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Creating an Editorial Calendar

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I'm not afraid of a little black catThe 13th in the series of…

20 Secret Blogging Tips in 20 Days

13 posts?  I’m not superstitious, are you?  Let me know if you see any black cats around. Check out the bottom of this post to see the rest.

Want to be a better blogger?  Want to put this writing thing on autopilot?  Does having a todo list help you get things done?  Today I’m going to walk you through creating an schedule of things you should be writing about.  Some people call it a

POSTING CALENDAR

It’s a simple process.  Are you ready?  Here we go!

STEP 1:  Remember back when I wrote about “What to Write About“?  At the bottom I tossed in a bonus visualization technique where I wanted to picture your perfect client.  I asked you to imagine who they were and what they liked and what information they wanted to know about.  That last part is the really important part.  What did they want to know about?

I did this recently with a real estate client of mine.  We made a list.  According to him and his visualization of his perfect client (the people that he preferred to work with), in no particular order, his list looked like this…

  1. Current Market Conditions.  Not everywhere, but in the specific neighborhoods he preferred to work.  There are a bunch of towns and neighborhoods in his area but he narrowed down to four specific neighborhoods.
  2. Lifestyle and Amenities.  What’s it like to live here?  What Churches, Schools, Parks, Stores and Shopping Centers are close by?  How are they?
  3. Community Events.  What’s happening in this area?  Farmers Markets, Parades, Block Parties, Open Houses.  Is there a new building going up in that vacant lot on the corner?  What is it going to be? Who’s going to move in there?  You are not a news reporter but you can certainly write about local events.
  4. Real Estate Education.  “Help me better understand the process of buying / selling.” – is exactly the phrase he wrote down.  What is a Title Report?  What is a Loan Contingency and do I need it?  Think about it.  Those are all great topics for blog posts.  The possible topics you can come up with is endless.

IMPORTANT: This is his list, it works for him.  Take a minute and create your own list.

STEP 2:  Determine your number of posts per week.  Don’t just spit out some number.  Better yet, scratch that!  Use this instead.   How long does it take you to write a typical post?  Have you written a post yet?  Maybe get 20 or so down and then come back to this.  For me, I write a post like this in around 20 minutes.

Assuming you have an idea of how long each post takes, when are you going to set aside the time to write?  When in your day do you have time to write?  It’s crazy but I usually  write at night.  My typical day starts off with a morning bicycle ride up the mountain.  As I’m riding I’m usually mentally writing the next blog post.  When it comes to the physical writing part – the words fly from my fingertips.  If that’s not you (and it probably isn’t) you need to seriously think of when you dedicate the time.  Got that?

A typical monthSTEP 3:  Start plotting it on a calendar.  It’s as simple as that.  In my clients case his list suggested that he should do a Market Data Report for each of his 4 neighborhoods.  He put 1 neighborhood on each Monday.

As for Lifestyle posts, he does one every other Wednesday.  On the alternate Wednesday he’ll post a Real Estate Education style post.

On Friday’s he posts something about what’s coming up on the weekend, a Community Event style post.

The 4 Market Data posts almost write themselves, as does the 4 Community Events.  He says he sometimes has to decide what NOT to write about as his town has so many good things going on.  Education post ideas come easily as well.

For those doing the math at the end of the month he has

  • Four very local Market Data Report posts
  • Four Community Event posts
  • Two Lifestyle Posts
  • and Two Education Posts

In a month he’s covered everything his perfect client is looking for.  Each post is written for SEO and readability so his next client will find the post in a Google search and when they do, they stay for the content.

NOTE:  If you are thinking three posts a week is weak, or if you are thinking you might only have time for one, keep in mind your competition.  They’re not on a schedule like this.  Even if you just accomplish a single post once a week, at the end of the year you’ll have 52 more posts than them!  🙂

REMEMBER: This is his calendar and it works for him.  I’ve detailed how to create your own calendar – don’t just take this idea and try to duplicate it without first doing the three steps.

For the record, I always use a Nic Calendar.   Ready for a killer wordpress website?  Click HERE.

Mike Mueller
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Mike Mueller

A former professional hand model, Mike now builds Custom WordPress Blogs that rock!

He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one,bought a cool orange one, and still rides a really slow one), he loves strong beer and good red wine.
Mike Mueller
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