You know, planning a new blog post can be one of the most common problems for a new or recurring blogger. At the same time, the quality of one’s content can dwindle if you don’t take the proper time to consider what it is you want to write about, and stay on task. So how do you go about creating that perfect post idea?

Write When You’re Most Productive

To start, you should try writing when you’re the most productive. If you really want your content to sizzle, you need to be on top of your game, ready to outperform. For example, sitting in a comfortable chair and listening to music might be the best writing environment, while a silent library works for others. Naturally, it’s impossible to be able to sit down and be in perfect writing form 24/7, but being prepared to write is important to developing exceptional content.

Before you begin writing, why not try arranging your desk area in a way that suits you? Make your environment as comfortable as possible to get yourself into the writing mood. Try opening a window. Sounds crazy, right? Whatever you might think, creating an atmosphere that you feel at ease in will make you that much more productive.

Choose a Compelling Topic

If you really want to make an interesting post, you need to begin with an interesting idea. Generating ideas is as simple as considering a solution your readers might need, or a new product that has come out within your market. Let me show you some more ideas you might use for a blog post:

• 5 Ways to Do [Something]
• 20 [Market name] Professionals to Follow on Twitter
• How to Grow in [Your Choice]
• How I [Achievement] in [Timeframe]

One little suggestion might be to build upon previous posts that you’ve done for your blog. What areas have you covered that you can grow and develop more? Building upon your blog’s past content will make your new post even stronger. What’s more, it will give you a place to start when structuring your new blog post.

Structuring Your Post

Normally, bloggers will jump right into writing before deciding upon the layout of their blog post. But let’s be honest – considering the structure of your blog post will ultimately make it more effective. Taking one to two minutes to simply lay out your ideas in order will result in a much more professional post, which flows more seamlessly to your readers. However, you should not spend endless amounts of time on the arrangement on just one post. Figuring out the acceptable layout and moving on is perfectly fine. The bottom line is: spend some time arranging your ideas to avoid turning your posts into a reader’s nightmare.

Learn When to Publish

If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done.

Why wait? Or why hurry, for that matter? The most important factor in planning a new blog post is when you’re going to publish it. Rhythm is especially critical in the development of a blog, and posting your new article online at a time of peak visiting hours will help raise subscribers and readership. In the past, new bloggers would simply post and let traffic take care of the rest. However, analytics software makes it easy to determine when people are reading your blog. Posting your new entry an hour or so before peak visiting time will help to improve visibility and exposure. Posting on a day when people are more apt to read your blog is also important.

You might be thinking that planning blog posts is for the more organized or elite bloggers, however, learning to plan out new posts is a skill that will help you to build your blogging experience and authority. Your content will excel with a little extra help.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

One lesson that I had to learn the hard way was to maintain my publishing rhythm. I was so sure that I could keep up with writing a post every two days until that moment when the inevitable happened. I was out all day on business and got back very late and very tired. So, I decided to leave the writing for the next day.

All good, except that no matter how much I wanted to publish something, anything, the page remained blank for a few hours. I had no back-up posts, no drafts saved and not even browsing the web in search of an idea did not help very much.

That was the moment when I decided to keep a tighter schedule if I wanted to maintain a good rhythm and encourage readers to come back daily and look for new posts.

Planning my publishing schedule

In order to be able to make a plan, you need to have a goal. In my case, the goal was to publish at least one in-depth post every two days. For other people, this rate varies based on being a part-time or full-time blogger, on spare time available daily, on the selected niche or it simply represents a blogger’s personal decision.

With a goal set in mind, it’s time to begin the actual planning. While in this post I’m mostly explaining my publishing habits, various bloggers could and should decide on their own timeline, picking the best moment for planning according to their own daily/weekly schedule.

Since I’m living in Romania, I have the advantage of being awake when most of my readers are asleep (~60% of my traffic is US and Canadian traffic). This gives me time to plan my actions every morning, when I’m fully rested and with a fresh mind.

Each Sunday morning, I’m planning my next week’s timeline so that when Monday comes, I’ll have a fresh idea to start developing from the moment I wake up. On every Sunday morning I’ll sit down at my computer with a blank document and try to come up with at least three post ideas that I’ll usually post on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday or Friday.

Coming up with post ideas and developing them

While most post ideas have already been generated in the past week, sometimes I have to come up with new post ideas to fill the schedule. One of the best ways to do it is by reading. Whenever I need a new post, one that should provide help and answers to my readers, I’ll go on a post and comment hunt across the blogosphere.

Many great ideas rise up in topics that can be further developed. Many problems and questions that require solutions and answers are raised in posts’ comments. This is one amazing way to come up with posts that are guaranteed to answer real problems, and we all know how important that is.

With these ideas wrote down, I start to outline each post, think of titles, subheadings and key phrases in the future posts. In about an hour, I have outlined my next week’s most important posts, posts that I’ll develop on each publishing day’s morning and so, secure my posting target.

Filling in the blanks

Since the Sunday morning planning secures the achievement of my publishing goal, I have more time to engage in research, without being pressured by posting deadlines.
This allows me to stay updated with the news, themes and plugins/widgets launched every week. Writing about them whenever I feel that they are helpful to my readers will fill the empty spots in a week’s schedule.

While this is a good way to fill in the blanks, not every week I’m able to find such interesting news or great new themes or plugins. So, this can potentially generate a problem, except it doesn’t.

Again, planning steps in to the rescue. Saturdays and Sunday I’m writing two series. Usually, on Saturday, I’m publishing my list of handpicked available domain names for bloggers, while on Sundays it’s time for the “Blog SEO Tips” series. Further more, on Saturdays I’ve developed a habit of testing out an online service or tool that I’ll review or promote to my readers.

My advice to you is to think of those topics that you enjoy writing about most and you know most about, write them down, split them in sub-topics and begin writing about them on a weekly basis, create series.

Looking at the results

Planning my weekly timeline has generated great results for me and Blogsessive. At this time I’m able to keep up with my publishing rate and even write a few more posts every week. Find that day when you can take some time away from everything else and start planning your future posts.

Further more, if you have a Google / Gmail account, make use of their free tools: Google Calendar and Google Docs. They’re easy to use, free and you can access them from everywhere, as long as you have an internet connection available.

Over to you

This is how I plan my weekly timeline and I hope it will be useful to you, my readers, and that it will help you find that perfect blog posts publishing rhythm.
If you already plan your postings, it would be nice to read about your habits in the comment section.

Photo credits to Daniel Branco.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive