I had the pleasure of speaking with a new client last week about her blogging efforts.  She had just set up her blog site and is excited to get blogging.  We spoke about setting up some systems to help support her blogging efforts and I suggested creating an editorial calendar to help plan her posts.

If you have a blog, or are thinking of starting one, blogging becomes a less intimidating task if you plan your content in advance.  You don’t have to create the entire post, but creating a monthly (or if you’re really ambitious, yearly) editorial calendar will help keep you on track and help you plan posts that are coherent and offer value to your blog readers.

Today I’d like to share two free resources that can help you set up an editorial calendar so that you can organize your blog content.

If you’re techie like me, you’ll want to check out the Free Editorial Calendar Plugin for WordPress which is being used by top bloggers.   The team that developed the plugin agrees that editorial calendars can have a positive impact on your blogging efforts.  They state:

An editorial calendar is the foundation of strategic blogging; it lets you do the planning that it takes to get the most audience reach from your blog content.

  • An editorial calendar lets you plan ahead;
  • An editorial calendar adds structure to your creativity;
  • You can take a great concept further by serializing content;
  • You can be proactive and capitalize on search trends.

Click here to snag your copy of the Free Editorial Calendar Plugin for WordPress (highly recommended by top bloggers):

If you prefer a paper based system, Lynette Chandler publishes a very popular annual blogging calendar. 2018 marks the 10th year that Lynne has shared a blogging calendar. She’s tweaked the format a little bit this year and turned it into a planner format. The idea is to draw attention to the different events and holidays that occur throughout the year. At the same time, the blogging calendar will help you focus on important things you should do daily and weekly like guest posting, commenting, emailing your list, while leaving you plenty of space to write in your own events. Also new this year, you’ll find dates to some of the biggest blogging conferences that go on each year.

You can download Lynette Chandler’s 2018 Blogging calendar free from this link (this is my referral link, but it’s FREE).

Happy planning!