When it comes to writing ‘sustainable’ blogs…don’t reinvent the wheel! A little planning goes a long way. 

The issue: Everybody starts off feverishly writing their blogs & newsletters (usually when a brand new website is launched) all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and then, inevitably, enthusiasm levels start to drop and within the first couple of months, 90% of the content simply withers away.

The result:  NEWS pages on websites that are about 2 years out of date, save for the occasional sad, ‘Happy Christmas‘, or routine internal announcement copied and pasted across from an internal memo.

The case for planning your blogs

Yes, as you may have guessed referring to the graphic above, I am firmly in the ‘planning’ camp!

The thing is though, the more that you plan and have a structure in place, the more you are able to ‘write off the cuff’; think of it like a jazz musician, who has to have a very solid musical knowledge before he/she can begin to improvise and go off in sudden changes of direction.

Hence why, with blog writing, 80% of the effort is in planning your blogs, your template, your structure…etc, and only 20% is in the actual writing (my made-up statistics entirely, but hopefully it serves to reinforce the point)

3 Top tips for blog planning

1. Categorise

Categorise your blogs. Start by shifting your outlook 180º to that of a potential reader:

• What information might somebody search for online regarding your business/line of work?
• How does this fit in with your expertise/interests?

You don’t want too many categories, or else it becomes unwieldy, so keep it fairly broad – I’d suggest no less than 10, no more than 20 , but whatever works for you.

Fit your existing blogs into your categories to see how logical they are, and by trial and error you should be able to finalise your categories fairly quickly.

Given that your categories should reflect your readership’s interests, they are important for SEO purposes, as Google (other search engines are available!) will rank you higher as an authority, the more blog postings have in each category.

2. The 90-day plan

Why 90 days? No particular reason – it just seems like the ‘Golidlocks’ time period; not too far away in the distance to be too off-putting, and not too close by to induce panic.

Here’s how I apply the 90-day plan:

• Map out your business year – the peaks and troughs, special events, the times when you are busy and the times when you are quiet; e.g. is your business seasonally-affected by events such as Hallowe’en, Easter, summer holidays…etc?
• Overlay your categories with your year [see point 1.] – have a rough map of what you are more likely to write about and when.
• Set up themed newsletters 90 days in advance – assuming 1 newsletter p/m, this means having 3 newsletter templates prepared (I use Mailchimp), each on a different theme relating to one of your chosen categories; e.g. for a Blogging Newsletter, I’d need 3-4 blog-related articles…but not all at once, these could be written/drafted over the course of the next 90 days.

3. Set up your templates

All we’re doing here is to take the ‘thinking’ out of blog writing (in the nicest possible way) – think of it as removing any of the usual ‘barriers to entry’ which stop you from writing a blog: it takes too long, I can’t think of anything to write about, I haven’t got time…etc.

• Use evergreen content as a shortcut – evergreen refers to copy which regularly appears, usually once a year around specific periods/events; e.g. preparing for Christmas.
• Start with a catchy title – lists are always good: ‘The Top 5 things to remember when…’, ‘The 3 biggest mistakes most entrepreneurs make’…etc.
• Pre-save your templates – just a skeleton outline is all you need, maybe a quote header, a restricted introduction with a maximum word count…boundaries are your friend!

Conclusion

That’s it really – having a plan is the first step to being accountable for your actions (in this case, blog writing) and having a structure helps you stick to that plan.

The more that you follow this structure, the more natural it will become, until eventually it seems like second nature.

Et voilá!

Related webpage: Nobleword blogging service