How to Batch Your Blog Posts

Batching is my favorite way to manage content for my blog and podcast. This is ironic because I was late to embracing the value of batching blog posts. Once I began using this process it made everything else such as marketing and sharing my content much easier.

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How to Batch Your Blog Posts

Before we get into how to batch your blog posts-I want to share why you should batch your blog posts. First, batching your blog content ahead of time will give you more time to focus on what will actually move the needle for your blog.

If you’re wanting to spend time interacting with your community vs. writing posts-this is why you batch your content. Most people who enjoy blogging don’t necessarily want to be scrambling the night before to write the next day’s posts.

Yuck.

I used to do that. And, it was so freaking tiring scrambling the night before to get stuff done. Writing your blog posts ahead of time will make blogging easier in the long-run. If you publish four posts a month and get them done 5 weeks ahead-you’ve built in so much time to share the helpful content that you’ve created to help people.

Batching can feel a little intimidating in the beginning but once you get used to it you will notice how stressful it is when you don’t batch.

Create an Editorial Calendar

Before you begin batching your content you first need to create an editorial calendar. Currently, I have a well thought out editorial calendar that I spent time brainstorming on so that now I just look at my calendar and know what I want to write.

The blog posts are specific to the time of year and the different content verticals that exist within my website. When you’re crafting your editorial calendar spend time crafting content that really helps and speaks to your readers.

Your editorial calendar makes your life easier for the following reason:

• You know what you’re writing about

• You’re (hopefully) creating content that helps your ideal reading avatar.

• It makes it easier to share your favorite tools and services consistently over time.

How Much Ahead?

Decide how much ahead you would like to be on your blog. My goal is to be 3 months ahead on my blog(s) because I have two websites. Let’s be clear, it will take some time for me to get to this point. But, three months ahead is my goal.

Why three months? It’s basically the equivalent of a business quarter. And, there a ton of things that can go wrong along the way. By being three months ahead this builds in the following:

• Vacation time

• Relaxation time

• Downtime

• Creative time

• Sick leave

By getting three months ahead on your content-you’ve built in the time that you need “just in case.”

Schedule a Time

It may be that you schedule 4 hours a day for 2 weeks in order to stay on task and get the content done. The time that you schedule is non-negotiable and when you schedule it you do the work. At the time that I’m writing this post it’s actually a Saturday night and I would have preferred to hang out in the mountains. Instead, for the next 3 weeks I’m focusing on setting aside 4-5 hours a day to content creation for my websites.

Do the work.

Sounds easy, but it’s not. You have to sit down and get focused and show up and actually do the work. What does that look like?

You’re in a quiet place, you know what projects you’re going to work on, and you actually get it done.

Create a Check List

Each blog has several key components to it-even when you don’t see them. I audit my blog posts from time to time and notice when I’ve forgotten to add an important component to my blog. Now, I have a Google Doc that I look at and check before hitting the “publish” button for each post.

What do I include in each post? Here are a many of the components that I include in every blog posts.

• Disclosure-If there’s on thing that you can’t forget to share it’s the disclosure above the fold of every blog and before any affiliate links are shared.

• Helpful resources-There are some resources that people always ask about. Now, I just share them at the bottom of 95% of my posts. Why? Well, 80% of most people who land on a blog post won’t return to your blog. I want to be as helpful as possible when they are in my corner of the internet.

• Hidden pins-Every single one of my blog posts now has at least one hidden pin. Why? I want to make it as easy as possible for people to share my blog content and have a hidden pen enables people to find and pin my content easily. There are some people who have up to four pins, I start with one or two and am in the process of going through my old content and adding new hidden pins to those posts.

• The right tag for the correct vertical. I want to make it as easy as possible for people to stay on my blog and look around. By tagging the post readers are able to read posts in the content area that they are excited about.

• Opt-in form-I used to think that not focusing on growing my email list was my biggest mistake. Then, I rebranded and tweaked what I was doing. In my view, the list that I’m growing now would be drastically different from a list that I would have grown at the beginning of my blogging journey.

• SEO-I get the bulk of my traffic from organic search. This was totally an accident in the beginning. Now I understand that I did a decent job creating content that attracted organic searches via good SEO.

• The URL-Every blog post has an SEO friendly url. This was not the case in the past. In fact, some of my urls were ridiculous and no one was searching for them. Now, I make sure the keywords are logical and make sense for the blog post.

By having a checklist, you won’t need to spend time thinking about what is missing or needs to be added to your post.

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Michelle

I am an obsessive foodie, but not self-righteous with it, love travel, meeting new people, helping you look good, and am freaked out by people who don't enjoying reading...something! Grab a Perrier, read my blog, feel free to drop me a line! Hope to hear from you soon.

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