Internet Marketing Weekly Feature: Creating a blogging calendar will help you to become a successful blogger.

Content is King when it comes to Internet Marketing. A blog is going to become your number one tool for developing fresh, new and relevant content. But I often hear from business owners, “I don’t have enough time to blog”. That is understandable, business owners are usually focused on the day to day operations of their business. This post will show you ways to make blogging a part of your day to day operations.

Step 1:  Locate a desktop calendar or an online calendar. Choose a calendar that best fits your needs. The Google Calendar  is a great free resource to use.

Step 2: Calculate how many times a month you are going to blog. You should keep in mind 2 blog posts a month should be your minimum (4 blog posts a month should become your goal). Once you have selected the number of posts your are going to write for the month. Select the day on the calendar you will launch your posts. Keep in mind that having a consistent day of the week is a great plan and will help you to become more organized. For this example, we will use Wednesday as your post day. Go back at least four days on that calendar and start to write what you are going to do to prepare that Wednesday post. Day 1: gather information for your post. Day 2: gather images for your post. Day 3: rough draft of the post is written. Day 4: final edits and posting. This strategy will help you spread out the work. You can do a few minutes of work a day. Instead of trying to spend an hour or two coming up with all the info and then having to write and publish the post.

Now that we have our day of the week selected for posting and created a few days of lead time.

Step 3: The next step is Brainstorming topic ideas. One place to start is your local Chamber of Commerce, or any other community based groups. They often times have great calendars of events and are very tied into what is happening in your area. Research all the events, festivals and concerts that are scheduled for the upcoming year. Add those dates to your blogging calendar. Remember that when your going to blog about an event that you need to write and publish the post weeks prior. By posting weeks before the event it will give you a great shot at being found in search.

Step 4: Once you have a calendar filled in for the whole year. Take a moment and start to look for blank weeks or a month where you might not have any posts scheduled. For these weeks you should start to fill in anything your business is doing over the next year you would like to promote. Recipes, local hiking trails, bike trails are great things to add to your list. People read blogs looking for local expertise or information about your area. You can use those empty weeks on your calendar to show your readers that your are an expert and resource for your area.

Step 5: Set up a system to alert yourself to blog. I personally miss the days of post it note chains that would snake across my desk. Removing each note as the weeks moved forward. Fortunately technology has advanced and there are many ways to send yourself reminders. Live gets busy so any tools you can use to help remind your self to start your blogging process will help.

With the new year rapidly approaching, it would be a great time to start to develop your calendar. A successful blogging strategy would make for a great New Year’s resolution.

I hope you found this information helpful and I wish everyone a Happy New Blogging Year!!

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