How to Build a Blog Content Calendar

Maintaining a successful blog is easier when you create a content calendar and then hold yourself to it. We recommend building a blog content schedule at least one month out.

If you find yourself struggling to answer the question, “how do I create a marketing calendar?” and need assistance getting started, here are eight guiding questions to help you publish a successful blog.

Have you brainstormed?

To get the ball rolling with blog post ideas, browse through user-submitted question sites like Quora or experiment with a blog post topic generator. You may not find your exact blog post topics on these sites, but searching through these sites can spark ideas.

How often do you want to post?

While blogs receive more traffic (and more of a bump in the search engine rankings) the more frequently they post, consistency is most important here. Think long and hard about how often you believe you’ll be able to post. Be realistic.

Once you determine a posting cadence, use a platform like Google Sheets to build a content calendar that is easy to access and update. From there you can schedule out how frequently you’d like to post, and then hold yourself accountable to that schedule.

What’s already on the calendar?

Think about holidays and events that may be coming up on the calendar. Upcoming events make for great blog topics that can fill your blog content calendar with timely, relevant content.

For example, the end of the year is an ideal time for a blog post recapping the biggest happenings in your industry in the past year, or a resolutions-style post about how to succeed in your industry in the upcoming year. You can also look at your company’s calendar to see if there are any product releases coming up or conferences that you’re attending for more blog post material.

Will anyone else write a post?

Enlisting colleagues to write for the company blog can take some of the pressure off you and spice up the blog with unique voices and viewpoints. Studies also show that people view blogs with multiple authors as more authoritative than those with only one author. Your sales team and your customer service team may be especially valuable authors with insightful perspectives. Creating a blog content calendar also helps you plan out future posts, and gives you more time to seek out more contributors.

Are there any regular features you’d like?

For example, could your CEO write a monthly check-in post, or could you write a weekly recap of relevant industry news? Having a repeating topic on the calendar is a great way to publish an easy post.

Which keywords are you targeting?

A blog is an ideal place to target long tail keywords, so keep your target keywords in mind and try to build blog posts around them.

Do you have a mix of evergreen and timely content?

The rest of your blog content should be a mix between evergreen content (posts that are useful for your audience over a long period of time, like how-to or tutorial posts) and timely content (posts covering topics that are of the moment). For inspiration, search your industry on AllTop to see what
news is being covered that your readers need to know about.

What questions are your readers asking?

A blog is the place to address questions that your customers often ask you. Your sales and customer service teams probably have plenty of questions that they run into frequently.

You can also find common questions using sites such as Quora, a community-fueled website of questions and answers. Searching for your main keyword, you can see many questions from users that can be answered in the form of blog posts. You can also see which questions were “upvoted” the most, meaning they’re the most popular or most frequently asked questions. This is a great way to find relevant concerns of your readers.

Start planning your blog today!

Staring at a blank blog content calendar can feel overwhelming, but over time, you’ll fine-tune your brainstorming process and start generating quality blog posts like a pro.

To get you started planning out blog content, we’ve created a calendar template for you to use and edit.