What do you need to keep your content organized? Learning how to create a blog content calendar – also called a blog editorial calendar – makes it much easier to achieve your blogging goals.
Blog content calendars help you organize blog post ideas into topic clusters, keep track of what’s been published and what needs to be written, and help you keep motivated.
Even as a veteran blogger and blogging coach, I still produce blog content throughout the year. While my publishing frequency may be once or twice a month, I still like to keep track of what content I’m producing.
Does it meet my readers’ needs? Are my topics relevant for my niche and blog content structure?
In this post, we’ll explore some of these key questions that everybody has when starting to create a content calendar for a blog. You’ll find this useful for new content and for updating old blog posts for SEO.
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When Should You Start Planning Your Blog Content Calendar?
Before we jump into the nitty-gritty of what goes into a blog content calendar and how to create one, let’s look at when you should start it.
For beginner bloggers, start it as soon as your blog is launched. Your first few blog posts should be on a relevant topic for your blog niche. Once you’ve got 2 to 3 published, you should begin organizing your blog content around categories and topic clusters. More about this in a moment.
If you’ve been blogging for a while, I recommend you start planning in early September. This gives you the time to prepare, so that by November, you’re publishing your content that topically will be perfect for January themes.
This gives your blog content published in November the opportunity to be crawled and ranked by January on Google and Pinterest.
It can take up to a few months before your posts get ranked.
Review Your Blog Categories
Before jumping into working on your blog content calendar, look at your categories to see which ones need improvement.
Ask yourself:
- Are there blog categories that are light on blog posts (under 5)?
- Do you have content (5+ posts) on a specific topic that have room for growth that can become a sub-category?
- Are there categories that I no longer write about and content is no longer relevant?
Clean up your categories. If you have sub-categories that are growing within categories, you now have new topic clusters to consider.
This information will help you get organized with your blog content calendar.
What Kinds Of Blog Posts Should You Add When Creating A Blog Content Calendar?
As you begin brainstorming topics for your blog content editorial calendar, think about the variety of blog posts you can be creating.
Here are some of the top types to include as you create a content calendar:
- Cornerstone and Pillar Posts: Whether you’re starting a new category or expanding your content within one, you’ll need the big, juicy blog posts that cover a topic broadly, setting up a foundation for topic clusters. Read more about writing cornerstone posts.
- Evergreen blog posts. These are a must-have, as they answer popular questions that readers always have. They require only occasional updates. Think “How To”, “Why You Need…” type of questions. Read more about writing evergreen blog posts.
- Seasonal blog posts. These are specific to Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter. They can be broken down into months and cover things like seasonal events. You can find topics within your niche.
- Affiliate Product Reviews. These blog posts are great to add to your blog content calendar throughout the year, aligning with seasons when the item is most likely to be used. This gives you a great opportunity to boost commissions.
- Announcement/news blog posts. If you have a category that includes your latest news or opinions, this is the best place to add this kind of blog content. Consider aligning these posts with any special product launches you have in mind for the coming year.
You can also venture into other types of posts, including:
- Featured interview posts
- Podcast posts with summaries or transcripts
- Case studies, perfect if you own a business
All will be very useful for growing your blog traffic throughout the year. Look at all the different blog post types that you could write.
| Related: Over 100 Lifestyle Blog Post Ideas To Inspire You
Let’s look at each of the top blog types in further detail.
1. Cornerstone And Pillar Blog Content
Cornerstone blog post content is evergreen content that is a key blog post topic from which other related blog posts are linked. Much like a pillar post, it’s often on a broad subject, and related blog posts are detailed posts on points raised in the cornerstone blog post.
For example:
- Cornerstone Blog Post topic: How To Start A Blog
- How To Set Up A WordPress Site
- How To Choose The Best Blog Theme For Your Blog
- How To Create A Blog Logo
- How To Start Your Email Newsletter List
The blog post topics under the “How To Start A Blog” cornerstone post are part of the topic cluster.
If you’re a beginner blogger, look at your top “parent” blog categories and consider adding cornerstone posts. They help you organize blog topics around clusters.
For bloggers who have been growing their content for a while, it might be time to look at how your blog posts are organized. If there are a few that are “floating” around but on a related topic, create a cornerstone or pillar post to interlink them together. This is good for SEO and to make it easier for your readers to discover your blog posts.
Content Calendar Tip: Use this time to clean up your blog site structure. If your content is disjointed, you miss the opportunity to keep your site visitors on your website longer.
2. Evergreen Blog Content
Your blog content calendar is likely to contain mostly evergreen content. They cover popular topics that readers are interested in and searching for year-round.
You can include them in your calendar at any time of the year. However, you will want to write them around the same time to make it easier for search engines and AI chatbots to understand your niche expertise.
I like to have at least 60% of my content be evergreen content, as it consistently brings in traffic.
3. Seasonal Blog Posts For Your Blog Calendar
Balancing evergreen content are seasonal blog posts. These can be part of topic clusters around a cornerstone or pillar post, but they have a seasonal focus.
Personally, I get a huge bump up in ongoing traffic during each season if I have content that addresses things that are happening at that time.
Seasonal blog posts are those that are related to things like the Holiday period, the start of the seasons, and international and national holidays.
To ensure your seasonal content gets crawled and indexed by search engines and Pinterest, populate your calendar with blog post topics at least 2 to 3 months BEFORE these events happen.
If your blog niche doesn’t work well with Christmas, Easter or other holidays, you can focus on just the season’s general activities. So, for example, if your blog is about hiking, you may want to focus on tips for Spring hikes or Spring gear.
Also, consider seasonal trends: losing weight and getting your finances in order in January, love in February, getting ready for Spring in March, etc.
PRO TIP: Use Google Trends and Pinterest Trends as research tools. Find out when certain topics are trending and plan on publishing posts 2 to 3 months in advance.
4. Affiliate Product Reviews
Adding affiliate product reviews to your blog content calendar builds your affiliate marketing income stream.
Product reviews that are authentic, with real examples and insights, are important. People want recommendations based on firsthand experiences with a product — not just an AI search recommendation.
I recommend spreading these out throughout the year, leveraging seasonality where it makes sense.
Read more about writing affiliate product reviews.
5. Announcements & News Posts
These types of blog posts work when you’re announcing the launch of a new program you’re offering, releasing survey data or have industry news to share.
Some news just comes up out of the blue. You can’t plan for it. However, if you have a sales plan or launch plan, you add announcement posts to your blog content schedule.
You may also want to schedule these posts to provide a peek at the work you’re doing to build excitement before a big launch.
Related Reading:
Over 100 Lifestyle Blog Post Ideas For Beginners
75 Spring Blog Post Ideas For Lifestyle Blogs
100 Summer Blog Post Ideas For Lifestyle Blogs
Over 120 Fall Blog Post Ideas For Lifestyle Blogs
Winter Blog Post Ideas That Go Beyond The Holiday Season
How To Create A Blog Content Calendar
Now that you have an idea of the types of blog posts, let’s look at how to create a blog content calendar.
Here’s my general process:
- Analyze your blog categories and pillar posts. Determine which ones need more content.
- Brainstorm topics. Take each blog category and pillar post and come up with additional topics that might work.
- Research the topics to see if they are popular searches online. A keyword tool like Keysearch.co helps determine popular keywords and topics. A Google search will also let you know if they are popular topics. Check out the People Also Ask section in a search result, as it indicates related questions that fan out from your key blog topic.
- Add them to your blog content calendar. Add the topic, category it belongs to, keywords, notes, links to related posts, search intent and other key insights.
For brainstorming, I use a notepad or a simple Google Sheets worksheet to write down all blog post ideas. Keep it simple at first to gather all your ideas!
AI tools can help organize your blog post ideas and provide you with additional insights. Use ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to assist you as you build your blog content calendar.
Add Opportunities For Blog Post Updates
When you’re creating your content calendar for your blog posts, consider the time you’ll also need to update existing posts.
Blog updates are a necessity when it comes to SEO and fresh information.
When you’re planning your weekly blogging activities, squeeze in an hour or two to update existing content. It’s already there, ready to drive more traffic with just a few tweaks.
Content Calendar Tips: Using AI To Help With Blog Post Idea Generation
If you’re stuck coming up with blog post ideas, AI can be very helpful.
However, you will need to be careful. From personal experience, I find that the more insight, context, parameters and existing content you can provide your AI tool, the better the outcomes.
Don’t just ask your AI to “Come up with 50 blog post ideas.”
Provide your AI chatbot with:
- Your blog niche and main topics. What your blog is about and the core subjects you regularly cover.
- Your target audience. Who you’re writing for, what they’re trying to achieve, and the problems or questions they have.
- Your blog goals. For example, growing search traffic, building your email list, promoting services, increasing affiliate income, or selling digital products.
- Your existing blog categories and subcategories. This helps the chatbot create ideas that fit your current site structure instead of inventing disconnected topics.
- A list of your existing blog posts. Include titles and ideally URLs so it can spot content gaps, avoid duplicate ideas, and suggest opportunities for supporting content. NOTE: You can ask your AI chatbot to pull the list of your existing posts for you. Pro versions can do this better and faster.
- Your cornerstone and pillar content. Identify the larger topics you want to build authority around so new content can strengthen those topic clusters.
- Your target keywords or SEO topics. Share keyword research you’ve already completed, if you have it. You can also ask the chatbot to suggest related topics, but don’t rely on AI alone for keyword data.
- Your products, services and lead magnets. This helps connect content ideas to your business goals instead of creating traffic for traffic’s sake.
- Your publishing schedule. Tell it how often you realistically publish, whether that’s once a week, twice a month or something else.
- Important dates and seasonal topics. Include launches, promotions, holidays, annual events and seasonal searches that should influence your calendar.
- Your preferred content mix. For example, educational posts, how-to guides, opinion or thought-leadership pieces, product-focused content, affiliate content and supporting cluster posts.
- Recent analytics data, if available. Sharing your best-performing posts, search queries or traffic trends can help your AI chatbot identify topics worth focusing on and expanding.
The more your AI chatbot knows about your blog and your branding, it can better produce the better results that you are seeking from it.
Here’s how you can teach your AI about your blog, turning it into a knowledgeable assistant:
Train Your AI Chatbot To Become Your Blog’s Assistant
This free guide takes you through the steps of teaching Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini about your blog, your goals and your blog’s unique brand voice. Have your chatbot produce better content, ideas and insights for you… every time!
Use A Content Planner To Organize Your Blog Calendar Posts
To make it easier to organize your blog posts, use a content planner.
They come in various types:
- Simple printed planner. Some people like to use the old-school pen-and-paper approach.
- Google Sheets workbooks. Add more details, manipulate your data and have everything in one easily accessible spot. Google Sheets can be used on a desktop and mobile phone, making it easy to update your topic lists. This is my current favourite method, as I like to keep it slightly old school, but with the benefit of a database.
- Notion, Trello or Airtable. Popular task and database organizers. Like Google Sheets but slightly more advanced.
- AI-built dashboards. These can be very efficient. If you’ve connected your AI with your Google Drive and WordPress, it can automate updates as you make changes, alert you to overdue updates and more. If you’re using AI to help you build your blog topics, it can also automatically update your blog content calendar.
Whichever way you choose, you benefit from being organized and never without a blog post idea to write about next.
| RELATED: 10 Tips For How To Keep A Blog Business Organized
Try This Online Content Planner
If you love using Google Sheets, as I do, here’s my interactive free Blog Content Editorial Calendar Google Worksheet. Get your copy and start organizing your blog content today:
You can set up a worksheet for a blog editorial calendar and fill out your blog post details. It’s a fantastic way to track your upcoming posts. Easily manipulate your lists, and it’s very easy to access across your platforms.
Blog Content Calendar Template
Using Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion or Trello… want to create a blog content calendar template for yourself.
My recommended minimal headings are as follows:
- Blog Post Idea
- Notes (general notes you add to the content)
- Current Status (options can be “to be written”, “in progress”, “published”, “to be updated”)
- Scheduled Date
- Search intent
- Reader’s key problem the post solves
- Keywords
- Links
- An opt-in lead magnet (have a list of your lead magnets to choose from)
- Affiliate products (add notes as to which ones to include)
- Pinterest pin (check it off if you’ve created one)
- Facebook post
- Instagram posts
You can add more columns. For example, if you have regular guest post authors, you can add a column with the “Author”.
These are just the basics that will help you get started and keep you organized.
Get Started On Your Blog Content Calendar!
Now that you know how to create a blog content calendar, it’s time to get started!
Although sometimes you’ll have blog post ideas pop up and you’ll want to write about them as soon as possible, try to use your formal blog content calendar.
As you get started planning, remember a few key points:
- Consider different types of content that will generate blog traffic
- Brainstorm your ideas and note them down
- AI can help you fine-tune your plan if you give it the insights and information it needs
- Use a monthly planner to plan out the whole year – either in an electronic version or via a printed template
- Consider using a customizable online content planner to keep you super organized
Finally, get excited! If you’re organized and ready to go, you’re probably miles ahead of many other bloggers out there.
Just remember to avoid the temptation of copying the content from others. You can be inspired to write on the same topic, but make it your own.
QUESTION: If you have any additional tips on how to create a blog content calendar, I’d love to hear them!
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Love these tips, and you made it easy to plan for the year.
GREAT! I love to hear this. Glad it could help you out.
Thanks for this article. I’ve been haphazardly blogging for about 5 years without a definitive niche (or at least a very broad one) and have never had a content calendar or posting consistency. I have tons of creative ideas but for some reason, I can’t organize myself and spreadsheet content calendars seem to overwhelm me to the point I end up shutting down. Weird, I know!
I like the ideas of the paper and pencil method but you mention both that and Airtable. Do you actually use both?
Thanks for any help and motivation you can offer me.
Paula
Hey Paula – I can be like you, writing on the fly at times, but also trying to stick to a schedule. One trick you may want to use is to look at your categories, and see which ones need some blog posts, in comparison to your others. From there, brainstorm or organize the blog post ideas under these categories. Create a schedule to have one post a month for the categories lacking in blog posts.
I use both a notebook and then I transfer over ideas to Airtable. I try to do this regularly, as I inevitably have notes in several notebooks, on my phone, scraps of paper. It’s good to consolidate into one place and then tackle each post! Airtable also helps you figure out which categories need some more content.
I honestly didn’t realize I should be planning a year ahead of schedule. I had been operating a month ahead and posting everything on the day it was happening. It makes a lot of sense that the platforms need time to find me. Thanks for making that so logical. I am checking out Airtable now.
You could do it monthly but it’s more advantageous to plan ahead!
I love your “evergreen” posts – they’re always insightful. 🙂
The Seasonal Blog Posts For my Calendar is very helpful,great tips I learn today by just reading your blog post!
Downloaded your printables. I feel like when I actually have time to sit down and work on my blog I don’t know where to put my focus! I do a bit here and a bit there. This might help me stay on task!
Let me know if they help, or if I should add any other sections for notes!