If you are passionate about starting a blog in order to secure leads or inform your clients, planning ahead will be to your benefit and it’s simple to do.
First, you should brainstorm for post ideas. Get out a sheet of paper (or type it into a document on your computer) and start writing down topics you want to talk about on your blog. Be sure not to limit yourself during this process. All ideas are golden. One of my most popular posts was nearly brushed away because I thought it was too simple. Don’t let that happen to you.
A good rule to follow is don’t spend more than 10 minutes doing this. After writing down all of these topics do the following:
- Look for a common thread. For example, let’s say you are a relationship coach and your topics were something like this: date night; projects that strengthen relationships; books that help marriage; and intimacy, then your common thread would obviously be significant other relationships as opposed to parent/child, friends,co-workers, etc. Use your common thread to create some anchor posts and devise some related tutorials.
- Expand upon the list you made. Break down certain topics into series or a couple of different topics. Let’s say you’re a holistic health coach. A good example would be if you had “pantry staples” listed as an idea from your brainstorming session. You can expand on that by doing a post for each pantry staple then once you have several of them you can create an anchor post on the overall topic and link to each of them. Then, as you write more posts on individual pantry staples you would just add them to that anchor post.
FYI: An anchor post (also called a “pillar article”) is a post that will always be relevant and helps solidify your blog’s authority in whatever your niche or common thread may be. It is typically longer than your daily posts and will contain lists and links to other posts you have written and/or it may contain several popular keywords that will bring others to that blog post via search engines.
Tutorials and project posts are great because most people do searches to find out how to accomplish something. You will also want to stay ahead of the game when it comes to seasons, holidays, and events. A good time frame to post is 6-3 weeks prior to the season, holiday, or event. This gives people time to take advantage of your ideas and advice.
Once you have your ideas for these posts you will use your editorial calendar to schedule your posts. Monday and Tuesday are the most popular days for readers to check in on you so you will definitely want to include those days.
Use your forms as a guide for posting but leave room for inspiration. It is also good to write several articles at once and simply schedule them to post on the appropriate days.