Four Steps to Decide What to Write About On Your Blog & When

It’s been awhile, ya’ll! As some of you may know, February is my birthday month, and I celebrated my birthday last weekend. With that and hosting my first EdTech meetup, I have been a busy bee and haven’t written in over a week. Butttttt, I’m back now

How many of you ever wonder how on earth to decide what to write about on your blog? That was me before I started my blog, and even after I started it. Over time, I have come up with a helpful routine for planning out what I’m going to write about and when. Check out my tips below!

 

Step 1: Decide Which Topics To Write About

First and foremost, what’s your blog about? Do you write about just one category, like food recipes, or do you write about multiple categories like travel, style, and home design, for example? Nail down the specific categories that you write about (or that you want to write about if you’re just getting started with blogging). 

Step 2: Write out 15-20 Blog Post Titles for Each Category

One of the most helpful tips that I have to share today is to generate a list of 15-20 blog post titles that you want to publish for each category that you write about. As an example, I write about a variety of topics, including beauty, style, food + drink, career, goals, blogging, and more (total lifestyle blogger, here!). Every few months, I sit down and write out potential blog post titles for each of the abovementioned categories to keep ideas fresh in my mind. I use a helpful blog title guide that I found on Pinterest to make sure my blog post title is catchy.

 

Something else to keep in mind is the time of year. A lot of my blog posts are impacted by the time of year – I often write about holidays, the different seasons (I’ll have more drink recipes in the warmer months than the colder ones and more crockpot recipes to share during the colder months, for example).

Step 3: Plan Out What You’re Going to Publish & When

Now that you have a nice list of blog post ideas, it’s time to plan when you’re going to publish your posts! The best way that I have found to do this is by using an editorial calendar. I actually created my own monthly calendar document in Google Docs. Based off of how often you plan to post, you can plan out what blog posts to publish and when. I also think it is helpful to have a theme for each day that you plan to publish something. If you plan on publishing 2 times a week and have 3 categories – food, style, and beauty – that you write about, then you’re going to have to decide how often you plan to write about each category. Maybe you’re super passionate about sharing recipes, so every Monday you want to publish a new recipe or something that has to do with food. Now, let’s say the other day of the week that you want to publish a post is Thursday. You’re going to have to decide how often you’re going to publish a post on style vs. beauty. Maybe the first Thursday of each month is beauty, while the other Thursdays are all about style. Another idea is to write about beauty one week and style the next – it’s totally up to you! It’s really, really helpful to have themed days and to plan out your blog post titles on a calendar so you can see the big picture of your blog. 

It’s also okay to NOT stick to your themed days! Life happens. Maybe you got caught up with something else and missed your day to publish. it’s your blog – you get to decide what to do. Once you have an audience that follows your blog, they do enjoy knowing what to look out for.

Step 4: Write, Write, Write, Write, Write

So you’ve planned out what blog post titles you’re going to publish and when, what’s next? Get to writing! I use Evernote to write my blog posts. Here’s an example of how I outline each of my blog posts:

Title Image

Intro blurb

Divider

Title of Paragraph 1

• Image
• Content

Title of Paragraph 2

• Image
• Content

Title of Paragraph 3

• Image
• Content

Title of Paragraph 4

• Image
• Content

Divider

Wrap-up blurb/Call to Action

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There you have it! This is my quick guide to helping you decide what to write about on your blog and when. I hope you found this post helpful – how does your planning process compare to mine? Share in the comments below.

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