As a blogger during my off work hours, one of the most important things I’ve learned is that your content must be updated on a regular basis to keep visitors coming back for more and the search engines indexing your site.
One of the best things that I have learned over the years is to plan ahead and create a monthly blog content calendar so that you don’t have to rack your brain for things to write when it’s publish day.
The content schedule also helps you commit and stick to a routine when creating and publishing fresh content.
At a glance you can see the month(s) ahead and know exactly what’s coming up and what you need to prepare for.
My Bullet Journal Blog Post Schedule
I use two bullet journals: one is for personal stuff, and the other one, that I write about here is the business/work journal.
I use the 5.5″ x 8.5″ (Junior Size) TUL disc bound note taking system, found in Office Depot or here, and the Graph Paper Inserts (I prefer graph to dots personally).
The reason that I use this for work related bullet journaling is because you can rearrange the pages as needed by pulling them out and reinserting them where you want them. Having a system like this is perfect for rolling task lists and projects.
In terms of the Content Calendar, you will want to begin with two pages facing each other as seen in my example.
- Left Page: Schedule and Titles
- Right Page: Descriptions and Status of Post
Let’s start with the Left Page
Top Section of Left Page
At the top, on the left, I list the site so that I know which site this is for. I work on quite a few, and this is essential to me. If you only run one site, then perhaps it’s not necessary.
Right below the site name, I have the bullet key. The ones on the left are for the left side of the page, and the ones on the right are for the right side of the page.
Below that, the grey boxes are dedicated to days that a post is due to be published. You can see the grey lines on Tuesdays and Fridays, and then down the title column on those dates.
The Yellow blocks are Sundays. I have to remind myself to take a day off from it all, and this is one of the ways that help me to get that break.
In the red outline, I put the topic for the month (or half month as shown). The first part of the month, the topic is blogging (with a bullet journal). The second part of the month is using a bullet journal at the office.
The Title Section Of the Left Page
On the far left, you will see that I have the dates going down the page. Just to the left is that second set of boxes where you will see some of the boxes either grayed or yellowed out. Each day, I will use either a check mark or dot:
- Check mark – Blog Post Is Published (posted)
- Dot – Blog post is being worked on.
I put the dots on the non-gray and non-yellow days to show whether or not I was working as I should have been.
On the gray box days, Either I post the blog post, and use a check mark, or I don’t and have to put a dot to say I’m not done with it yet.
The goal is to have every grey box get a check mark on time.
At the bottom, on my page, at least, there’s an empty line. I was thinking about putting a quote down there or something, but I haven’t decided on anything yet.
The Right Page – Post Descriptions
The right page is fairly straight forward as well. On the far left, you will see numbers. These numbers are the calendar days that the post is due.
They correlate with the dates on the left page so I can match the title and description together.
The next set of four vertical boxes just to the right of the numbers are used for where in the writing to publishing process I am.
Generally, I work on more than one blog post at a time, and this helps me sort out where in the process I am on any given post.
I put a dot in the:
- Top Box – While I’m doing research
- Second Box down – I’m putting together my outline
- Third Box down – I’m writing my post, but it’s not ready for publishing
- Fourth Box down – The post is done and ready to be scheduled for publishing.
The Description Box
The long box to the right of the “four dots” box is used to put together the “meta description” for the blog post.
I usually will do the keyword research and put together the description based on what keywords (phrases) I’d like to target.
The last line of the description box is used for keywords. I do no more than three primary keywords per post, and usually try and hold it down to two.
Next Month At A Glance
At the very bottom, I’ve left a space for the topics I’ll be covering in the next month. It’s good to write them down here because you can see what’s coming up without turning the page.
Conclusion
As you can see, and from the short length of this post, that there’s really not that much to it. No mystery and no magic.
Having a content calendar such as this will help you not get so stressed as you continue to create your blog or video content.
Always having a plan and knowing what you have coming up will save you from a lot of headaches and soul searching later!
This is really well thought out. Thanks! (And a great way to get a sneak peek at what’s coming! I’ll be back).
LikeLike
This is excellent. I’m not a blogger but I create content for a website. I will be co-opting the parts of this system that work for me.
LikeLike