Creating a Consistent Blogging Schedule: Tips & Tricks

Creating and Maintaining a Consistent Blog Posting Schedule

If you’ve decided to start blogging regularly, it’s important to have a plan in place for publishing your posts. While it may be tempting to publish a post as soon as you finish writing it, this isn’t always the best long-term strategy. In this article, we’ll discuss why having a blog publishing schedule is important, how frequently you should publish blog posts, and some tools and tips for maintaining a consistent posting schedule.

Why a Blog Publishing Schedule is Important

Having a schedule for publishing your blog posts can help you stay committed to your blog and ensure that it doesn’t become an afterthought or non-essential activity. A schedule can also help you plan out your content ahead of time, allowing you to prepare timely or seasonally-appropriate posts.

How Frequently Should I Publish Blog Posts?

The frequency of your blog posts will depend on your industry and the type of content you want to share. For example, if you run a news-related blog, daily or multiple posts per day may be expected. However, if you focus on in-depth researched or reported pieces, once a week or every other week may be enough.

To determine the ideal schedule for your blog, take a look at what your competitors are doing. How often do they post? What types of posts do they write? This information can help you come up with a schedule that works for you.

According to HubSpot, small blogs should aim to post 3-4 times per week to increase organic traffic or 1-2 times per week to build brand awareness. However, it’s important to consider what you can personally handle or what your team can handle. If you don’t have the staffing to handle more than one blog post per week, you may need to adjust your expectations or hire a writer to assist you.

Once you’ve settled on a post frequency, determine which days of the week you want your posts to go live. You can adjust this over time if traffic data suggests a change would be beneficial.

Tools for a Consistent Post Schedule

While you can schedule blog posts directly in WordPress, there are several tools and plugins that can provide additional features for planning, coordinating, and scheduling blog posts.

1. Strive Content Calendar: This all-in-one editorial manager includes a content calendar with drag-and-drop post scheduling, color-coded post statuses, post checklists, post revision planning, and a pipeline feature to track all of your current posts in progress.

2. Editorial Calendar: This plugin offers a convenient way to view all of your scheduled posts via a calendar view. Within this view, you can drag-and-drop posts around, edit them right within the calendar, and click through to make more edits.

3. PublishPress: This plugin allows you to create an editorial calendar, set up custom statuses for your posts, send out notifications regarding content updates, and streamline the collaborative process if you plan on featuring more than one author on your blog.

4. WP Scheduled Posts: This plugin includes a variety of tools that allow you to schedule blog posts in advance for publication, including a schedule calendar and a dashboard widget for easier post scheduling.

5. CoSchedule: This marketing tool allows you to manage multiple aspects of blog post publication from your WordPress dashboard, including a marketing calendar, content organizer, social organizer, and more.

6. Publish to Schedule: This plugin allows you to automatically schedule your posts for publishing based on the days of the week and times you configure during setup.

Blogging Schedule Troubleshooting

Maintaining a consistent blogging schedule can be challenging at times. Here are some tips for overcoming common obstacles:

1. Writer’s block: Prevent writer’s block by gaining inspiration from reading other blogs and brainstorming. Always have 4-5 ideas jotted down so you have something to spark your creativity, even if you’re not feeling it.

2. Time constraints: Plan ahead and fill your blog post queue so that you’re scheduling posts at least two weeks ahead of time. That way, if you have an off day, you have time to make it up.

3. Overwhelm: Use a solid workflow to keep track of your post drafts, their publish date, related social media posts, email newsletter copy, and other applicable marketing materials all in one place. This can alleviate feelings of overwhelm in the long run.

Your Blog Post Schedule Can Expand Your Audience

Publishing blog posts regularly can drive organic traffic to your site and increase people’s awareness of your brand and what you do as a company or influencer. While committing to a blog posting schedule may be difficult at times, the payoff is well worth the effort.

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