2010 Blogging Plan: Part 4 of 5
So far we’ve covered the first three steps of a 2010 Blogging Plan. Those steps included:
Business Goals
Positioning Your Blog
Engagement
Step 4 is the Content Plan for your blog. This is where you plan what you’ll write about and what kinds of posts you can incorporate into your blog. This may seem too structured for some. But what we’ve found is that it helps to have a set schedule that guides your efforts. Once you’ve got some momentum and experience, it’s easier to deviate and start improvising.
At Breakfast Blogging Club meetings, we play with different formats, styles and structures of blog posts. And then we practice within a timed writing exercise. It keeps things fresh and engaging and makes it easier to write. Some examples of different types of posts we’ve explored include:
- List Posts
- How To
- Interviews
- Book or Product Reviews
- Pillar Posts
- Risky Writing
- Short Posts
[Warning: product plug coming up!]
We go into more detail of different styles of posts in our Quick Start Guide To Writing Your Blog, which you can download free from our website. In that guide you instantly get 15 ways to write a blog post. And then we’ll send you a weekly email with additional ideas for writing topics FOR A WHOLE YEAR!
[Okay, it’s over. You can go back to your regular reading now.]
It also helps to have an editorial calendar so you can stay organized and focused. Since you’ve gone through the first three steps of setting goals, positioning and engagement, it’s time to start organizing what you’ll writing about….and when! We recommend picking a couple of different types of posts to write (get the Guide!). And then schedule those blog posts regularly in your calendar.
If you want to post once per week, then look at the month ahead and pencil out what you’ll write about and the date you will publish. Estimate how much time it will take to write the post, and the time to edit. (Note: it can often take longer to edit than it does to write.) At the risk of overkill, we give you some good ways to structure your writing and editing time in the Quick Start Guide.
Here’s an example: say you plan on posting every Friday. And you know it will take 1 hour to write, and 2 hours to edit and publish a 500-700 word post. Your schedule might look like this:
Wednesday – write post (1 hour)
Thursday – edit, find & insert image, save draft in blog (2 hours)
Friday – publish on blog (5 minutes)
Time Tip) you could pre-schedule your post while editing on Thursday so it will automatically publish on Friday. Then you can get to your golf game, nail appointment or happy hour that much sooner!
Of course you can do it all at once – write, edit, & publish. It’s up to the individual. Personally, I like to split up my writing from my editing – putting some mental space between the two activities. Doing that gives me more clarity….and the occasional lament about my writing, “What was I thinking?!”
BTW, when it comes to building and managing the content of your blog, here are a few more things to think about:
- Keep a file of potential blog topics for the future
- Coordinate posts with product/service launches
- Schedule posts to support events/conferences/workshops
- Research potential blog post topics
- Conduct keyword research and track usage
- Try different blog post formats
- Manage tags and categories
- Maintain valid internal and external links
- Develop and maintain an editorial calendar
- Oversee blog integration with other social media tools
- Keep track of your blog’s performance using analytics
Next up: Measuring Success
2010 Blogging Plan: Part 1 of 5 – Business Goals
2010 Blogging Plan: Part 2 of 5 – Positioning
2010 Blogging Plan: Part 3 of 5 – Engagement
2010 Blogging Plan: Part 5 of 5 – Measurement
