There are a few things that I’ve been working on during this whole pandemic. Starting with self-care, healthy eating, weight-loss, creating good habits, and getting organized. This also goes for my blog and Etsy store too. In the hopes of helping me, I’ve created both of them a planner. This is why we’re here today, to show you how to create a blog planner for yourself.
Why create a blog planner?
What are some of the reasons to create a blog planner? For me, there are a few.
My reasons:
A place to dump all my blog article ideas. Which I call Blog Brain Dump.
Research ideas.
Track blog stats & social media follows likes, etc.
Keyword research.
Monthly goals for my blog.
Monthly Blog articles I write.
A list of hashtags I use often.
List of any changes I want to do to my blog.
That is just a few of the reasons I decided to create a blog planner. There are many ways to create a blog planner. From jotting everything down on a table pad to using a planner. There are also no wrong or right ways in creating one either. Today I am sharing how I created my blog planner.
How to create a blog planner
what will you use to create it in?
I would say the first thing to decide is why you’re creating a blog planner. But since you’re here, you’ve probably already have decided you need one.
With that said the first thing to decide is what you will use to create your blog planner in. Will you use a spiral notebook with tab sections, notepad, a Happy Planner, 3 ringer binder with divider tabs, a regular ringed planner, or maybe you like journal-style notebooks like me?
Being the planner addict that I am I have all of the above-mentioned planners. But I am in love with Stalogy & Hobonichi notebooks. You can see some of the ways I use them by click on the links above. Anyways the basic concept will work for whatever you create your blog planner in.
How to create a blog planner.
sections and layout
Now for the fun part, the sections and layout. I will be tracking everything for my blog for the month. Each month I will create the sections I found useful from the previous month and add any new ones I may want.
I started off by creating the monthly page with a calendar. But this is only because I like things to be pretty. You can see it in the above image. It’s been raining a lot here in Florida so that’s where my theme came from. On the next two pages I created August blog goals, and then a page for blogging habits I want to keep on track with. The image below shows those two pages.
I followed those pages with social media stats, and two pages for my blog braindump. The social media stat page is for Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. Here I track follows, unfollows, likes, hearts, comments, engagements, impressions, and shares.
Then blog braindump which is the place I put all my ideas, so I can research and decide if they become an actual article. I follow that page with my article schedule. Here I track the steps I do to get an article posted. Things like do I have a title, the keywords, post images, etc. I also log the date I wrote the article and check off my social shares. Below is my braindump page. I already wrote some of my ideas down, so I covered them up. 🙂
How to create a blog planner.
Finishing up and Final Thoughts.
There are three more pages after these two. I have one for keyword research where I track keywords I ranked good on, and keywords that fit into my blog I should be writing about. Then I have my hashtag pages where I have written down hashtags that are relevant to my blog. My final page for August in my Blog Planner is my Blog To-Do List. Here I write down any design changes, and other backend related stuff I want to work on. This month I want to focus on getting all my Etsy shop items transferred to my blog.
Each month I’ll create another “hello month” page and the mini calendar page. Then follow them with pages as I mentioned above. I may add new pages or vise versa. Some of it might be important to me now, but later I might find it not so much.
I will be sharing my month layout pages before the pen and doing a brief flip through of my after the pen monthly. Oh, the pretty white leather cover you see in the above image was something I made. I’ll be sharing the how-to on that early next week.
If you found this article useful, please feel free to share it with your friends. Follow me on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter so you don’t miss out on upcoming articles. I’ll be sharing more articles like this one. Be on the lookout for articles on how I set up my 3 new Stalogy Notebooks and some really pretty accessories I’ve made.
Thanks for dropping in.
<3 Debbie