Why every blogger needs a content calendar
All bloggers, from absolute beginner to experienced professional should have a content calendar.
It may sound stupid but this little helper will make your life as a blogger much easier. I noticed this myself when I started blogging, I was writing about random topics, there was no structure in what I did. I had many topic ideas in my mind but often I didn't know what to write about.
Until I discovered the concept of a 'content calendar'. Since I started using my own content calendar, life as blogger become so much easier.
In this article, I will explain to you the benefits of a content calendar.
What is a content calendar?
First things first ... What is a (blog) content calendar? It is as simple as it sounds: it is a calendar for your content.
It is kind of a spreadsheet where you keep track of what blog posts you already have published and when, what blog posts will be published later on, which ideas you have for upcoming blog posts, etc. .
This is the most simple version of a content calendar (also called an editorial calendar), you can add as much as you want to it. And this is the way how my first content looked: it was just a list of my blog posts with the dates they were published and a hyperlink to it. And it also contained the ideas I had for upcoming blog posts.
Later on, I added more columns to it, such as: categories,targetted keywords, published on what social media, ...
As you see, you can add as much as you want.
It is just an amazing tool to keep everything organized and it gives you a good and easily accessible overview of your content.
What are the benefits of a content calendar?
We all know that maintaining a blog (or other type of content) is hard. That is why you should have a content calendar to help you organize and maintain your blogging efforts.
Have a content calendar has numerous advantages and here are (to me) the most important ones.
A content calender helps you to:
maintain consistency
Having a content calendar ensures you that you're regularly publishing new content, keeping your readers coming back for more.
Note for the author: for me, it sometimes gives me the extra pressure I need when I see that a posting day is nearby and that I still have to write one or two blogs.
stay organized
I used to write down all my published posts and new topic ideas on small pieces of paper. After a while this became such a mess that I started thinking about a better solution. It's that moment that I started my content calender. The only thing I regret is that I haven't started it earlier.
stop doubting
When you write down all the ideas you have in your content calendar and you open it, it immediately gives you an overview of what you can write about. Not only that, you also will see what category you need to write a blog about.
improve quality
All this results in higher-quality posts.
be more strategic
enhance SEO
Also, a content calendar also helps you with checking what keywords you already targetted, what blogs can use more internal links, ...
As you can see, a content calendar is a tool that should be in the toolbox of every content creator (not only blogger). It saves you lots of times and headaches, knowing you have every in one place.
What should be included in a content calendar?
The most important metrics that you should add into your calendar are:
You can now add as much columns as you want, such as:
