The importance of a Calendar…

If you are going to have an effective business blog, the thing you hear over and over is that…

You HAVE to blog consistently.

That seems to come up every time someone talks about business blogging.  But that is the first problem that many beginning bloggers face… kicking out regular posts.  Occasionally, someone defines blogging regularly as posting up a couple of times a week or more.  Face it, if you post up once a month or once a year, even if you do it like clockwork, you won’t build a reader base.  But if you put up a good post three times a week, and the audience knows when to expect new posts, you CAN build a reader base.

Enter the Calendar…

Actually, a VERY specific type of calendar… an Editorial Calendar.  Basically, this is an outline of WHEN you are going to write, and possibly even WHAT you are going to write about.

Whether you are utilizing a theme, writing a series or just want to have posts appear at a consistent interval for your readers, a calendar can do the trick.  It can keep those deadlines in front of you.  I’m using Outlook 2010.  It allows me to have recurring tasks, which make my writing MUCH simpler.  In effect, I can see what types of posts I have coming up, and schedule material to appear.

I tend to write in bursts.  I might knock out three or four posts at one time, and then not write for a couple of days.  With my calendar, I can write a few posts and then fit them into my patterns.  As I write this on Sunday night, my LaneBailey.com post for Monday is already scheduled.  In fact, it has been ready to go since Thursday.

So…

Find a good task/calendar program.  Keep it open.  Use it to schedule posts and keep an eye on when posts are going to be needed.

And don’t forget to be flexible.  If breaking news happens, don’t wait two weeks to write about it because it will mess up your schedule…

from LaneBailey.info