
For today’s blog post I thought that I would share with you how I’m planning my content in 2020. In 2019, my blog pretty much took a back seat and I didn’t post as much as I would have liked to have done, despite having a different way of planning my blog content back then. In today’s blog post I want to share with you my blog content calendar for 2020 and how I’m planning my blog content this year.
Without further ado, let’s get into the blog post!
Now, I wrote a blog post last year on why you need a blog content calendar, and that blog post still stands and I still agree with everything that I wrote in there. However, towards the end of the blog post I showed you what my blog content calendar looked like back then when I was aiming to post three times a week. Looking back in hindsight, posting three times a week for me personally was a bit too much, but I digress. Over a year later from that blog post and my blog content calendar has changed.
For my blog content calendar this year, I took inspiration from Chloe’s blog post on how to organise your blog like a boss whilst also adapting a spreadsheet that I already had to keep track of my blog posts. Back in June 2018, I had my own blog post on how I organise my blog content. Although this would still be useful for others looking for inspiration, this isn’t my current method anymore. I’ve pretty much blended my content calendar, content ideas and tracking my blog posts links all in one rather than having them in separate spreadsheets.
In my blog content calendar for 2020, I’ve written the month and the dates that I’m planning on posting down the side. At the moment I’m hoping to post twice a week on Mondays and Fridays and so I just copied down the dates into my spreadsheet. If I know what I’m planning to post on a particular date, then I’ll fill in the next column with the title of the post, or at least the working title. This gives me a glance at the content that I might be posting over the next month and allows me to plan out my blog posts for the upcoming month. I also have these in my google calendar, but I’ll talk about that in a minute.
Right next to the title, I have a column for the link to my blog post. I took this from my previous spreadsheet where I was tracking the blog posts that I posted. I find this quite useful because it makes it easier for me to use these in the future, such as if I want to schedule tweets to my older blog posts. Next I have the category that the blog posts come under just for reference. Then I have the status of my blog posts which I’m finding really useful to keep track of where I’m up to on my blog posts. I have it in red if I’m in the process of writing it, amber if it needs a photo or is scheduled, and green once the post has actually gone live.
In the last column I have my content ideas which is something that I took inspiration from Chloe’s blog post which I linked earlier on. As I already had January’s content planned out, I’ve started using this for the rest of the months. It’s great to fill in seasonal content ideas such as Christmas as well as other content ideas surrounding birthdays. It makes it easier to plan content, come up with ideas for the month and help with the writers block!
Another way in which I’m planning out my blog content is by using my google calendar as I mentioned earlier. That’s how I originally started planning out my content for January and I’m finding this method useful alongside the spreadsheet. I currently have posts that are in the process of being written in the colour ‘Blueberry’ and posts that I’ve finished writing in the colour ‘Basil’. See the photo below.
I find that using this system in my google calendar a great way to actually visualise when my blog posts are going up and the stage that I’m at with writing them.
At the moment I’m really liking how I’m planning my content for 2020 and I’m hoping that it helps me to be consistent with my blog posts. This is something that can really be adapted too depending on the type of things you want to record.
How do you organise your content?
This is actually really helpful. I think I might start doing something like this to help me out. Thank you so much!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for reading! I’m glad you found it helpful.
LikeLike
A spreadsheet and a calendar…I am seriously impressed. For me, my blog content is more of a spur of the moment thing or whenever inspiration strikes. I do admire your organization.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you Tony! It helps my feel organised anyway haha. Everyone works different ☺️
LikeLike
Great tips! I never tought of using the spreadsheets as a blog content calendar. Are you using the Microsoft Spreadsheets or the Apple ones?
I always use Google Calendar to plan my content but somehow I always feel like I am not using the calendar at it’s maximum capacity🤦🏻♀️
Anna // http://www.stralthy.com
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you! I’m using Google sheets at the moment, but I’ve used Microsoft excel in the past 🙂
You just have to do whatever works for you ☺️ Thank you for reading!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I currently use a computer software called Asana but I may want to try this one because I love to colour code and I also want to start posting two times a week 😂 I can’t wait to try this out!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is super useful! Thanks for sharing this! I’d like to do a similar thing for my blog too! Good luck with all your blog posts this 2020 😘
– Hazel
https://hazywanders.com/
LikeLiked by 1 person
wow, this is really organized! I should do something similar to this in my bullet journal! As of now I just write the titles of the blog posts, since I only write posts twice a week! This is super organized, and something I’m definitely going to look into implementing 🙂 xxx
Melina | http://www.melinaelisa.com
LikeLiked by 1 person
I normally use Trello but I need to start adding them to the calendar on my phone as I am hopeless for sticking to the schedule I create! Great tips here I’m definitely going to look into reorganizing myself
LikeLiked by 1 person
I use the “pages” app on my MacBook to create a calendar and schedule out my posts- it really helps to be able to see it visually! I love the charts you created!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is so organised! I don’t have anything like this – just a notebook with ideas scribbled down… you’ve put me to shame 😂 love it though – you may have inspired me to start planning a bit better! Thanks Ashleigh
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is so helpful. Thank you. I do need to be more organized and thoughtful in subject directions I try to go. I get bogged down over-thinking. I need to spend more time writing. Thanks.
LikeLike
That’s really, really helpful! I’m planning my first blog (not yet published), and this sounds really organised, well-thought-out, and logical. Thanks so much for the insight!
LikeLike