Excitingly, you are the editor of your own website. Woo-hoo! This means it’s all down to you. Not only the planning and writing of content, but other things like proof reading, image sourcing and SEO too. Gulp. It’s a lot right?
In traditional media, each of these jobs was delegated to a different skilled professional. For bloggers, it all tends to end up in our very own lap, so honing the way you create your content is a super important task.
- Plan editorial calendar
- Source, create and edit images
- Research and create written element
- Edit, add images and proof read post
- Spend time on SEO
- Add any related links manually to your text or to the end of the post
- Carefully check your work over in preview mode
- Publish!
A great editorial calendar can not only keep you on track with consistent posting, it can also help you balance your content and have a more streamline approach to social media too.
Editorial calendar options:
Weekly printable planner pages– for everyone – download yours by clicking the image above
Google Calendar – for everyone – start a new calendar just for blog posts
Analog Calendar – for everyone – write your posting plans in your diary
Wordpress Editorial Calendar Plugin – for WordPress.org users – drop and drag your posts where they fit best AND
CoSchedule – for WordPress.org users – the Rolls Royce of editorial calendars
If you are WP.org, CoSchedule is the answer to all your worries! There’s a 14 day free trial so you can see how it works – and you can update the calendar from within your post drafting window, from the CoSchedule dashboard within your WordPress blog or via the CoSchedule website.
What’s great about using CoSchedule as an editorial calendar?
It’s a great editorial calendar.
It’s got super useful functionalities such as social media (Facebook, Twitter, G+) scheduling.
It allows you to plan and execute all aspects of your blogging workflow via one platform.
It also integrates with Google Calendar (which is useful if you plan your life via Google Calendar!)
You can add team members and collaborate/create content together.
Last year, for instance, I wrote the A to Z of Blogging for Kidspot. I created the full content plan a month or two ahead of time in Excel. It featured the post title, date of publication, brief description of the post content and notes on what I needed to do/who I needed to interview to make this happen.
Content plans are a good idea if you are working on a particular project or theme on your blog. They’re helpful because it’s often really valuable to see all the content within the theme on one page (rather than dotted about an editorial calendar). A content plan helps you to focus in on the project and balance the posts you are writing in a more engaging/logical way.
Download a sample content plan here –> Sample Content Plan
Remember how in Week One of BWP 2.0 we really focused on the posts that were working best on our blogs? And remember how we analysed the strengths of those posts and began working harder on including related post content within those posts to improve them? Well, naturally, when you are planning your editorial calendar you need to keep all those learnings in mind.
1. What SUBJECT MATTER was popular – in terms of page views?
2. Were tutorials, advice, instructions, information, something else… working best, page view wise?
3. What kinds of posts were people linking to the most (referrals/trackback)?
4. How can you include these learnings in your upcoming editorial calendar?
5. Are there new posts to write as a follow-up or enhancement of these already popular posts?
6. Can you find ways to create new content that links back to these popular posts in a logical and helpful way (improving your SEO and also reader experience)?
You might also want to consider how you are going to promote your posts via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Are there posts that have done really well in terms of referrals via social media? Can you learn from those and create similar complimentary content that may do equally well? Do you want to create some special feature images specifically for these platforms? (See the next section, if so!)
I’m a big fan of creating your own image library or ‘stock photos’ so that you always have something to fall back on. Here’s a list of stock images you might like to consider creating yourself.
You can also find free images online that you can use in your blog posts (just check if there are any image attribution/crediting requirements before you use them) at:
Death To The Stock Photo
PicJumbo
Creative Commons on Flickr
Unsplash and
The State Library of Victoria for starters
Once you’ve found your image, you need to make sure it’s the right size for your blog. Have a play around with your theme and see what size looks best. Some bloggers love HUGE images that span the width of their blog’s main content area – other bloggers prefer something a bit smaller. Mess about with your image size – resizing in Photoshop, your computer’s photo editing program or online at Pixlr and when you find the image size that works best for your blog, make a note of it and stick to it from now on. Cohesive image size = a nice looking blog.
It’s also good to note that you shouldn’t upload your images in a super huge format and then use your blog’s media library to resize. This is just wasting space on your blog and also can allow unethical types lovely high-res images to use elsewhere. Resize THEN upload to save space and protect your images (slightly!)
While you’re making your image the correct size, you might want to consider if it needs any other edits. I edit a lot of my photos, simply because my house is really dark! I like to turn up the brightness a little bit and make sure that they look their best. I use Photoshop (I subscribe via Adobe’s Creative Cloud service for a reasonable monthly fee – you pay between $9 and $19 a month, depending on the programs you choose).
Image Tweaking Options
Photoshop – offline
Canva – online
PicMonkey – online
Pixlr – on/offline
There are also a ton of smart phone apps that make creating graphics or editing images really easy. Have a poke about in your App store to see what might work for you. (I use Whitagram, A Beautiful Mess and Instastitch, among others!)
If you’re creating special images to use on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook to promote your posts be sure to check the optimal size dimensions for those images (so bits of your image don’t get chopped off!) They are ever changing so a quick Google with ‘2015’ in the search terms should help you find those or read this guide by Buffer (updated in March, so currently current!)
You can create also create graphics for social media in Pablo – then download to your computer for later use or send them straight on to your social networks.
Keeping in mind the learnings from Lesson One about what content is already working (and finding ways to build on or revisit that content) it’s time to get cracking.
It’s important to write the kinds of things YOU want to write, whilst keeping in mind that someone is on the other end of your blog, reading that work. I think the key is to always write about the things that are meaningful to you because it not only makes the writing much easier, it makes the groundwork or prep that you have to do heaps more fun too.
Nothing is easier, writing-wise, than writing from the heart about something you feel passionate about. The words seem to fly onto the page or screen and it really does take the hard work out of blogging. So, be led NOT JUST by what you think readers want, but by what you want to explore.
Use your blog to choose your own adventure and get serious about putting aside the time to research the things that matter to you. I’m the first to admit that I blog on the fly A LOT, but I also know that I gain a HUGE AMOUNT by doing some reading or podcast listening or viewing about my chosen topic before I hit the ground running. Don’t feel bad about prioritizing this kind of research or blog prep time. Not only will it make for a much better blog, it will enrich your own creative life and if that’s not what we’re here for, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.
Research ideas:
Free Documentaries Online
Learn Out Loud
Creative Bug
Skillshare
Pinterest
Trove
I know. This can be hard, but it’s really important. I often get asked about how I approach this, so here’s what I do. You might like to do it too.
- Firstly, I write my post all in one go. I get the words down without thinking too much.
- Then, I save and preview the post – reading it through for sense and spelling/grammar.
- Next, I go back in and edit – switch bits around, flesh out bits that are a tad light-on, add extra sentences or phrases to personalize the writing.
- Then I save and preview once more – read, edit again.
- At this stage I spellcheck all the text too.
- I save and preview a final time to be sure I’m happy (and make any tiny changes then too – it’s at this point that I double check that there are no spelling mistakes in the TITLE too – I did make one once, when I was in a hurry – ‘Blow With Pip’ – don’t be like me!)
- As you can see, I preview the post 3 times (at least) before setting it free.
Grammar, vocabulary and spelling
Remember you can always check grammar rules and word definitions online (or depending on your blog platform, within your blog post editor). Make sure you take the time to do that. If you’re using a word for the first time, double check that it really does mean what you think. If there are phrases you are unsure of, look up the correct usage before you publish. Also look out for typos – they creep in – especially if you are a touch typist – and get missed by spellcheck if they are ACTUAL words too. (This happens to me a lot!)
If you are a little bit challenged in the proofreading department, try teaming up with another blogger so that you can check each other’s work. The Alumni group is a great place to find a blogging buddy to help with this.
At this point, I tend to shuffle the images around and add other bits and bobs (perhaps a graphic or a border, some related links, a bit more SEO tweaking) before I cut my post loose. I want to make sure that the layout looks the best it can and I’d encourage you to do that too. Go the extra mile and make sure everything looks great (as well as reading well) before you publish.
This might all seem like a lot of work, but the more you do it, the faster you will become at this process. Your blog will thank you for taking a little bit of extra time to make it look and read its best.
It’s during this process that I use CoSchedule to create my accompanying social media posts too, so it’s a VERY important part of the whole process.
A lot of people are scared of the term SEO (it means Search Engine Optimisation, as you probably know!) but it’s nothing to be freaking out over, I promise. Making your posts SEO friendly is super important if you want new readers to find you and especially if you are posting about particular topics in particular niches. You need to make this part of your post drafting routine. Soak it up and do it naturally every time you write a post, peeps!
I promise your blog will benefit hugely if you take the time to optimize your work.
If you are on WordPress.org you can add an SEO plugin which will make your SEO process a lot easier. If you aren’t there are still HEAPS of things you can do to make your blog more SEO friendly.
The experts say that WordPress.org has the BEST chance at great SEO (although Blogger also seemed to be pretty good when I was a Blogger gal!) If you are dead set on growing your blog BIG and being found and you are not on WordPress.org, you might want to give this some thought.
SEO must-dos
1. Use a logical, searchable post title eg ‘How To Make Macaroni Cheese’
2. Use keywords and phrases – macaroni cheese recipe, best macaroni cheese, easy macaroni cheese
3. Write a great post so that others link back to you (‘backlinks’ improve SEO)
4. Make sure your post is search relevant – write about things that people are searching for
5. Find opportunities to link to your own posts within your blog – eg make a list of things that happened on the blog recently at the end of your latest post and pop in – “I posted something delicious! How To Make Macaroni Cheese” <–with a link to your Mac Cheese post
6. If you use a SEO plugin (because you are on WordPress.org) fill out all the boxes – SEO title, keywords, meta description etc
7. It helps if your permalinks (the structure of your blog post URLs) is set to include the text from your post title – but take care when adjusting this because you don’t want to change the structure of PAST posts – any links to them would be broken! Proceed with care.)
8. Links in your sidebar and footer to popular posts will improve those posts’ SEO because every time your blog’s homepage is loaded, those links/text are loaded. Google notices such things, apparently.
9. Broken links are not cool – keep an eye out for any broken links on your blog and fix them up. Google doesn’t like broken links and may penalize you if you have lots of them.
For WordPress.org users : the following plugins will improve your SEO too (I have them on my blog!)
Google XML Sitemaps – helps Google crawl your blog and find your content more efficiently
WP Super Cache – helps your site load faster, which makes Google like you more
All In One SEO Pack – a great SEO plugin with Google Webmaster Tools integration
Here’s Rand Fishkin’s great (free) guide to SEO.