Creating a content calendar for your blog is essential for maintaining consistency and organization in your content creation process. Here are the key points to help you create an effective blog content calendar:
What is a Blog Content Calendar ?
A blog content calendar is a visual representation of your content planning efforts in the form of a timetable. It shows what and when your brand will publish, making blog content management easier and more transparent.
An editorial calendar aims to make content writing visual and straightforward and align your ideas with your content strategy. A blog content calendar can include:
- Blog post topics
- Due dates for each piece
- Publication dates
- Any other information that would help you navigate the content tide
You can easily create a content calendar using Google Sheets, Google Calendar, or ready-made editorial calendar planning software, like Planable.
Benefits of Using a Blog Content Calendar
- Organize your blog: A content calendar accumulates all your blog pieces in one place, giving you a holistic overview of what your team has to do and when.
- Ease collaboration: Having a unique, centralized content calendar simplifies collaboration in a large marketing team.
- Maintain a consistent schedule: Posting consistency is the key to content success. An editorial calendar helps your team establish a publishing schedule for blog posts and stick to it.
- Create relevant content: Some content pieces are spontaneous, and some are predictable. Seasonal holidays, corporate milestones, events that you’re sure will matter for your brand. Make all those newsbreaks a part of your content marketing strategy and schedule content to the editorial calendar beforehand.
How to Create a Blog Content Calendar
- Brainstorm blog post ideas: Start with a big brainstorming session for your blog post ideas. The easiest are seasonal blog posts, so those can be brainstormed fairly quickly. Add them to your content calendar at least two to three months before the event date or start of the season.
- Organize your ideas: Use a notepad or Google Sheets to write down all blog post ideas. Keep it simple at first to gather all your ideas!
- Consider different types of content: Look at cornerstone posts, evergreen posts, and announcements/news blog posts.
- Use AI for blog post idea generation: If you’re stuck coming up with blog post ideas, turn to AI tools like ChatGPT, Rank IQ, and Writesonic.
- Try online content planners: Use tools like Airtable to create a blog content calendar. Airtable offers different views (list, grid, calendar) and is easy to customize.
- Download a blog content calendar template: Use a pre-made template to save time and get started quickly. Our blog content calendar template includes columns for blog post ideas, notes, status, scheduled date, keywords, links, lead magnets, affiliate products, and social media posts.
- Stick to your schedule: Although sometimes you’ll have blog post ideas pop up and you’ll want to write about them as soon as possible, in many cases you’ll stick to your established content calendar.
Remember, a content calendar will help you create your social media posts and do promotional activities as well. Stick to your schedule, and your blog will thrive
