No more frazzling around the day feeling un-productive and more taking control of your life and your business!
Creating an editorial calendar month by month is a great way to live a life in a place where you are not living around the clock, but a life of control and contentment. An editorial calendar is basically a publishing schedule for your content. Whether it’s articles for your blog or audio clips for your podcast, an editorial calendar helps you stay organized and helps you plan your content ahead of time. Especially if you are an entrepreneur and content marketing is your strongest tool for the growth of your business, an editorial calendar is a crucial resource.
My favorite thing about editorial calendar is that there is no limit for how much content you can plan ahead of time. A few of the things you can plan are: blog posts, email newsletters, social media strategies and podcasts.
Now, lets break it down a little more. With an editorial calendar you can create a list of topics that you plan on writing about on your blog. You can use an agenda or notebook, a printable, or an online template to create your calendar.
Editorial calendars are great because they:
- Are an excellent way to map out plus schedule the content on your blog.
- Help you set deadlines and have a clear focus on what you want the content on your blog to be centered around.
- Also help you make sure that the blog posts you’re writing are tying into your mission statement and resonating with your target audience.
- Help you see the big picture.
- And keeps you organized.
Here’s a tip, I create a table of the calendar on a monthly basis and color code it tying each topic from my categories to keep track of the content I’m sharing about on the blog. Example, lets say you have five categories and you want to use colors like red, blue, green, purple, and orange. You want to see an array of colors throughout each month. Keep a look out if you see lots of greens and no purples, instead you want to see about one of each. Keeping in mind that during some months you may be sharing more about one specific topic. Another example; if you’re a lifestyle blogger you may be publishing more about traveling during the summer (when kiddos are off from school), or more about entertaining and DIY’s during the holidays, and so on.
Here’s a view of how one of my months from my editorial calendar month by month looks like.
I post 2 to 3 times a week, my goal is three times per week. I came up with over 100+ ideas for my calendar. Let’s make this simple; a year has 52 weeks, if you want to post 3 times a week that will be 156 posts. If you have 5 categories you only have to come up with about 31 posts per category. If you have more categories then you’ll have to come up with less topics per year. When it’s broken down this way it makes it easier to digest and make happened. I have created a workbook to help you create content targeted to your audience. Take a look.
Want another tip? I create a cheat sheet every year at the beginning of the year to remind me of holidays days celebrated.
This gives me ideas on what to write and when to publish it. It’s a great tip to keep in mind!
I hope you have enjoyed this posts full of tips and tricks to help you be more effective with your time. And create content that’s targeted to your audience and specific to your categories. No more frazzling around the day feeling un-productive and more taking control of your life and your business!
Let me know which tip was your favorite and if this post was helpful. Share in the comment section bellow.
Hi there! I’m Wanda – the creator and author at My Sweet Zepol a healthy food, travel, and lifestyle blog. Passionate about food photography, food styling, entertaining and advocate about creating memories around the kitchen table. With a mission to create easy-to-make meals for the busy family.
I’m pretty good at keeping tabs on what I am going to be posting about each week – however I only plan two weeks out and post only 1x a week.
Sticking to this kind of schedule is definitely going to be beneficial. Having a clear structure definitely helps me form good work habits.
I need to try this as right now I am having troubles getting things done. I think writing it down would help a lot.
This is a really smart way to plan out your blog. Knowing what you’re going to post way in advance can help you feel prepared.
I love a good editorial calendar to make sure my work is getting done on time. I love to plan things out to see what I have due on xx day.
I keep saying I will start doing this and one thing leads to another, and I forget. Thanks for the reminder, this is an excellent post!
I totally write EVERYTHING down. I’m old school – pen and paper. This is a great idea that I’ll most likely start doing! Thanks!
I desperately need to implement an editorial calendar. Some weeks I go with only posting one blog post and other weeks I post 3 or more. I need to do a better job planning and think this would help.
Creating an editorial calendar is one of the best things I ever did for my blog. It makes it so much easier to know what needs to be done when.
I think this is something I should be doing. I’m sure it would help keep me a lot more organized. I’m not always as organized as I wish I would be when it comes to blogging.
I have a posting calendar. It really helps me stay on track with what I’m doing x
I really love this idea! Thank you so much for sharing!
It is so much easier for me when I have a plan. I don’t waste time trying to figure out what the heck I should be doing.
I need to do better with editorial calendars. I know they are a great way to keep myself organized!
Really a great idea! I definitely need some organization especially that I blog, work full time, and also work full time at home as a mom.
This is such a good idea. My goal is to become more organized and blog orientated in 2019, so I am definitely going to use one of these!
A great idea! Thank you so much!
I try to stay a couple of weeks ahead and have a notebook to right down upcoming posts in. I love being organized. 🙂
I am a planner junkie, but I have been wanting to make my own editorial calendar b/cI never find one I really LOVE. I will have to try my hand at it for sure.
Oh cool, I should do this to help keep organized with what I want to post. Sometimes I lose track of it all.
I never made an editorial calendar, since it won’t work out for me. I have a tech blog, so i need to write about the latest products, so it is not possible to pre-plan. But it is a great idea, for my other blog, where i write poems, that i can surely schedule.
I totally need this! Right now I just write whatever pops out in my mind. But recently I’m running out of steam. I agree that having a planner such as this one would help me be more on top of my content. Thanks for sharing this! 🙂
I use Google calendar a lot but an editorial calendar sounds like a great idea. I will employ this idea to get organized.
Oh.. I need this editorial calendar.. so nice and so well organized.. time to plan great schedules..
Very practical and informative post! I was using Basecamp to plan out my posts but decided that the monthly expense was just too high at this time in my blog “career”. The multi-colored calendar based around topics makes so much sense. Thank you!!!
Maintaining a schedule always helps in daily life.. organise yourself to be improve efficiency..
Beautiful article and suggestions .
Thank you
Because I have so many projects in life going on a once my editorial calendar is mapped out for nearly 15 months., lol. My hubby teases me and ask what would I do without my list, calendars, and schedule. My answer is SLEEP!!!
I’ve never heard of editorial calendars, but they sound like a perfect solution to organise my work as a bloger. Can’t wait to check it out and to see its results in my work! 🙂
Making myself a schedule has made my work so much easier! Without it, I’d be lost.
Such a great resource for bloggers! Thank you so much for sharing all this useful info!
Thanks for sharing this. I’ve been wanting to create one for awhile now. Will definitely need your tips here
I have been so inconsistent with posting and writing lately. An editorial calendar would sure help to know where the blog is headed and what content goes out when!
An editorial calendar is just a must-have and I’ll also need to get one as soon.Having one sounds so convenient and a good way to keep a blog on track.
Editorial calendar would be really helpful for me in blog organisation and posting. Great way to keep my blog on track 🙂
For my editorial calendar, I post 2x a week. The remaining days are for the emergency post, or event posts within that week.