I have thought about this ever since I started blogging, but I never took the steps to put it into action. Do you have a blogging schedule? Should I have one? Let’s take a closer looks at the advantages of planning vs why it is good to be spontaneous.

blogging schedule Should You Have A Consistent Blogging Schedule?

If you are anything like me, then even just hearing words such as ‘planning’ or ‘schedule’ just make you cringe.

I don’t know about you but for me, I much prefer ‘spontaneity’ and ‘as I’m inspired’. But what I have come to realise is that for most bloggers:

Inspiration is an Excuse For Laziness

How many times have you heard bloggers say something along the lines of, ‘it is always best to writer when you are inspired. Don’t force yourself to write because then you will just end up writing rubbish that no one will want to read‘.

The truth is that inspiration is EVERYWHERE!

If you cannot find enough inspiration for one new blog post each day, then I am not trying to sound rude – but you are not looking hard enough.

I have found that when I spend all day on the computer, I struggle with inspiration. My posts start to sound like all the other bloggers in my niche and I do not put out my best work.

So if you are struggling with inspiration:

  1. Get Off Your Computer
  2. Get Outside
  3. Interact With Nature and People

Inspiration comes when you make yourself available to it.

Now that we have cut out the ‘waiting for inspiration excuse, we are brought back to our initial question:

Should We Have A Consistent Blogging Schedule?

What do I mean by a blogging schedule?

A blogging schedule is a predetermined time-line for when you are going to post on your blog.

If you are going to post once a week. What day will you post on? Or three times a week… which three days?

And then to take it a step further:

If you are posting multiple times through the week, will you have different themes for each day? For example, I am looking to start implementing a weekend question, which will mean that sometime throughout each weekend I will pose a deliberate question to my readers. This will mean little content, but room for big discussion.

1. Adds Structure

As a blogger (especially a part-time blogger), time management is critical. I can be so easy to have a couple of days or a week go by, without realising that a post has not been written. So in the case for a consistent blogging schedule, the benefit I can see for the blogger is structure.

By letting your readers know when to expect posts through out the week, those who don’t subscribe will know when to visit your blog – and those that do subscribe will be ready and waiting.

And by adding topics to certain days, it gives you time to plan your weeks out in advance – and get a head start on your writing.

A whiteboard would be a fantastic tool to make sure this all runs smoothly!

2. Directs Blog Focus

When you start writing as your are inspired, the truth is that your inspiration comes in so many different directions that it can take your blog to topics that you do not really fit into your blogs scope.

By having a structure posting schedule, that has predefined topics, you are making sure that your blog is moving in the direction that you want it to go!

3. Allows Better Monetization (WHAT?!?!)

This point may seem a little out of left field, but something I have been testing since the relaunch of StandOutBlogger is unique page templates that target ad’s to the topic of the post.

For example. if you read one of my post on Market Samurai Promo Code, you will notice that the ads are for Market Samurai and other SEO products. However, if you see my Ebook Cover Tutorial, you will notice ads targeted towards ebook cover creators and Photoshop.

What I came to realise, was that with the diversity of my blog posts, some of my post popular blog posts were bringing me traffic that would have no interest in blogging products at all – so why not target advertising directly to them.

To do this I create the individual page templates in Dreamweaver (usually just means creating a new sidebar with the new ads) and then using a free WordPress Plugin called ‘Custom Post Templates‘ which allows me to select the the post template for each individual post, in the same place you write the post.

Now currently I have only created a few page templates, mainly for the posts that are getting good SEO traffic, but what if we had a consistent structure to our posting, that was limited to a few defined topics? You could create page templates that would target advertising to those topics – and I am sure you will see an instant increase in your blogs revenue.

Do You Have A Blogging Schedule?

This is something I am still looking at myself, and would love to hear from people who are either using a blogging schedule – or those who aren’t (and why?).