This article originally appeared on breakfastatlillys.com you can find it HERE.

PLANNING BLOG CONTENT LIKE A BOSS

Here is a screenshot of what my May social media content calendar currently looks like. I am still unsure if I will be posting on Memorial Day or not, so I have left that one blank for now but I just wanted to show y’all what my content calendar looks like when its completely full. As you can see I am currently running on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday schedule. I used to post 5x a week but with work, school, and wedding planning, that became a bit overwhelming. Now I am sure you’re ready to know exactly how I fill my content calendar and go about planning blog content each month so here we go.

1. Figure out your posting schedule // First you need to figure out how often you are going to post per week on your blog. Are you going to post 5x a week, 3x a week, or less? Once you have got your schedule down, stick to it and make sure to be consistent so content planning comes easily and you’re not writing all of your posts at the last minute.
2. Choose your preferred planning method // Do you like paper planners or digital planners? I personally keep my content calendar on Google Calendar so that I can easily move blog posts around if necessary without having to scratch it out in my planner. I also use a little notebook that is filled with different ideas that I randomly come up with to keep a list of ideas to refer back to whenever I get stuck.
3. Schedule your monthly posts // I always do a traffic report and monthly goals post at the beginning of each month and at least one wedding and blogging related post at some point throughout the month. So right off the bat, I already have 4 posts scheduled for the month then I fill in the rest of my content from there.
4. Check your calendar for any upcoming holidays // This is the second step I take when sitting down with my Google Calendar to schedule out content. I plan my post ideas for any upcoming holidays to ensure that I don’t forget them. Then from there I decide on what else I plan on posting for the month.
5. Schedule out any collaborations/sponsored posts // These are some of your most important posts since you typically have a strict deadline so these are going to have to be planned further in advance and aren’t interchangeable like other posts can be.
6. Build upon previous posts that did well // I like to use previous posts for inspiration when I am planning my content each month because I know that my readers enjoyed these specific posts and would probably be interested in knowing more about the topic. From my experience, my blogging related posts tend to perform the best so I try to do one or two of these per month. My second highest performing posts are wedding planning posts so I usually post at least one wedding related post per month as well.
7. Browse Pinterest // If I am really finding a hard time figuring out the last few posts for the month, I will turn to Pinterest for some inspiration. Pinterest never fails me in this department so I definitely suggest checking it out if you’re ever in need of some post inspiration.

At the end of the content planning process, I end up with 15+ posts scheduled for each month give or take a few sponsored opportunities that may come up throughout the month. Some months it is more difficult to come up with content than others, but with this method, it is so much easier to plan your content calendar and be able to write your posts further in advance if you choose.