Blogging Basics: The Editorial Calendar!

Last week, I started a new series called Blogging Basics. I started the series discussing Finding Your Niche because I think it is the first step in the whole blogging process. Today, I will be covering The Editorial Calendar.

Once again, when I started blogging, I was clueless and had no idea about editorial calendars. I really thought my blog was more of a journal than an actual space that required detailed planning. A topic would pop in my head and I would write about it. Seriously!

Then, I started doing more and more research on how to take control of my blog and make it successful, and creating an editorial calendar was mentioned in every article.

So, what is an editorial calendar?

An editorial calendar is a planning tool that shows when blog posts will be created and published.  This tool can be as complicating or as simple as you want it to be. If you run a blog that has contributors, weekly giveaways, or specific blog post series, then you might want a more detailed calendar.

The main goal is to help you organize your space better, which will lead to a more organized and productive blog to readers.

goal without a plan

You need to make sure you have enough time to write the content, take the photos, edit the photos, and put the finishing touches on your post before hitting, “publish.” So, keeping ahead of the game with an editorial calendar will be extremely helpful.

There are many Websites and apps that you can use to help with your editorial calendar. But, for me, I am still old school and like the paper and pencil (pen, actually) approach. It is definitely a personal preference!

So, I wanted to share my simple editorial calendar with y’all. Now, take note that mine is very simple. I do not have contributors or detailed information that requires extensive planning. I do make sure I plan blog series posts way ahead so I have enough time to cover them.

For my editorial calendar, I am using Jen from iheartorganizing’s 2015 junior size daily planner.

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 The planner is broken up into two sections: 

12 Pre-Dated Side-by-Side Portrait Calendar Pages {Jan 2015 -Dec 2015}

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and

Pre-Dated Side-by-Side Portrait Daily Planner Pages for Jan 2015 – Dec 2015

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Now, let me explain how I use both sections.

I use the whole month calendar pages to mark when I published a post. All post titles that get written on one of these sheets have been created and published. Therefore, if I want to go back throughout the year and find out when a certain post was made, I can quickly turn to one of the 12 calendar layouts and find it pretty fast.

The daily planner pages are used for notes, expected daily posts, and anything I need to get done throughout that day or week. The content on these pages changes a lot. I try to plan at least two weeks in advance, but things do get marked out and moved around frequently. It is important to have a plan and these pages definitely make that happen.

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And, that is all that is included in my editorial calendar. It is pretty simple, but so far, it is working pretty great for me and this blog. If I ever get to a point where I need more planning, I may have to make some adjustments. And, those adjustments will definitely be shared with y’all.

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