If you want to grow your blog, you need to publish new content regularly. If you post only two posts a month, it will take years for your blog to generate decent traffic.
Blogging consistency is key to success. When you start a new blog, you feel excited and you publish new content regularly. But then you look into Google Analytics and discover that nobody is reading your posts. You get discouraged and start posting less and less.
This is very common for new bloggers. We all want to see progress immediately, but unfortunately, when it comes to blogging it is never a sprint, it’s always a marathon.
That’s why it is important to create a blogging schedule that will help you stay on track.
Define your Goals
Your blogging schedule should be based on your goals so it’s important that you first define them. Do you want to earn $1000 a month within 1 year of blogging? Or maybe $100 a month enough for you?
Of course, if you wanted to make $1000 a month then you would have to publish much more content than if you wanted to make just $100.
Your blogging schedule has to reflect your goals but at the same time, it should be realistic. Maybe you want to earn $1000 month, but you work 9/5 job and so you have very little time to write new content. If you decide you need to post 10 new articles a month to reach your goals, it is very unlikely that you will adhere to your schedule.
If your schedule is not realistic, you will soon find yourself behind your plan and get discouraged. If you know you have time for only one post a week, don’t push it based on your goals. The goal of a schedule is to build a habit and blog regularly.
If you set unrealistic goals, you will not be able to adhere it to and maybe stop blogging altogether. On the contrary, if you have a lot of free time, I encourage you to come with a schedule that will push you towards your goals. If you have enough time to post 10 articles a month, don’t settle with just 5.
Making a Schedule
Once you have your goals set, you can start preparing your schedule.
What all pro bloggers recommend is to build a habit around publishing content on certain days. Let’s say you decide to post 8 times a month which equals to 2 posts a week.
In that case, you could, for instance, say that you would publish your content on Mondays and
Fridays.
This is just an example, of course, you should not decide randomly but based on your free time. You should figure out how much time you need to write each post, so you know how much time you need on each of your publishing days.
If you know you need around 3 hours to write a quality 700 words article, it will be easier for you to schedule your time on publishing days accordingly.
Of course, some posts will take more time and some less, but after publishing the first couple posts you should be able to know how much on average to you need.
Once you figure out how much time you need, block the number of hours in your blogging schedule on your publishing days. This way, you should be able to adhere to your schedule and not fall behind it.
Adjusting your Schedule
It is very likely that you will not make the perfect schedule the first time. Either you will make an unrealistic schedule which you will not be able to adhere to in spite of all your effort or on the contrary you will create a schedule which will be too easy and thus will not motivate you to publish more than you could.
After one month into your schedule, sit down and reflect on it. Adjust your schedule based on the
results from the first month.
Conclusion
If you are serious about blogging, you need to have a blogging schedule. If you don’t, you will have a hard time reaching your goals.
Treat your blog as a business. In order for any business to grow, you always need to put hours into its development.
Blogging schedule will help you build a habit and publish regularly.
