As a 10-plus-year blogger, I’m sharing my tips on how to create an editorial calendar for your blog. Whether you’re looking for ghost bloggers for hire or looking for ways to keep yourself dedicated to blogging, these tips will help you ensure that your blog content matches what your audience wants.
Some bloggers feel that they need to spend a fortune on an editorial calendar template to make the best possible content for their blog. The shocking reality is that many of us use free Google Sheets templates to get the job done.
What is an Editorial Calendar?
An editorial calendar is a tool that writers and bloggers use to schedule their posts. It helps to plan out the content that you would like to produce and when it will be published to your blog.
For example, your calendar could show that you need to have your first draft of an article finished by Monday. Your editor will review and return by Tuesday and then the final version is published on your site by Wednesday.
In addition to showing the timeline for your articles, an editorial calendar can help to lay out the topics you want to cover. This helps you focus on keywords and topics that are important to your audience.
Besides just articles, you can use your content calendar to schedule other important tasks, such as publishing to social media. Use it to schedule other types of content, like videos and images.
Are Editorial Calendars Expensive?
After blogging for over 10 years, there are some things I feel never change. One of those is being able to create an editorial calendar without going broke.
As a ghost blogger for hire, I often have to use multiple editorial calendars to plan content for all of my ghost writing clients.
Since I have a wide range of specifics from clients, some have their editorial calendar planned out and keyword data ready for me to work on. Others prefer to use my experience as a ghost blogger for hire to plan their content.
Creating my own blogs’ editorial calendar took about 2 hours, but it’s so worth it to know I have a plan to write on my blogs in between completing client work.
Why Do You Need a Content Calendar?
Editorial calendars help you to stay organized and on track. They allow you to plan out the most important topics that you want to write about and stick to getting them published on time.
To be honest, I never was one to plan content on my blogs. When I owned my first blog, I rarely planned content on a blog before. This idea of a content calendar only came into play as I started to provide services as a ghost blogger for hire.
I feel that a content calendar helps hold you accountable as a professional to blog about topics that your audience wants to read about. Using Google Search Console data to figure out what keywords are most successful for your niche is what will boost your blog traffic and in turn, help to make money blogging.
I believe you need a content calendar to be successful as a blogger who makes money. If you’re blogging for a hobby or just a passion and the revenue is a bonus, then you don’t really need to plan as in-depth as others do.
How Do You Create an Editorial Calendar?
There are plenty of ways to create your own editorial calendar. You can use a simple Excel spreadsheet, Word document, or use more complex software. Depending on the size of your team and your specific needs, you may decide to use different tools.
The key is to create a calendar for the next couple of months with dates easily visible. This can be in a traditional grid format or a simple list.
For each date, fill in the topic, keywords, and goal for the day. This can be to write a first draft, edit the article, publish it, or convert to a video. Use this format to create a simple schedule that you think you can stick to.
One of the easiest ways to get started creating a content calendar for free is to use Google Sheets.
Make a Content Calendar with Google Sheets
To get started, add the free Google Sheets template. Sign in to your Google account, click on “new sheet” and then look at the “Add-ons” option and click on Template Gallery.
You’ll see there are about 10 options under the “calendars” area. I personally use the “Vertex42 Monthly Calendar – Landscape” for my editorial calendar.
This can be installed and it will create a new Google Sheets file. I simply name it something that helps me remember which calendar this is. I have a ton of sheets and calendars in my Google account.
Next, you’ll put the year into the pre-made area so that the editorial calendar updates to the correct year. From here, you can click on the month tab at the bottom to open up your current month calendar sheet. I use color-coding to make notes of what is what.
Creating Content for Holidays
I have a bold purple for National Holidays that fit my blogs’ niche and bold black for keywords that make an excellent weekly series or daily blog post. You can use regular black for focus keyword phrases that I can incorporate into a blog post.
I will be honest, this is a very easy process, but does take some research for appropriate National Holidays that fit your niche as well as keyword data. You’ll also have to get in touch with your inner creative side as you try to think of content that you can link to that was previously published.
You can easily repeat this process for every month within this same Google Sheets editorial calendar.
When your blogging editorial calendar is nearing an end, simply duplicate this sheet. Put the new year in the top under the January sheet so that your sheet will update to the current year.
Note: You may have to delete data each month if you opt to duplicate the current Google Sheets editorial calendar.
An editorial calendar will help ensure your content is well-written, organized, and thought out prior to blogging each day. An editorial calendar can also help you to hire a ghost blogger for hire to handle your content needs.
Being able to stay organized with your blog content plans is one easy way to ensure that you make money blogging. It also helps you continue building a successful blog in your particular niche.
