7 Fantastic Ways To Planning Blog Content Ideas

This post was last updated on November 22nd, 2020 at 06:42 pm

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, so when you click these links and make a purchase, I may get a small commission. It won’t cost you anything, but it helps me to run this site. Find out the disclaimer here.

How often do you publish your blog content? Three times a week? Five posts a month? To create and maintain a successful blog, you need to have a well-established blog content ideas. Without this plan, it is impossible to maintain your growth and consistent quality of your work.

Your blog content ideas should include all the details related to future blog posts, publishing schedules, social media promotion plans, blog growth, and much more!

If you read this carefully, all these might seem so overwhelming at the moment, but believe me, when you get the hang of it, you can see that not one step in this guide is hard to make. Everything is pretty simple and you can create your blog content ideas if you follow this guide step by step.

Why Create Blog Content Ideas?

Motivational purpose – Creating blog content ideas is not supposed to be some hard exercise that takes the joy out of blogging. In fact, if you follow this guide and create a content plan for your blog, I can pretty much guarantee you will end the task more excited for 2020!

Serve Your Target Audience – If you don’t consider the needs of your target audience and write blog content ideas that they love, no one will want to read your blog!

Focus On Your Best Ideas – I have too many blog content ideas and I believe most bloggers suffer from the problem of far too many ideas with little time! And those ideas are not all good ones. Spending time checking your ideas and choosing the best ones means your blog will be full of the best blog content in 2020.

Fulfill Your Blogging Goals – Last week I shared my August blogging goals. To fulfill those goals I need to write the right content. One of my goals is to reach 3,000 monthly blog views, therefore I need to create quality content that my audience will love. And if I want to increase my sales, I need to write content that drives sales through my affiliate links.

Saves Your Time – Having a content calendar will save you a ton of time. There will be no more thinking about what to write for your blog post each week. You will be able to think straight away what to write.

Best For SEO – What I think the most important part of SEO is content structure, which means you need to make sure your content is well-balanced. Having a writing plan will help you see at a glance if you are planning a similar content for each category.

How To Create Blog Content Ideas?

Before you get started on planning you blog content ideas, you need to consider these several factors:

• Your Audience – who are they and what type of content do they want from you? What are their problems and what content can you write that will help them to solve their problems?
• Your Analytics – which posts are performing well? If your most popular content is all about social media strategy, can you write more posts about it?
• Your Categories – having a well-balanced category is really important for SEO and content planning will help you to cover that. Make sure to have a similar number of posts in each category.
• Your Goals – what are your goals and what content will you need to write to achieve them?

Step 1 – Set Goals

Setting your goals is the first step you should take because only then you know what is that you want to achieve with your blog content. Do you want to showcase your writing, photography, marketing skills, and attract clients? Do you want to generate quality leads that you can convert into customers? Are you helping people improve their lives?

Whatever your goals are, you need to always have them in your mind, so that you can work on achieving them.

Step 2 – Market Research

The content you produce has to be relevant and useful to your target audience. My target audience is people who want to start blogging and turn it into side-hustle. Therefore, I have to produce content that solves their problems, giving solutions and advice to start their own biz.

The market research plan will help you know which direction to take to attract readers. You need to learn what people are looking for about the topics of your choice. And it’s also important to check how your competitors cover these topics.

You may not be able to take the right step without market research when it comes to promoting your products on your blog. When you learn everything about your target market that you will understand how to please your audiences.

Audience Research

Because you can’t read people’s minds, you need to learn what it is that your target audience wants. You need to learn their interests and preferences so that you know how to provide them with what they need. For example, if your audience is struggling to improve their SEO, you can provide them secret tips you know will work for them.

You need to learn what people expect from blogs in your niche. Getting to know your target audience is the key to make relevant content. What kind of content do they find useful? What benefits do they expect to receive from your blog content? What makes them keep coming back for more?

In order to answer these, you can create questionnaires and polls, ask people what they are struggling with, what they want to learn more, what they would like to read on your blog. Such surveys will give you a clear picture of the market and give you tons of ideas on how to write and plan exciting blog content ideas that will engage your readers.

Step 3 – Create the Calendar

You already know your goals and know whom you’re targeting. Now is time to create your calendar. Add your blog content ideas to the calendar. This needn’t be anything fancy – a simple planner or spreadsheet will do the job. 

No more worrying about planning your blogging details. Get this JAM PACKED Blog Planner + Journal containing 80+ pages of content where you can keep all your notes in one place.

Outline Your Content Format

Here are the main types of content that blogs produce: how-to guides, product reviews, infographics, podcasts, interviews, polls, opinion articles, etc.

Depending on your niche, you may want to add other forms of content as well. Open your spreadsheet and make a list of the different types of content you plan to publish and color-code them to make it easier to navigate your calendar.

Add Columns For Each Month

You can add new sheets for different months to make the content easier to organize. If you don’t plan to post more than a few times a week, you can do it like me below.

As shown above, add your preferred columns. You can add to-be-published date, the title of the blog post, content category/type, keywords, CTA, links after publishing the post, and many more.

Fill the first row with a color of your choosing so it stands out on the sheet. Then simply copy-paste this row to the other monthly sheets.

Add Relevant Holidays and Events

The next step is to mark on it the key fixed dates/seasonal content that you have to plan content for. You need to start by planning your fixed date and all other content will have to be placed around these fixed dates. For example, you might decide to publish 3 blog posts for Christmas, 2 for Easter, and 5 for your product launch in September.

You don’t have to be specific – just a general idea. For example, if you are a lifestyle blogger, your 3 Christmas posts could be – a gift for Christmas, a Christmas recipe, and Christmas wishlist!

Step 4 – Finding Ideas For Your Blog Content

The market research and audience research will give you an idea of what kind of content your audience is looking for and it will make it easier to find what topics you should write. And now that you have created your calendar, you need to brainstorm blog content ideas.

Research Popular Content By Your Niche

Take a look at your niche to know what type of content is being shared the most and what content gets the best results. You can also use this research to get inspiration from your competitors and other relevant bloggers.

You need to use a tool like BuzzSumo to check how they would perform on the market. This is a very useful tool that analyzes millions of posts and gives you some patterns that appear in the most shared content.

You will need to raise the bar if you want to outrank some of the tops sites. But if you are a new blogger, think of ways that you can create longer posts without diluting your site with thin content.

Always keep your readers’ needs in mind as you attempt to grow your site. By creating content that solves problems that other bloggers haven’t addressed as thoroughly, you are going to get more return visitors and earn more backlinks.

Finding the most relevant resources is key to writing quality content that will be useful for your target audience. When you have the best ideas that you want to write about, you need to take time to perform quality research. That’s why I do research every day.

And of course, if you talk about numbers or statistics, you need to make sure that you include real facts. You have to support every claim with facts, which is why well-thorough research is essential before you write blog content.

Last, make sure your posts are properly cited with links to authoritative sources. This will prove that you did your research instead of making things up and hoping that nobody would check.

Keyword Research

Conducting keyword research is crucial in your content planning. You need to attract the right kind of visitors to the content that you provide. Using relevant keywords is the key to accomplishing that.

Keyword research allows you to step up your SEO game and drive more traffic to your blog. Keywords tell search engines, such as Google, what your blog is about. If you know how to pick and target the right keywords to your content, your SEO ranking will improve.

The best tool for conducting your keyword research is Ubersuggest. It will help you to find the most relevant keywords for your niche and lay the groundwork for creating quality blog content.

The process is pretty simple, all you need to do is type your keywords and phrases related to your subjects to see the search volumes. This will give you an insight into what keywords your target audience is using to find information online. You can use those keywords in your content and drive organic traffic to your blog.

To drive the right type of traffic to your blog, you should use long-tail keywords – which are usually groups of 2+ keywords. Some short-tail keywords are harder to rank for and people are more likely to find you if you use long-tail keywords into your content.

I got this step by following Neil Patel. He mentioned (to his subscribers) that these keywords are easier to rank for on Google. SEO difficulty is a score from 1 to 100. The higher the number the harder it is to rank for on Google. The lower the number, the easier it is to rank for.

For the example above, if you are going to write about affiliate marketing, you should target highly specific keywords. For example, “amazon affiliate marketing”, “eBay affiliate marketing”, and so on. By using these keywords, it will help you attract the right people who are looking for the exact type of content, which can solve their problems.

Ubersuggest allows you to sort the results by search volume to see the most-searched keywords. And now use the keywords you’ve found as inspiration for your blog content ideas. Here are a few ideas:

• “How To Master Amazon Affiliate Marketing”
• “How To Make Sales As Amazon Affiliate In 2020”

Write Popular Topics From A New Angle

When coming up with new blog content ideas, it’s not just about coming up with an idea, but rather ideas that will get you results. Check your Google Analytics to find your best-performing content. Identify which posts have brought the most traffic and then think about how to use that information to create new content.

Take a look at the data below, you can see that my older post about Blog Traffic is still one of the top performers. Now think about new ways to cover the same subject, for instance, “How To Use Social Media To Drive Blog Traffic”, or “Best Blogging Tools for Increase Your Blog Traffic.”

Here are some tips to come up with variations on topics you’ve already covered: how-to posts, common mistakes, real-life examples, best tools, best tips and tricks, research content.

Survey Your Audience

One of the great ways that I use to come up with blog content ideas. You can get inspiration from your audience by asking them directly using a survey. Make sure your questions are easy to understand and the survey isn’t too long. 

Step 5 – Writing and Editing

You need to have a writing schedule that helps you write consistently. You don’t have to write 5-8 pages every day, but the number one of establishing this plan is efficiency.

At this point, you can use your competitors’ blog posts as a general template, but don’t limit yourself to their writing style. Write content that offers more value and detail. I find that many of my competitors are ranking on the front page with articles that are only a few hundred words long. This is often because they have a high domain authority or are lucky enough to have found some keywords with little competition.

The first step of every writing process is always research. Don’t get bored if I talk about research in every of my content because research is always there when you write something. You need to brainstorm ideas and think about which keywords you want to implement in your content.

Always make sure that all the information you have has a clear purpose and provides value (solution) to your target audience. Most importantly, think about whether you can write about a particular topic from an entirely new angle. This will help you stand out from your competition.

The next step is making a draft. You need to list all the key points that you want to write so that you can have a clear picture of what your blog post will look like. This step is very important because it will make you think about the values you want to provide to your audiences. Moreover, having a list you want to write may lead towards a new angle that helps you stand out from your competition.

Next is writing your content. This always comes after your research and draft are done. Even if you already know what you’re going to write, you still need to understand how to express it. Never start your writing process without researching. There is always space for learning something new, no matter how well informed you are or experienced you are about something.

The last step is editing. You need to pay close attention to details. As I’m not an English native speaker, I need to make sure that there are no grammar and spelling mistakes because those can affect my reputation. If you want to become an authority blogger in your niche, this is absolutely one of the ways to do that.

Take your time to carefully check and read through everything you wrote, make sure that the content has a good flow so that the purpose and message of the content are clear. The tone of the entire content is consistent and everything is structured well – that’s why having a list is really important.

If some information doesn’t quite fit in the whole content, it would be best to leave them out. The entire content needs to be useful and to the point. 

Step 6 – Establish A Publishing Schedule

To be a successful blogger, ideally, you should create a consistent publishing schedule and stick to it. A publishing schedule helps you to make sure your blog is active. Of course, you cannot expect to drive a lot of traffic if you publish one blog post every two or three months. It doesn’t mean that you need to publish a new post every day, tho.

As for when to publish, use your social media analytics to find out the best days to post. Blog posts aren’t like social media, they aren’t necessarily read after they’re published, so it’s more about when you promote your blog posts.

My publishing schedule is two times a week, Tuesday-Friday. Focusing too much quantity may make your blog posts mediocre, but focusing on quality is what will help your blog successful. This is something you need to consider when setting up your publishing schedule.

Having a schedule not only vital for consistency but also important for helping your audiences know when to expect fresh content from your blog. By publishing content on a regular basis, you will build momentum. After you get to experience over time, you can adjust your schedule and publish less or more. The key is to be consistent and not let months pass before you give your audience something fresh to read.

Before determining your publishing frequency, you should think about the time you will take to research, make a draft, write, edit, make graphics, and promote your content. Make sure to set up a reasonable schedule for that entire process so you won’t feel overwhelmed and end up rushing things, which leads your content to lose its quality.

Since I’m a newbie, I make sure to start with two posts a week, which means I will have 8 posts in a month. Thus, I will have enough content for my audience to read. In the future, I need to see how my content is performing and whether I need to make some adjustments for my publishing schedule.

If your posts don’t exactly meet the results you wanted, you don’t want to keep publishing similar stuff, do you? But, when your posts turn out to be quite excellent, you can release more if you have significant resources and think you can pull it off. You can publish new content even more, but always make sure don’t make it a burden for yourself or don’t overwhelm your readers.

Some bloggers use the Editorial Calendar plugin or Google Calendar to schedule their posts. I use them before move on to the Spreadsheet. Not only is it easy to use but it’s also free and I can create many sections under one file. Whatever you use to help you schedule your posts, make the best of it.

Step 7 – Promotion Plan

If you reach here, you will know what the entire process of your blog content planning cannot be complete without an efficient promotion plan. After a couple of months of launching your blog, you may have published a dozen amazing posts. But somehow you feel frustrated that nobody is visiting your blog yet. If you are creating great content, shouldn’t your blog be taking off by now?

While creating quality content, you need to have a good content marketing strategy for promoting every single content you publish. It will attract a larger target audience and extend your reach. If you don’t share your content, how do you expect people to know and read it?

Social Media Marketing

The fastest way to explode your blog traffic is by promoting your content on social media. There are many social media platforms you can choose and there are billions of social media users, so you can reach quite a high number of people who are interested in what you have.

But, before promoting your content, you should establish your social media presence on the platforms that your target audiences use. You also need to learn about the best times to post on social media so that you know exactly when you can reach a larger audience.

Once you have a good idea of when to publish or promote your content, establish how often and which days you will publish each week. Then put those dates in your spreadsheet for each month.

However, you can’t only share your post. That isn’t enough. You need to engage with your audience and connect with them, with actually interacting with them you can achieve your goals. The blogging community is really kind, I met various people and they’re so nice! So, instead of just dropping links, you can ask questions, comment on some blogger’s posts, reply to every comment and message. That way you will show your audience that you respect and care about them.

These rules also apply for comments under your blog posts. Try your best to reply to each one of them as that will show your readers that you appreciate the time they have taken to read your content and also share their opinion.

That’s why audience engagement should be an essential part of your content promotion plan. Creating meaningful engagement with your social media followers is very important if you want to have a successful blog. Always try to take time checking your social media every day and interact with your audience and let them get to know the person behind your blog.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is also another great way to promote your content. Therefore you should use it to its full potential. Besides adding subscription buttons and enabling your audience to opt-in to receive your newsletter, you can reach out to bloggers in your niche via email, which allows you to have more personal connections and build strong relationships with them.

But, you need to make sure you have a good strategy that will help you entice them to click through and visit your blog. Don’t send them an email every day. I choose to send a weekly or monthly newsletter to my audience as I don’t want to be too spammy.

Wrapping Up

Maintaining an editorial calendar for your blog helps you stay focused on your goals and improve productivity. Think about it: How many blog posts have you written and published just for the sake of posting something? How many times have you had to come up with blog content ideas at the last minute?

This can happen to experienced bloggers, but when you have an editorial calendar to plan your blog content ideas, you can avoid these issues. All these steps include tried-and-true tips for reaching your goals.

Always make sure you use it as a base for planning and produce blog content ideas that your audience will love and eventually set your blog for success!

Photo credit: Estée Janssens

What do you think? Do you have a content calendar for your blog? I would love to hear about how you plan your blog content ideas or some of your plans are for the year ahead! Let me know the comments below!

Happy planning!

Don’t forget to get this JAM PACKED Blog Planner + Journal containing 80+ pages! This is a great planner where you can keep all your notes and blogging details all down in one place!