HOW TO STAY CRAZY CONSISTENT WITH YOUR BLOGGING CONTENT PLAN
If there’s one thing I tell my coaching clients over and over again it’s this: consistency is key when it comes to your content plan and blog.
Blogging is fun, they said! In fact, when you first start out, you wonder why you didn’t do it sooner. Sharing your thoughts and ideas with an “infinite” number of people seems like a dream come true.
Yet soon enough, you realise that writing a blog post is only the tip of the iceberg.
You then found there were other elements involved, such as:
Social media
Engagement
Email lists
SEO
And-what-not!
It’s not rare to see bloggers feeling so overwhelmed by all the extras. But it causes them to forget why they started in the first place: creating content.
Without realising it, they go from publishing a new post three to five times a week to once or twice. In a worst case scenario, they go as low as once every month.
So what?
You might be wondering what the big deal is if that’s sincerely all you can do. Well, unfortunately, no matter how good your intentions are you’ll be hurting your blog’s traffic.
Let’s compare your content plan to your favourite TV show…
What would happen if your favourite daily TV show, wasn’t daily anymore? Imagine if, all of a sudden, their schedule become a mess.
Maybe they air on a Monday sometimes, other times on a Wednesday (at a totally different time from what you were accustomed to). Or maybe they vanish for a month or two, just to return as if nothing had happened.
How would you feel if your favourite daily TV show didn’t follow their schedule anymore?
Even the most famous show would lose a huge number of viewers, maybe all of them, if they suddenly stopped following their schedule. Keep in mind at this point that it has nothing to do with the quality of the TV show. Each episode would still be amazing.
Yet, life goes on.
After a few days, people would start looking for alternatives to fulfil the time left by missing their TV show. It was a part of their routine.
Maybe they’d find something else to watch on another channel. Or they’d decide it was time to start doing something more productive like working out or reading a book.
The same thing happens with your readers when you are unable to stick to a consistent blogging schedule and content plan. Slowly, they stop coming back until they completely forget about you and your amazing content.
Developing a consistent blogging schedule
To be able to stick to a content plan, before anything, you have to develop a realistic one.
Many bloggers fail with their planning efforts because they aim too high and their expectations aren’t realistic. How many times have you caught yourself making a New Year’s resolution that would take you 10 years to fulfil?
To create a realistic content plan, you need to answer the following questions:
How much time does it take you to write a blog post?
Do you need to create images for your posts and if so, how long does it take?
How much time do you need to edit, proof, and schedule your content?
How long does it take you to schedule social promo?
You’ll notice that I’ve chosen these questions based on fundamental tasks required by bloggers. But each of the processes will be unique to you. You may even perform more steps on a regular basis.
Yet, unless you can answer these four questions, it’s impossible to stick to a consistent blogging content plan.
Let’s review each of these questions in a bit more detail.
P.S. If you want to get your hands on some tools to make this a whole lot easier, grab the FREE checklist below!
How much time does it take you to write a blog post?
The answer to this one depends on elements such as your:
Niche
Topic
Content
Writing experience
Preparation
Knowledge
Typing speed
A fashion blog post requires more preparation in the form of a photoshoot than writing. The same goes for a tutorial.
My blog posts are never short. They are easily 1,000+ (this one is 1,500). I’ve worked out that it takes me an hour to write around 1,000 words.
So that’s an hour purely spent writing the post in a Google doc.
We’ve not even gone into the backend of the website yet!
Do you know how much time you need to write a typical post for your blog? If you don’t know yet, you must start tracking it. I recommend using Toggl, which is a free time tracking app.
Do you need to create images for your posts and if so, how long does it take?
You might decide to use stock images on your website, or maybe you want to take your own pictures. Whatever your preference, you still need to customise them before uploading them to your blog.
Tools such as Canva or Pablo make the entire process a lot easier. But you still need to do the work. Create images that will complement your articles, not ones that will hurt them.
And remember, you’ll need different size variations:
Twitter
Instagram
Pinterest
Blog graphic
Facebook
A great hack to speed this process up is to create templates and reuse them every time you need to create a certain type of graphic.
Add the time you spend creating your images to your schedule.
How much time do you need to edit, proof, and schedule your content?
Editing and proofing your text is more than just looking for spelling errors. It’s about making sure your blog post makes sense, is easy to read and easily digestible.
If you’re interrupted frequently during your writing process (kids calling, telephone ringing, someone at the door, unexpected visitors), you may lose your train of thought.
This has nothing to do with having no idea about what you were writing. It means the connection was broken.
So before hitting schedule or publish, take some time to read your blog post, reread and read again.
I’d also recommend reading it out loud if you can. Make sure you blog post “sounds” good even if it’s meant to be read in silence. Does it flow? Is the message clear? Is your content meaningful and useful?
Posting something just because it’s in your editorial calendar is a waste of time and energy. Especially if you don’t feel like writing it. Your readers don’t know anything about your content plan anyway.
When you write, you want to help others and not just keep them busy.
A cool thing to do is post your blog content to your Medium profile. It’ll give you a time for how long it’ll take to read each post.
So let’s say you find one of your blog posts takes six minutes to read. You need to do three reviews of it before it goes live. That means you need to make sure you have between 18 to 30 minutes to review each article you write.
When planning your blogging content plan, include a realistic editing time.
How long does it take you to schedule social promo?
Last but not least comes the Queen of blogging (if content is King): the time spent scheduling social content for your blog posts.
Note I used the word scheduling 😉
If you want to grow your blog, you can’t count on the few hours you have online to spread the word about your latest article effectively. There are various scheduling tools for you to choose from that suit all levels of experience and budgets.
Discover a list of my favourite ones by grabbing the FREE worksheet below!
Your time spent on social media should be used for interaction, not posting. Use your “free” time to engage with your readers and followers. Don’t waste it with tasks you can easily automate to help you get better results.
Even if it takes you only 30 minutes to schedule promo for all your blog posts for one month, it’s still time you need to take into consideration when creating your blogging schedule and content plan.
HOW TO STICK TO YOUR CONTENT PLAN
By this point, you should know how much time you need to spend creating an average blog post. Now you need to plan for it.
You may find that you won’t be able to keep up with daily posts as you initially dreamed of. But remember that once a week is still better than once in a blue moon.
Don’t jeopardise your planning efforts by scheduling for a week more than you could do in a lifetime.
Bloggers wear many hats, especially at the very beginning. And ultimately, you need to assign to yourself all the steps involved in blogging.
I promise I’m not saying this to discourage you. I want you to succeed as a blogger and in life.
As a blog coach and mentor, I help people like you get a breakthrough online, one day at a time without stress. That’s why I work with my clients to put together a content plan that they can stick to consistently, without neglecting other aspects of their life.
Things won’t necessarily be perfect just because you have a content plan. But you’ll definitely accomplish a lot more once you have one.
Are you feeling so overwhelmed by all the blogging extras that you forget why you started blogging in the first place? What’s your biggest challenge? Are you following a blogging schedule or content plan? Let me know in the comments section below.
Don’t forget to download your free checklist of blogging tools!