How to Stay Organized as a Blogger
I’ve blogged off and on for years but previously it was more on a personal level. But over the past few months I have been blogging as a part of my business and it has been a continual learning process. I wanted to share what helps my stay organized as a blogger and hope it’ll help you out too if you’re starting out as a blogger or struggling as a blogger.
Schedule
Step number one of how to stay organized as a blogger is to have a schedule. If you have a weekly schedule set up for your blog posts then you can create consistency which is super important for a successful blog. Here at Proof & Parchment my blog schedule currently consists of two blog posts a week. On Tuesdays I post my Joyful Week highlighting a few things that bring joy each week. On Fridays I post a longer article that covers anything from design tutorials to business how tos. I’ve been sticking to once a week since I started the blog and just recently added the second post.
I keep track of my schedule in Trello which I am hooked on, if you want to try it out here’s my Trello referral link.
Calendar & Deadlines
Along with creating a schedule it’s helpful to keep an organized calendar with set deadlines in order to stay on top of the blog and keep it running consistently. With my blog I try to set up what posts I plan to write a few weeks at a time. In an ideal world I’d have all my posts planned out a few months in advance and streamline it all, but I’m not to that point yet, hopefully down the road this will be a reality!
Post Idea List
In order to actually have a blog you have to have content, which may seem obvious but it can also be hard to keep finding topics and content to write about. One way to stay organized as a blogger is to have a post idea list that you continually add ideas too. There are multiple ways that I generate ideas, like a dump list of everything related to my business topics or whenever I finish new projects or client work I like to add them as blog ideas.
Graphic Templates
I know that words are the foundation of blogging but I also spend a good amount of time creating the graphics and editing photos to fit my branding. I have a variety of templates I’ve designed to help streamline the creation of my blog graphics and keep them consistent each week. Depending on the type of blog post I’m running I sometimes have additional graphics like flowcharts or infographics along with photographs and headers.
Workflows
Besides having all my posts scheduled and idea list to pull from I also have a workflow that I follow every time I post in order to stay organized as a blogger. This helps me make sure I don’t miss any steps along the way. The workflow of each blog post includes everything from starting the draft to editing and formatting the post plus creating the graphics and finalizing when I schedule the blog to be published.
Follow Up
After I have hit the publish button on each blog post I have some follow up workflows that I have set up. That includes promoting each post on social media and tracking the post’s metrics.
Overall I am able to follow these organizational tips by using great online and paper planning tools. You can learn more about these in past posts if you’re interested: Top Small Business Tools No. 1 and No. 2, How to Use Digital and Paper Planning Tools Together, and The Daily Grind at Proof & Parchment.
Hello! I love your blog and this post has helped me a ton! I got a question though: what app or program do you use to make your graphic templates?
Thank you! 🙂
Hi Natasha! Thanks for reading my blog, I’m so glad this post has helped you out. I currently create all of my graphics using Adobe InDesign. I do know a lot of bloggers use Canva to create their graphics if they do not have the InDesign software.
Hi there!
This has been such a helpful article! I love that you use Trello – not a commonly known tool in this world. I have a quick question for you: where do you recommend we start with the workflow set-up for new bloggers?
Thanks!
Jane
Thanks for reading my blog, I’m glad it was helpful and I love love love Trello! I would say as a new blogger to really start coming up with topics you want to write about and just start. I really feel that is really the hardest part. If you have the topics and start writing the posts then you can be able to start organizing and posting in a consistent way!
Thanks so much for sharing! I’m just getting started and will really take this information to heart and put it to use. 🙂
Eventually an old post, but have to say thank you! I’ve now read several posts promising gold and green forests (I don’t know if the term exists in English haha) with organizing blog post ideas. You are the only one where I found something useful! Thanks!
Hi Malene,
Thanks for checking out my blog and I’m glad you found some useful information on organizing blog post ideas!
Hi,
Thanks for you insights. I love hearing that you started out just blogging for fun. Now that you are blogging as a part of your business; are there things you would have done differently from the beginning if you knew someday you would be blogging as part of your business? I am looking to start and want to do things right so I don’t have to change things too much as I grow and work into making some profit in the future. Are there tools you would use instead of free options out there that are worth the investment?
Hi Sheri, Thank you so much for checking out my blog and leaving a comment! I still use pretty much all of the free options in regards to my blog since it is still a pretty small part of my business and I do more for fun and to drive traffic to my content and email list instead of generating income off of it. Most of my income currently comes from my online shop. One tool that I did not set up early on that helps me understand my traffic better is the Google search console. I’ve had analytics set up early on but not search console and this is new (to me) and is helping me see where my readers come from and what is most popular. I’m hoping to use this more in 2020 to better my blog and maybe I’ll be able to write a post about it too! Let me know if you have any other questions, thanks!
-Alicia