This is what happened when I threw out my blog editorial calendar
This post may contain some affiliate links for your convenience. We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.
For the last year I have been taught that you need an blog editorial calendar. That way you know how many posts you need to write, when they are going to be posted and to help keep yourself organized. It is exhausting, at least for me.
Purpose of blog editorial calendar
The purpose of an editorial calendar is so you have a vision of what you need to be working on. It helps you keep on track and motivated. I did like the organization it brought, but I struggled with writing the posts after the brain storming session.
Until January of 2018, I have struggled. Picture your kid throwing the biggest fit and lying on the ground because the struggle is so real. Yeah, that was me. I just couldn’t bare it any more.
Mind Opening and Shifting thought process
Then I read on a Facebook group that my friend Jennifer Maker of www.jennifermaker.com did an experiment and posted 25 blog posts in 25 days. This doubled her traffic, increased her email list and increased her revenue. Not to mention all this brand new content she has to market!
Shortly after that, I was listening to the Work_From Home-Summit and a blogger said that he wrote a post every day for a year to increase traffic and SEO authority. When I was watching that video, I literally stopped the video and rewound it so I could hear it again. He posted EVERY DAY for a year!
THEN I had a coaching call with Kim Anderson and she basically challenged me to do the exact same thing! To write as many blog posts as I could in a week.
That was all in January. Do you think something was trying to tell me something?
Related: How to get back on track with your goals
Related: Why I am so Thankful for my Blog
My reaction
In January I set my goals for the year and I think about how many blog posts I want to write. I had decided I wanted to write 2 posts a week. That was my goal. But all of a sudden my goal was being challenged. My thoughts were consumed with the idea of writing a blog post every single day.
February I published 7 posts. 8 was my goal for the shorter month. But I still had my thoughts on how many could I really publish in a month? Could I really publish a post every single day? What was I afraid of if I didn’t do it?
Then in March, Kim Anderson of Kim Anderson Consulting challenged her Just Keep Blogging Facebook Community to publish 10 posts in 20 days. She also reminded us that readers aren’t sitting there with our blogs open in their browser hitting refresh to see if there is a new post written. Talk about eating humble pie.
I have been focused on that challenge. By the end of the challenge I will have posted 13 posts in March. That is the most amount of posts I have ever posted in a single month. Additionally, I have way more content to share. On top of that, in the last 3 months I have written almost 2/3rds of what I published in 2017 alone! What?!!!
What I learned
Through Kim’s challenge I have learned that I really can write and entire blog post in an hour. I can have a blog post completely done in 1.5 hours. And these posts aren’t just 300 words. They are 1000+ words that are helping people, like you, think about a different way to lose weight, to recover from financial disaster, and motivate them with their goals.
Content
Having content on your blog is why you have a blog. If there isn’t content then you don’t have a blog. You just have a website that is possibly blank. I am excited about the possibilities of the content that is going to be filling my site in the next couple of months.
Content is King in the blogging world. Without content you don’t have anything to share.
Going forward
Since the challenge has been building momentum and I now know that I can write a post in an hour, I am going to see how many posts I can write in April. I would love to tell you that I am going to write a post every day, but I’m being realistic. I do have a personal goal for my blog to hit by May 31st so that is what I am striving after.
Freedom
I do know I have a new found freedom in blogging. I’m not following anyone else’s rules and I’m creating the rules I need for my own blog. I’m figuring out what works, what doesn’t and how to make changes that do work.
This is the key I have needed for a while. The key that allows me to do it my way. That is what makes blogging fun. That is what makes this blog mine.
As a blogger, I have found I can get so caught up in courses and learning, but implementing what I have learned is the hard part. It’s mainly hard because I don’t have enough content to implement it.
I Challenge You
If you need a quick kick in the butt to get started with writing more content, I challenge you to write 10 posts in 20 days. I want to know how it impacts you and I want to know what your results are and how you did it. I want to know your feelings about it.
Click on join my mailing list and send me a quick note to tell me you are taking the challenge. I can’t wait to hear from you!
More by Sticky Note Mom: This is what happened when my husband lost his job
Stephanie has been blogging at Sticky Note Mom for 4 years. Before starting her blog she worked in the finance industry working on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade to working for major financial institutions with personal financial planning and the mortgage industry. Now she shares all she has learned about frugal living to help others learn how to stop spending and start saving more.
