After you have your master list of ideas, it’s time to break out a calendar.
For my own site, I work on a 6-day schedule. Three days are devoted to writing content and three days are for interacting with the community (via comments) or performing site maintenance.
Using the master list, you can designate certain days for certain types of posts. On my site, Mondays and Fridays are for product reviews, Wednesdays are for topical articles, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays are reserved for community interaction.
With your master list and calendar side-by-side, start to fill in what you are going to write on which day, trying to have a category only appear once per month.
As an example, here is a sample template for the month of April, with post names changed so Google doesn’t flag me for duplicate content:
April Posting Schedule
- Week of April 1-5
- Wednesday, April 1: Monthly Work Schedule
- Thursday, April, 2: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Friday, April 3: Product Review
- Saturday, April 4: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Sunday, April 5: Off
- Week of April 6-12
- Monday, April 6: Product Review
- Tuesday, April 7: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Wednesday, April 8: Nutrition Article
- Thursday, April 9: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Friday, April 10: Product Review
- Saturday, April 11: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Sunday, April 12: Off
- Week of April 13-19
- Monday, April 13: Product Review
- Tuesday, April 14: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Wednesday, April 15: Restaurant Survival Guide
- Thursday, April 16: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Friday, April 17: Product Review
- Saturday, April 18: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Sunday, April 19: Off
- Week of April 20-26
- Monday, April 20: Product Review
- Tuesday, April 21: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Wednesday, April 22: Diet Analysis Article
- Thursday, April 23: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Friday, April 24: Product Review
- Saturday, April 25: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Sunday, April 26: Off
- Week of April 27-30
- Monday, April 27: Product Review
- Tuesday, April 28: Comments / Site Maintenance
- Wednesday, April 29: Workout Program Overview
- Thursday, April 30: Comments / Site Maintenance
Planning your month out at the very beginning takes all the guesswork out of the way when it comes time to actually write your post.
You will save so much time just by knowing what you are writing and when. As an added benefit, it will help you in scheduling your work around your life, family, events, etc.
The reason I list-build a list for a year and schedule for a month is because that it leaves flexibility should a hot topic come up or new product arrive. I am not completely bound to that list and can make changes when I feel it's necessary
Now that you have your month scheduled out, it’s time to move on to Step 3: Posting Your Schedule
