Why Your Blog Needs A Content Plan

Image via Wikipedia

Rachael Priest writes…

When I first started blogging, a content plan seemed like such an obvious yet foreign idea to me. Me? Procrastinating writer? Plan? Wasn’t it common knowledge that us creative types must write when we are inspired to do so, whenever and however often that might be?

Well, true as that is of my creative personality, it certainly didn’t fly very long in my writing and blogging career. Before I organized my time and planning, all of the hours I spent at the keyboard were meaningless. Only after I assessed my goals and set out a concrete way to achieve them did my productivity—and profitability—soar.

Why a Content Plan is Important

Without a carefully thought-out plan of action for your content, your blog will never get off the ground. Think about your teeth for a moment. You probably go to your dentist once every six months or so to have that all-important cleaning and exam. This appointment is important to your oral health, but what if it was the only thing you ever did to maintain your teeth? It wouldn’t be long before you didn’t have very many teeth to maintain. You have to brush and floss at home every day to keep your smile healthy.

Your blog’s health is similar in many ways. It cannot survive on one or two feature articles per month—or worse, every 2-3 months. Without those regular posts going up every day or every other day, your blog will simply decay into cyberspace memory. It doesn’t matter that those one or two features are top quality if they have nothing to sustain them in the interim.

Internet readers have relatively short attention spans. If you want to gain and maintain a following, you have to constantly remind your readers that you exist and have something valuable to offer them. You simply cannot accomplish this goal with sporadic, albeit enthralling blog posts. After you have obtained a loyal following, you have to keep feeding them what they want so they’ll keep coming back. Trying to do this without a content plan is frustrating, time-consuming, and difficult.

Why Your Blog Needs A Content Plan

Content ‘curation’ can fill the gap that Rachel exposes here. I use a combination of Google Reader, Internet Explorer and Windows Live Writer [I also have a Mac-based workflow] that allows me to quickly grab content like this quote to keep my readers interested and my Search Engine Optimization [SEO] rocking. Beyond my simple workflow, I suggest you scour MarketingSavant.com where internet strategist Dana VanDen Heuvel can take you beyond my simple tactics and school you in brilliant strategy around content marketing and editorial calendars and the like…

Comment, call or ‘connect’ so we can talk about how this applies to you and your organization…