(Updated 12-11-2022)
One of the most crucial keys to blogging success is consistency.
Whether running a blog to help put your business on the map or managing your own niche WordPress blog as a business in and of itself, posting and distributing blog content with regular frequency and covering the subject matter your audience wants should be a focal point for your content strategy.
I typically recommend publishing at least two new blog posts per week. If you can push for four or more, however, that’s when the magic really happens.
The Huffington Post kicked things off and gained exposure by publishing a new post every 58 seconds. That’s a feat I know I (and most businesses and bloggers) can’t accomplish, but it’s a great example of how publishing more can give your site a boost…quickly.
A HubSpot study showed that blogs with 16 posts per month see approximately 3.5 times more traffic than those that only post four times or fewer per month.
That’s traffic from all sources, organic, social media, referrals, and more. Blogs with 3-5 posts per week gain favor in the eyes of Google and offer more content for posting and linking to from other sources like social media.
Keep in mind that publishing frequency isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing. You need to understand your business’s specific needs, purpose, and desired result.
As seen in the graphic below from HubSpot, the frequency varies on whether you’re seeking organic traffic vs. looking for a bump in brand awareness. It also varies by the size of your blog.
Blogging Consistency Keeps Your Readers Happy
One of the most important reasons to stay consistent with your blog publishing schedule is that your readers will begin to expect posts to pop up during certain intervals as they become familiar with your blog.
If you post every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, your readers expect to see posts on those days each week.
If they show up on your site and nothing is new when they expect it to be, and if this happens often enough, they may decide to get their content elsewhere.
For this reason, you need to keep your blog on a schedule. Doing so, however, isn’t easy. This is where editorial calendars come into play.
Editorial Calendars to Keep Your Content Consistent
Editorial calendars greatly help keep you and your blogging team on schedule. You can lay out a daily, weekly, and monthly schedule to ensure you publish regularly and keep your readers (and the search engines) happy.
This goes beyond your blog.
As you know, it’s essential that you promote your blog posts once you publish them. One of the top ways to do this is to post links to your blog content on social media.
Your blog promotion, especially on channels like social media, should also be held to a consistent schedule.
To help you keep your blog and the promotion of said blog on track, you’ll need to have two editorial calendars in place. We’ve detailed each below with info about how to use each.
And, as a bonus, we’ve added links to two free downloads: 1) Blog Editorial Calendar and 2) Social Media Calendar.
Let’s take a look!
Blog editorial calendar
A blog editorial calendar allows you to plan and ensure the optimal number of posts scheduled each week.
I recommend planning at least a month ahead. This way, you can effectively stay on top of the proper subject matter, ensure you’re covering timely topics, and post at the right time.
For example, if your team is attending a particular conference, you may want to schedule a conference round-up post to go live shortly afterward.
You can schedule this ahead of time in your calendar. Assign a writer, attribute specific keywords, craft a headline or several, schedule a due date and an actual publishing date, add a target persona, and more.
To help you get started, you can download a free blog editorial calendar by clicking below and opening up the spreadsheet.
DOWNLOAD FREE CALENDAR (once you click, be sure to download the file to enable editing)
Now that you have a blogging editorial calendar, it’s time to coordinate your social media calendar with your blog schedule.
To do this correctly, you’ll want to have a social media editorial calendar in place. Let’s take a look at the value of this fantastic tool.
Social media editorial calendar
You’ll want to have a distribution strategy to get the most value out of your blog content. Social media should be one of the multiple distribution channels in your strategy.
Social media is an excellent channel for promoting your content via a free medium. It is an excellent compliment to your advertising and other paid efforts, and it’s a reliable way to engage your audience and get your blog content in front of them.
That said, social media deserves the same level of consistency that you dedicate to your blog.
The best way to ensure you maximize the promotion of your content via social media is to have a social media editorial calendar in place.
Plan to promote each blog post you create on the day the blog post goes live on your website.
Here’s an example of a scheduled Tweet promoting one of the latest blog posts on this website.
Many bloggers, make the mistake of trying to do everything. At first, that may be ok. But, as your blog grows, the scope of work involved in making your blog grow expands significantly. #blogging https://t.co/4KIDaXdU8B
— Anthony Gaenzle (@AnthonyGaenzle) December 11, 2022
You can even work posts into the queue again later to get more traction from them. With a calendar like this, you can not only schedule posts and topics ahead of time, you can even draft the copy that goes along with each post.
Drop each element into the corresponding column, field, and row, and share the calendar with your team. Make it a practice to keep the calendar updated so you can stay super consistent.
Include notes about hashtags, links, images, and whatever other elements will accompany each post, and you’re all set.
As with the blog editorial calendar, here’s a free downloadable social media editorial calendar to help get you started. Just click and download the spreadsheet.
DOWNLOAD FREE SOCIAL MEDIA CALENDAR (once you click, be sure to download the file to enable editing)
Get Rolling With Your Editorial Calendars
Once these calendars are downloaded and ready to go, get together with your content and social media teams and start planning.
Make sure you keep your calendars updated and maintained to be consistent with your strategic direction and to help you more easily achieve your goals.
Keep your blog and social media editorial calendars in sync to ensure the most significant impact and the highest levels of consistency and keep your readers and the search engines happy.
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Related posts:
- Orphan Pages: What They Are and How to Find and Fix Them - January 29, 2023
- The Savvy Marketing Agency Guide to Wild Growth in 2023 - January 23, 2023
- Newbie Blogger’s Blunders: 7 Lessons Learned from My Early Mistakes - January 21, 2023
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Calendars like these can really help you keep your content and social media strategies on track. I’ve used similar templates for multiples businesses, and it works like a charm. There are software platforms as well that take these to the next level, but if you are looking to organize your strategies in an effective, affordable way, these are great!
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Hi Margaret. A lot of writers run into this same issue. I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all solution here, unfortunately. I find that I like to check at lot of boxes by completely smaller tasks that weigh on my mind. And once I do that, I can free my mind to create a post or other type of content. I know meditation helps some people, and sometime exercise (taking a walk, for example) can clear your mind. You just have to test out a number of options, and you’ll find the one that works best for you!
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Thanks, Etta. I hope the tips are useful. If you have any questions about blogging, please feel free to send an inquiry through the contact form! https://www.anthonygaenzle.com/contact-us/
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