Still Blogging by the Seat of Your Pants?

By Patty Gale

We have some clients who like to do their own blogging, so if you’re a small business owner who would rather blog on your own (instead of hiring us to do it for you!), then this post is for you.

This is the last week of 2010, so there’s no time to waste. Without proper planning, you could wind up staring at a blank computer screen every day, with no idea what to write and then wind up writing nothing.

Today, and especially since we’re in the last week of 2010, I’m going to show you a really simple way to stay organized and how to plan your content throughout the year.

Treat it Like an Online Magazine

The first step to not getting overwhelmed is to think of your blog as an online magazine. In print magazines, there is a lot of planning and preparation that must take place first.

Topics are chosen sometimes a year in advance, layouts and photo shoots are planned and prepared months ahead of time so there is no second-guessing how the magazine is going to be put together.

Granted, you’re not putting together a print publication, however, when you get organized, plan your publishing content and know exactly what you’re going to do, you won’t be staring at your computer wondering what you’re going to write about.

Tools to Help

There are a couple of free tools that will help.

1. 2011 Blogging calendar planner by BlogEnergizer 2001 Calendar

This is one of the coolest tools I’ve been personally using for several years to help plan my content. You can also subscribe to Blog Energizer updates (for free!) and will get some really cool ideas for topics throughout the year.

Download it here, print it, put it in a 3 ring binder and treat it like a publishing calendar.

Treat each month with a theme in mind, then plan your content accordingly. You don’t have to write every single day, three times a week is a good place to start.

If the idea of planning a year’s worth of themes seems overwhelming, start with one calendar quarter and plan three months at a time…. which leads us to our next tool.

2. The WordPress editorial calendar plugin is the next tool that you will absolutely love! Once you have some ideas on paper in your calendar, use this plugin to add topic ideas directly into your WordPress blog.

This plugin creates an actual calendar in your WordPress dashboard in which you can click on a date and type in a topic idea. This creates a quick draft of the topic for that date, so when you’re ready to write the complete post, you’ll have it right there in front of you. Nice and handy!

Download the plugin from here: WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin

Pre-Post to Save Time

This is probably one of the most important things you can do to help save time and that is to use the built in schedule option in WordPress to pre-post content.

I can’t stress enough how much this will help you from pulling your hair out.

Schedule the amount of time you need each week, every two weeks, (or whatever works best for you) to schedule content to post into the future.

Sometimes, finding time to write for an hour a day is just crazy, but if you add it into your schedule to carve out a stretch of time each week, to pre-schedule content, you will be amazed at how much time you will save.

Just knowing your content is taken care of for a week or two at a time…. it’s like a huge weight is lifted off you shoulders!

So, to recap, this is the last week of 2010. There’s no more wasting time. I know this week is busy being post-Christmas, but if there’s just one thing you do for your business this week, make it this.

You will be amazed at how you’ll be able to kick-start 2011 and get it off to a great start!

Here’s Your Plan:

1. Download the 2011 Blogging planner from BlogEnergizer.com
2. Plan out 3 months worth of content ideas.
3. Use the WordPress editorial calendar plugin to post topic drafts.
4. Start looking at how to schedule a block of time to write and pre-schedule content to your blog (one week in advance minimum).

Like anything, consistency is key and once you get the hang of planning and pre-posting your content, you will never blog by the seat of your pants again.

Enjoy!