Someone profound once said, “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.” Nothing could be truer than when it comes to scheduling out your blog posts. If you fail to create a schedule and a plan for your blog posts, then your blog might be doomed to fail, so approach blog posting with a strategic plan.

Create an Editorial Calendar

Open your personal laptop or power on your desktop. Open a document and start creating a blog post plan. Think ahead and plan, rather than fly by the seat of your pants. An editorial calendar is what you are going for here.

An editorial calendar includes:

• A list of dates that you will post on your blog
• The time of day that you will post
• The title, topic, niche, or category that you will cover in each scheduled blog post

Visit the website of your favorite magazine for an example of an editorial calendar. You’ll find each issue has an assigned theme, which is your goal for creating an editorial calendar. With an editorial calendar in place, you already know what you’re going to write and when the post will go online.

Best Times to Post

Constant and consistent content is the key element to a successful blog. Marketing experts and professional bloggers suggest posting to a blog at least two to three times per week. The constant stream of fresh, useful and relevant content is the key element to keeping readers coming back.

Random Post Consequences

If you choose to post to your blog at random, you are likely to reap the negative consequences.

• Depletes readership: Readers won’t keep returning to your website when they see the same old content is there every time they visit. If you are not constantly and consistently adding fresh content to keep readers coming back for more, then you will deplete readership numbers for your blog.
• Crisis mode: If you don’t have a blog post plan to write and schedule your content out ahead of time, then this puts you in crisis mode when something happens to throw your schedule off. Avoid writing and posting the same day. Instead, write ahead of time and schedule blog posts to go live automatically according to your schedule.
• Miss topics: If you don’t have a schedule of topics, then you are likely missing opportunities to cover specific information that your audience is thirsting for information to read. Even if you plan, write and schedule your content one week ahead of time, you can easily identify broad and specific topics that you might be missing from your content schedule.
• Lose cohesiveness: In other words, you cover topic A and then C, without covering topic B. It’s like missing a puzzle piece—you won’t be able to complete the puzzle and your blog visitors won’t be able to accomplish their goal either.
• Miss your audience: Again, you are writing this content to reach a specific group, individual or set of people. If you don’t have a strategic plan in place as to how to reach them with the information you’re sharing then you’re not reaching your intended audience—at all.

When it comes to creating and maintaining your blog, plan for success rather than be doomed for failure. Create a schedule and stick to it.

About Bio: 

Ethan Mellor is a founder of Assignment Emperor writing service. His interests includes following topics: content marketing, education, social media and business relations. Connect with Ethan at Twitter, Facebook and Google+.