is important. These meetings will help in the review of your content schedule. It will help achieve realistic time frames for deliveries.
Reviews of the job done is another vital importance of scheduling editorial meetings. It will help you review your content, engagement and revenue generated. Thereby you can differentiate between successful content and content that needs rework.
This will help you make a decision on needed tweaks on your published content and contents not published.
6) Test Your Content:
Testing your content is an essential part of this event. It helps you understand how your audience interacts with your content. It will also help you decide if there is a need for change in your strategy. Google Analytics is a free and good platform to analysis your traffic.
Based on this result, you should be interested in which content theme enjoyed the best audience, which type of image did your audience engage with most. This basic test will give you an idea on which of your content you can repurpose and get a better return on investment (ROI).
While analyzing your best performing content, you should also be interested in analyzing your least performing content. It will help you know where to slow down and produce less. Better put, you will be able to identify where you need improvement.
Conclusively, having a content schedule will help you produce content consistently. It will also help you create content that your audience love to read. It is the content your audience reacts to positively.
For starters just starting up, understanding what your audience will want to read might be a challenge. But a quick way out is seeing what other people in your niche are doing. It is not advisable to copy their work but basically to seek inspiration and draft out your part.
Always remember that unique, un-plagiarized content are the gateways to building a brand, adding value and raising valuable audience. Producing content that is search engine optimized and user friendly is not negotiable.
In case you are one of those saying “I don’t know how to do it or I cannot do it”, let me introduce you to the Wealthy Affiliate university. They will teach you how to build a blog, create content, and live the laptop lifestyle.
I will appreciate you share your experience on how developing a content schedule has helped your business using our comment section.
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Thank you for sharing this here. On a more honest note. What you shared here is both great and very good to see you know, being able to actually sxpkoit such things as this would help one to bolster chances of creating worthy contents at all times. Seriously good to explore here as options. Thanks
Thank you Nath, My target is to help newbie and experienced hands creat good content. Thank you for checking on my post. You can subscribe and always rely on us for quality information
Ayodeji
Hello Ayodeji, I love the fact that you’re trying to help the newbies and the experienced hands create good contents , what you shared is quite informative and very good ,I will highly recommend it and as person it’ll help me boast my knowledge of content Creation , thank you for sharing this wonderful informative article, I find it very interesting and helpful.
Regards
Blessing.
Thank you, Jack, for these kind words. We are working on a WordPress course which we will let out soon for newbies
Ayodeji
The place of a content sgedule can not be overemphaszed. In fact it can serve as the rick basis for which blog contents àre created and can really help to ensure better use against preparing for days where there might be blocks and all. This is really helpful to know about here. Thank tiy for sharing with us
This is an excellent article. Having a content template and content schedule or Callender will definitely keep your posts well planned and organized. It will equally help to minimize irregular publishing, which I call site starving. When the writing is thoughtful and timely, it will keep the readers around. All your tips are useful, and well organized in this article. Just as you have your target audience to be beginners, even though it will equally benefit old bloggers, I think this is a very useful tool any beginner should create for effective writing and publishing.
Thanks, for sharing this nice article.
I know we are supposed to have a content calendar but I find it a really unappealing option. I just can’t imagine motivating myself to write content that I planned a year ago. I tend to follow my interests. But that was when my only niche was self development. Now I’m getting into the IM niche I will need to be more strategic and plan my content out. So thanks for this informative it will be very useful 🙂
Never heard of a content schedule before but I work from home and I understand the importance of having to do everything during a time frame which is what brought me down to your post so I can understand it better and I’m happy with this. The risk you have on how to create the content schedule is very apt and I’ll be sure to try it out. Thanks!
Yes Jackie, Creating a schedule is all about planning. The common saying that if you do not plan, then you plan to fail is true.
Scheduling your work is all about planning your content in a systematic way to ensure success
Thank you for great post
Actually, I’m a ‘beginner’ for blogging my content into my site, I don’t really have a schedule at the right time, I create my post anytime, when I get an idea and posting. I post too much post for month without regarding the principle of schedule, I spend a lot of time promoting my posts . But I get something new here, and know-how the content schedule is so important.
I post three or four times a week. Let me ask you one more question, what is a good time to schedule the old post?
Hello Ayodeji,
Thanks for this very clear information you’ve shared here. I have been introduced to blogging recently and it’s been really good so far but I’m still in my learning phase and so I have been making the search to better myself. Getting good content is actually good but with learning about content schedule, I have come to realise that having good content at a particularly good time is better than just writing randomly.
Yes Lawson,
We all continue to learn content creation. It’s a continuous learning process
Wow! This was very helpful. The steps are so long that I will have to save this page to implement all this on my schedule/ calendar. I’m sure once I put it in place, it’ll easier to follow and keep up. The layouts are not that hard to do. But it’ll take some time. Thanks for a helpful article.
You welcome John,
I enjoyed reading about creating a content schedule for anyone who is writing a blog.
I loved the calendar at the top I found this interesting because it is a different approach. It intrigued me to want to read more about what to do with this calendar.
The structure of your questions created a wanting to know the importance of creating a schedule and how to create one.
I liked the four formats that a person can choose from to create their own planners to draft their own schedule.
Highlighting the end result is a great idea-publish the blog. I’ve actually done this on my own planner.
Noting events and marking the remaining spaces with themes sounds interesting. I agree it is important to organise editorial meetings to check on the blog before publishing.
Overall I found the information essential to any blogger who is serious about their business.
Thank you yvonnebray,
I am glad you found it engaging. Creating a content schedule is essential if you are taking blogging as a career. It makes your work organised. And will saveyou from getting worked out
Ayodeji
Hello there – As a budding blogger I constatly face challenged with content. This article on How to Create a Content Schedule for Your Blog really helped me re affirm my learnings and knowledge base. Prior to reacding this article I did not know hwo to take advantage of content scheduling. I enjoyed reading through various ways like google sheet and management app to ease the process of content scheduling. thank you much for this.
Yes, a content schedule will help you plan your content in a systematic manner and ensure your efficiency
Hello!
I am a newbie in the blogging world. Coming across your article on creating a schedule is very timely. As I endeavor to create blogs for business, it is truly important to have a content schedule.
Since I am not working for/with anyone but myself it is easy for me to be lax on my schedule. But having a content scheduler will surely push me to create a more productive routine in writing and posting my articles.
Thank you very much for sharing!
Thank you Rose,
A content schedule is a good guide for yourself when it comes to blogging. Moreover u work alone, it is vital you create a schedule
Ayodeji
Some great advice here thanks. I agree that it definitely helps to plan your content ahead, as it helps you to keep on track and motivates you to keep writing for your blog. I find the content tool on the Wealthy Affiliate platform is a great help here, as I can plan out all my headings and subtitles in advance using relevant keywords, then I just go back in and fill out the blanks. In this way, I don’t still have to think about what to write about.
I do try and schedule 3 articles a week on my main blog, but I try not to beat myself up if life gets in the way, and I try and catch up over weekends.
Thank you Michel,
I like the way you put it. we all keep trying to catch up with things. There is always a lot to achieve in the short time available.
Hello ….
A very fantastic piece of work from you. Thanks for sharing this beautiful piece of information with us. I must say I really did enjoy going through your review as it contains valuable information needed by anyone who wants to get into blogging. To add to this, I think content schedule would help keep you organized, Help you stay consistent and It shows what you’ll be writing about at a glance. This is a must read for bloggers.
Thanks for pulling this together , I have been searching for ways. .
You are very on point, The whole essence of a schedule is to keep you focused and on point
Ay.
Thank you for a most informative article. I started out my online business just writing my blogs here and there, with no specific time schedule and no fore thought as to the content. I also didn’t review to see which ones needed updates. These tips are exactly what I need at this time because I have written quite a few but I see where i need some organisation in order to move forward successfully. Great article.
This article is good advise for anyone who is running an online business, but especially for a blogger. I use a content calendar primarily because I work with 2 websites and need to keep on top of what I am doing when. I also use an outline to write my content so that my articles are orderly and not rambling. I hope bloggers will take your advice.
, thank you my friend, As bloggers using a content schedule is a great way to keep up with your task
Wow, this has been the perfect article for me to currently be reading into. I cannot emphasize enough how much I want to get on a strict schedule with my blog because I have been very inconsistent with my posting, it is vital for me to get on a schedule. This has been a tremendously helpful guide for me to be able to do that. Thank you so much
Using a schedule will help you keep consistent with your posting. Thank you for the time taken to see the article
Hi Ayodeji … This is very timely for me. As a new blogger, I have already developed my own workflow system using notion.os (great free software). Here you have given me food for thought about improving my content planning. I can add a calendar to my existing system for this. I will happily share a template for this when developed. Are you interested in that?
Yes Richard,
Adding a calendar will be a brilliant idea. Top of it, it will keep you consistent
Thank you for this great read. I totally agree with you. I like to plan things that I do because it really helps with holding yourself accountable and it feels good to accomplish small goals/tasks.
I know I am less productive and feel scattered if I don’t plan out my work. I have tried to just do it before and that never works because you would start to miss deadline and get backed up, then, unmotivated to keep going.
Thank you for this amazing read.
Yes Gregg,
Planning is just like scheduling and it is essential we plan and hold ourselves accountable. Even as bloggers, we need to be accountable to ourselves
Hi Ayodeji,
Great article! And a timely reminder that planning is so important in blogging as well as any other business.
You hit home with the “waiting for inspiration” comment. Something I’m guilty of!
I like the various suggestions you’ve made regarding apps etc and will look into this, but is there a particular favourite of yours?
I work alone, so don’t need to share my schedule with anyone else. Maybe if I just start with a simple google calendar as I use this already for other things and can set alerts on it to spur me to action (hopefully).
I suppose it’s also worth considering how long it takes to get a post ranked. So a post aimed at purchases next summer seems a bit premature now, but by the time it gets ranked it’ll be at the right time.
Thanks for the depth of information and insight in this article, and I’ll be checking out your other articles for more good advice.
Thanks again
Adrian