When blogging, it’s important to plan ahead for the content that will appear on your blog. This should be based on the season, as well as the products and services you plan to promote or launch.
Survey your audience
Just because you’ve studied your audience once doesn’t mean you shouldn’t occasionally survey them to make sure you’re still giving them the information they need and want. Try a quarterly survey so you can find out what they think and get a deeper insight into their issues.
Research your niche
Stay current in your niche. Read the industry news and study the regular news for clues about the state of your niche. Look ahead for killer technologies that could change your niche.
Take a look at the competition
You should always be aware of what your competition is doing. Not to copy them, but to stay one step ahead in whatever way you want to compete with them.
Know what’s coming
Not all businesses are seasonal, but their entire audience is. They think of things in terms of certain seasons depending on where they are in their life. For example, if they have school-age children, they think differently during back-to-school time than during the summer. Also, if you have a product or service launch or other upcoming event, you should plan it in the quarter before the event.
Know your realistic schedule
If you have a regular job, kids at home, or other responsibilities that will get in the way of your blog, be honest about it while creating a schedule for yourself. If you have a lot to do, set a realistic blogging schedule around these other responsibilities.
Brainstorming Topics
Once you’ve set up some of this other information, it’s important to take some time to brainstorm topics based on the information you’ve previously collected, in addition to the events you know are coming. At this point, nothing is wrong, just write it down.
Organize your topics
Take the brainstorming topics and categorize them for your blog. Throw away anything that doesn’t fit. Then organize and match them with the seasons, events, and products you want to promote.
Create a posting calendar
Add everything to a posting calendar. Here you enter the information so that during the time you have reserved to write and produce content, you can get down to work.
Set aside time to create
Now that you have everything ready for you, whenever you have time to work you can get the information from the publication calendar and get going. You can also easily look ahead to find out if some of the content needs to be outsourced.