How To Plan Blog Content: A Guide For Creative Business Owners

 

If your business is in the creative field, especially if that’s some type of visual business such as web design, photography, or crafting, it doesn’t always follow that you have the time or the interest to work on writing content for your business.

In my experience (and forgive me if I’m wrong!), a lot of creators have a tendency to be spontaneous. They’re not always natural planners. Of course, that is true for a lot of people, so pardon the generalisation! But what I’m getting at is that when it comes to written content, being spontaneous doesn’t marry well. You need to have some kind of plan to work to, in order to be efficient and organised with all of your content.

Why plan your content?

I’ve been writing content for all sorts of businesses for more than 10 years at this point, and in the beginning, blogging was still not thought of as a serious marketing strategy. Social media was still just used for catching up with friends. Things were very, very different.

But things have changed. Now, businesses are expected to be not just visible online, but have a professional online presence, a reputable social media following, and be openly relatable to their customers and clients.

People like to read the blogs of their favourite businesses, because it makes them feel closer to the product. It makes it more personal, and removes any barriers – it’s an open form of communication between you as a business owner and your customers. People buy from people they know, like and trust – blogging helps you to do that.

But in order to be consistent in writing content for your blog, planning is essential. Sitting down in front of a blank page and just trying to write a post is not only stressful, it won’t produce a great result, because it will be rushed, disorganised, and shoddy.

A blog isn’t just a piece of writing from a stream of thought: you need to consider the structure, titles and headings, SEO and keywords etc. You also ned to consider the frequency of your posts which brings me on to the first key point:

Creating a content calendar

The first thing to consider is how often you want to post to your blog. Make sure it’s a schedule that you can feasibly stick to – if you commit to one post a week, how are you going to achieve that? Do you have the time? If you don’t, then either outsource it, or reduce the frequency to once every 2 weeks, or once a month.

The important thing is that you can produce your posts to the schedule you choose, so make sure you’re not overstretching yourself for the sake of getting more posts out than you can manage.

There are several tools you can use to schedule your posts. I like to use Trello, but you can use Google Calendar, or any kind of digital (or paper, if that’s your vibe!) planner of your choice.

I like to work at least a month in advance, and enter my blog subjects into my planner so that I know what I have to write when the time comes. Do what works for you.

Coming up with ideas for your blog posts

I used to really struggle with this, but there is plenty of inspiration to help you to find loads of fresh, relevant content ideas for your blog posts. My first port of call is always Google – by typing is key words relating to your subject, you can easily find ideas for what you can write about.

If this is something that you struggle with too, then I have a free resource to guide you through, and help you to find tonnes of blog post ideas, whatever industry you are in.

Finding the time to write

This is always the hardest part, isn’t it? Where do you find a block of time to sit and write you blog posts?

1.      Plan for it.

Seriously, if you don’t carve out a time to do it, you simply won’t get around to it. Writing a good blog post takes a lot of time, it can’t be rushed. So give yourself at least a couple of hours, and put it in your diary. You’ll thank me for it.

2.      Batch

This was a game-changer for me. Instead of sitting down once a week and painstakingly forcing myself to write a blog post, knowing that I’ve got to repeat the same process next week was awful. What if you fall sick, or need to take a week off? That means a gap in your content, which in itself can be stressful.

Nope. Not if you batch your posts. Pick a day. Put it in your diary. Then, write a few posts in one sitting. Bam – you’ve suddenly got a month's worth of posts scheduled that you don’t even need to worry about! Good, eh?

By setting up a content calendar, generating fresh ideas, and scheduling time to write, you can streamline the entire process and reduce stress. If you’re ready to take control of your blog strategy and connect with your audience more effectively, download my free resource to help you come up with engaging blog post ideas and create a plan that works for you. Let’s get your blog on track!