Blog Scheduling

Blogging is an art form that allows you to reach your audience and convince them of your industry authority. 81% of individuals will trust information that is included within blog posts and 61% of readers are influenced by content in articles published online.

However, there are many different aspects of blogging which are required for it to be successful. For instance, you will need to publish blog posts that offer high quality information the reader can use, for example; a guide to solve a particular problem or a report on a niche within your industry. This content is very important because online readers don’t want to be sold to, they want to be informed.

A high quality image should be used to demonstrate what your blog post is about. The human mind can process an image quicker than text and in fact, some of your readers may judge whether or not they wish to read your blog post based on your image.

You’ll also need a way to sign visitors up to your email subscription list. 70% of your audience will not return to your website unless you subscribe them to something. This is important because if you want to sell your business further down the line, having a high returning visitor rate can raise the value of your business.

One of the most important aspects of blogging is consistency. If you are going to start blogging you need to blog at the same time every week. This means you need to think of subjects, complete research, write the article, edit the content and then publish the post on a consistent basis. This will improve the results of your blogging.

Why Is A Schedule Important (And Why Should You Stick To It)?

Blogging is a hard task that people often underestimate. There is a significant amount of work that needs to take place in order to develop content and get it looking just right. Unless you are a professional writer, it can take several hours just to write a 500 word piece.

The danger is that when you have a significant amount of work to do, your blogging is the first action that will disappear. This is very common and can often escalate into several posts being missed in a row or inconsistency in publishing.

By creating a publishing schedule you can avoid problems such as missing posts on your blog or published posts being full of grammatical errors. The more professionalism you can convey, the better the results of your content marketing campaigns and the higher returns you will achieve.

You’ll also notice that your impressions on Google and other search engines will improve. This can be really important because one third of all small businesses report that the majority of their traffic comes from organic searches.

Organic searches are one of the major contributors to online sales and this has been confirmed by Google, who state their ranking algorithms take into account how often content on a site is being changed and how often content is being published.

Research has demonstrated that businesses that publish more than 15 posts per month are able to achieve more traffic, leads and sales than businesses that don’t blog at all.

How Do You Design A Schedule?

Beginning a blogging schedule is not difficult, as long as you start in the right place. Many people believe that you should start with how and when you are going to create the content – but this is a big mistake. There are several reasons for this:

• Without creating a publishing schedule you don’t have a fixed time to publish your first blog post.
• Without a publishing schedule you have no regular deadlines to work towards.
• Generally speaking, when creating schedules, it is easier to start at the finish point and work backwards so you can better arrange other activities around your goal.

When creating your publishing schedule, first of all think about when your target audience are going to be online. General research has shown that Mondays are the best time to publish a post as this is when they are more likely to be read, however, they are shared more on a Thursday but every audience is different.

If your audience are night owls who are partying at the weekends and reading during the week, Monday to Thursday evenings might be the best time for them. If they are professional businessmen, then research has shown they are more likely to consume content just before or after work Tuesday to Thursday.

Once you have decided when to publish your posts, you can start to work backwards to determine when you are going to create the articles. Start with the editing of your article. Ensure that you give yourself at least one full day to edit the article, although you don’t want to spend any more than 30 minutes on the work.

On the previous day you should have researched and written the article. The timing for this can be unique but try to save about two hours for this task. Research is very important as readers like to have highly informative content that can be verified by a third party. Also, referencing quotes and statistics from third party sites can help your SEO, as Google includes outbound links in their ranking algorithm.

Once you have done this you need a time every week or month where you sit down with your marketing team and decide on subjects and blog titles. This is best done on a monthly basis as it can stop repetition and allow you to create topics at a strategic level.

Conclusion

Creating a blogging schedule is an important task if you want your business’ online marketing to be a success. To get it right, start with deciding when you will publish your content and then work backwards so you know your articles will always be completed on time.

By sticking to your schedule you will produce professional, consistent blog posts that will drive traffic to your business and in turn improve growth.