It may seem like blogs just spontaneously happen, like journals, but the best blogs are planned and align with your company’s identity, message and goals. With a little forethought, starting a blog can be far more effective, reach more readers and grow faster.
Here are Ping’s tips for a great blogging plan.
Who is your blog’s audience?
Before you open a doc and start typing, make sure you’re aware of your target audience. Who are you writing for? Who will be drawn to your blog to consume your content?
Are you writing about makeup finds at Sephora, or corporate gift ideas for busy executives? Those are two very different types of people, and you’ll find them in different places on the internet. You’ll also speak to them differently, use different analogies and prioritize different information.
Understanding the needs of your target audience, including their interests and preferences, will help you think and write from their point of view, answer the questions they may have, and greatly increase your potential to resonate and connect with them.
Understanding their needs starts with learning what they’re searching for that aligns with what you’re offering.
Start with SEO and find your pillars
Successful bloggers begin with the question: what are people searching for that I can write about? SEO research directly influences the topics we choose our blog.
If you’re looking to drive traffic to your blog, then your strategy is simple: see what people are looking for that’s not oversaturated by bigger writers, and then write to fill that need.
The more key words and phrases you include in your blog, the more opportunity you have to connect with a person searching for those words and phrases. Without them, people really have no way of finding your content.
Develop your blog’s topic pillar and topic cluster
When you plan your blog topics, you’ll first decide on a central category, called a “pillar.” Under this pillar, you’ll have several topics.
Here’s an example.
Pillar: Content creation
Topics: Blogging, social media, website content, newsletters, video, podcasting
Blog titles:
- How to use photos in your blog articles (blogging)
- Using SEO-optimized headers in your blogs (blogging)
- Social media that sings (social media)
- How to use reels on Instagram (social media)
- Formatting newsletters in Klaviyo (newsletters)
You can have more than one pillar, but try to keep your content topics as organized as possible. This will make it easier for you to incorporate shared keywords and tags, as well as for your readers to find it.
Here’s an easy way to get started
- Play around with your keyword research until you are satisfied with a list of about 100 choice keywords that best reflect your brand, blog or concept. You can include more in your list, but 100 is a good number to start with.
- Next, choose the top 10 – 30 keywords that best relate to your pillar. If it makes sense in your context, those keywords can be topic ideas.
What is your competition up to?
Your next step in your blog planning is to take a look at your competition. Check out their blogs. This will inform you of some topics that might not be covered by anyone, and will also give you insights into what to include in your versions of the same topics.
Looking at your competitor’s blogs will help you gain a competitive edge.
See which websites and writers have written blogs and articles on the subject you’re considering. Try to find articles directly related to the one you’re writing. Also check out other sources like online magazines, wikipedia pages, news and social media.
- Take a look at their titles and headings. What keywords are they going for?
- What information did they include that you may have forgotten?
- What types of images are they using?
- What are they linking to?
- What keywords are they using?
Create a content calendar to produce and post your blogs
How do you keep it all organized? A content calendar! It’s a place to put all of the details regarding your blog, and allows you to sort and prioritize content based on several factors. A content calendar makes planning and posting easy and stress-free.
Using a simple spreadsheet will get you started and should fill all of your needs.
Steps to get started with a content calendar
Open a new spreadsheet, name it Blog Content Calendar, and create these headings for your columns:
- Topic: this column holds all of your ideas for blog topics. Anything goes at this point, so list them all.
- Status: this column will hold options like “just an idea,” “in progress” and “posted.” You can have as many options as you need, like “freelancer,” “on hold” and so forth, but try to keep it simple to start.
- Pillar: this column lists your overall category for each topic, so you can sort by this column and see all of your “cheese” blogs, for instance.
- Due date: we like to keep two sets of dates here at Ping – a due date and a posting date. The due date is the date all work should be finished, including test runs, proofreading, link testing and so forth.
- Posting date: this column lists the date your newsletter will be sent out.
Do you want more detail?
You can drill your content calendar down further by adding more columns, like:
- Products: this column lists products or services that you provide related to the post. For example, if you’re writing a blog about how wonderful your nylon dog collars are for the beach, you would list “nylon dog collar” in this column.
- Audience segment: if your blog post only appeals to a portion of your audience, called a “segment,” you can have a column and list that here. It’s a nice way to sort and make sure your blog posts overall are appealing to everyone.
- Channel: this column refers to the channel you’re posting on, for example, blog, social media, newsletter. Use this column if you want to expand your content calendar to include other channels.
Your new content calendar can be sorted to give you insights.
Try sorting your content calendar by date, by topic or by pillar. You’ll get a great overview of what content you’ve created, and what else you need to include in your plan to provide balanced content that covers all the bases of your goals.