While some of us write blog posts on the fly, tackling topics as they come to us, many more professional bloggers have a editorial calendar for their blogs.
If you have a niche blog, a food blog, for example, it’s fairly easy to plan your content out well in advance. But for those of us who don’t, an editorial calendar still makes a lot of sense.
Why do you need an editorial calendar?
An editorial calendar is a great resource for you to keep track of deadlines and blogging ideas. It keeps you on track, makes you accountable and tides you over those times that you have blogger’s block. Even if you are just starting out as a blogger, it’s a good idea to have a calendar to make sure you write regularly.
I usually note down ideas as they occur to me into my writer’s notebook (I created one like this). Then I transfer them online using on to Evernote, to which I also have saved a collection of ideas clipped from the internet (the Chrome Evernote Web Clipper is fab). Each blog post idea is put into a separate note to which I keep adding quotes, more ideas, images, etc. It is from this resource that I keep adding to my Editorial Calendar.
Create An Editorial Calendar For Your Blog
You can create a simple editoral calendar using Excel. Some useful columns to include are:
- Post Date
- Author (if you’re not the sole author)
- Title (or at least a descriptive idea to the content)
- Status – idea/ draft / final?
- Category
- Tags
- Keywords -is it SEO friendly?
- Media to be added (images, videos, inforgraphics)
- What is the call to action (Is there a specific and measurable action you want to see from this topic)
- Notes
Here are templates and plugins you might find useful:
- Free Blog Editorial Calendar Template from Hubspot – A spread sheet that you can download or use as a Google template.
- Another spread sheet calendar from Marketing Nutz has columns for a lot more information that you can add to your editorial calendar.
- If you can afford it, there’s nothing like Co-Schedule, an easy drag-and-drop content marketing calendar that allows you to plan, create, and promote your content all in one place. It saves you time and helps you grow your audience through smart marketing plans and efficient team collaboration. You can sign up for a 14 day free trial here. I’ve used it in the past when it was USD 10 per month, but not it’s totally beyond my budget.
- If you are on WordPress.org, you could use the free Editorial Calendar Plugin. The editorial calendar gives you an overview of your blog and when each post will be published. You can drag and drop to move posts, edit posts right in the calendar, and manage your entire blog. Since I have some regular features like #MondayMusings and #FridayReflections, I find this a very useful tool. It is also very handy when you’re tackling a series of posts or doing the A to Z April Blogging Challenge.
- If you’re looking for something simple, and free, Amy Porterfield has a post on How to Use Google Calendar to Create an Editorial Calendar. The added advantage of this is that you can access Google calendar from any device. I presently use Google Calendar for my Editorial Calendar.
Do you plan to create an editorial calendar for your blog?
If you use one already, do tell us about it? What system do you use to keep track of your blogging plans?
If you are new to Friday Reflections, here’s what it’s about. It’s the end of the week, you’re probably exhausted with work, and all you want to do is sit back, put your feet up, sip on some fancy cocktail or wine, and write away.
Sanch and Write Tribe give you writing prompts and all you have to do is choose any one of those prompts to blog about and link up between Friday and Monday. After you link up, be sure to spread the love by visiting other bloggers who have linked up too.
Feel free to add our Friday Reflections badge to your post or sidebar! Follow us on Twitter @FridayReflect and join our Facebook Group. Share your post on social media with the hashtag #FridayReflections.
Since Sanch is located in Australia and a lot of Aussie bloggers join this link up, the post will be up here by Thursday evening.
Prompts for this week
1. A random act of kindness I’ve experienced
2. Write about two people seeing each other and making eye contact for the first time. It can be fictional or something from experience.
3. I wish I lived in the ______ century
4. Write a post using this quote as an inspiration or within your post:
“…the opposite of love is not hate — it’s apathy. It’s not giving a damn. If somebody hates me, they must “feel” something … or they couldn’t possibly hate. Therefore, there’s some way in which I can get to them.” — Leo Buscaglia
5. Write a post inspired by the picture provided (Picture source: Sanch Vee)
Our featured writer for last week is Esha Mookerjee-Dutta for her post Looking Back, Looking Beyond, in response to the prompt: If you could do something that you have never done before, what would it be? Why do you want to do it?
As usual I’m late in catching up with my reading ( can you believe I’m reading Awhin Sanghi’s latest 2 pages a day?????) and found this extremely useful.
Equally predictably, I am catching up on revamping my blog and re-editing my old posts and sorting them out. Perhaps this calendar will help me with my goals and targets….. Thanks for sharing this information!
I have a question to ask – all blog ‘developers’/ consultants or call them what you may advise giving away something to make it worthwhile to your subscribers. I don’t have anything free to give away ( haven’t written an e book ) nor am I an expert in anything to give free advice…. Any ideas on what I can give away for free?
ehugs? esmiles?
I’ve never used an editorial calendar. Will have to research this. Thanks for sharing.
I definitely keep an editorial calendar too! I use Google Drive for the calendar part, but I love my pen/paper notebook for doodling out ideas. Evernote is handy too!
Thanks for sharing my post as a resource! Really appreciate that!
Corrine this is great. I used an editorial calendar for years when I worked for a newspaper and magazines. They always had ones specific to their company, and it never really helped with blogs. I’ve been flying without one for a while now and going with whatever speaks to me that day/week, and keep posts in a folder queue on my desktop. Sometimes I write things I think I’ll post soon and they sit until it “feels right.” Your post is really helpful. Thank you.
This post is packed with good information that I plan to study. Thank you, Corrine.
I have never used Editorial Calendar. Very useful info, Corinne. Rushing to read other links too. Hope I can use them to increase my productivity …. 😛
Thanks. This is definitely something I need. Like really really need. Start off with Excel atleast…
I am looking for a good editorial calender and this post is very helpfil Corinne. I used one micrisoft template earlier which shows my blog ideas/ posts daywise and month wise. But that template didn’t look good in win 7 laptop. Earlier i had win8. Will try google calender first. Thanks 🙂
First things first, I am so tempted to create a notebook and call it a writer’s notebook. All I want is some stickers, new pens, and all that zing zang stationery.
Second, I have never used an editorial calendar and as I am already on WP, I just downloaded and activated the plugin. It seems so helpful. Thank you. Looks like I will be using this more and draw advantage out of this. Very cool and organized. Thank you so much for sharing! 🙂 Super valuable!
This sounds like a very sensible way of organizing my thoughts. I have been hearing a lot about the benefits of Evernote too. Time I got around all this. As of now, I scribble into my diary as and when ideas trickle in, but this editorial calendar plus Evernote sound way better! Have to catch up on a huge amount of reading besides chores from my humongous to-do list, thanks to A to Z!
Cheers