Content Development is hands down the most important part of having a blog. Whether you are a blogger or you are in charge of a corporate blog, the content has to resonate with the reader. Making sure that your readers will connect with your writing and style will ensure you success as long as you keep it up.
Below you will find ways to help you pre-plan your content schedule no matter how difficult your niche subject is.
Your Content Development Plan should have two goals, which would be having a ready source of ideas for content for your blog, and having a content posting schedule that you stick to.
Content Ideas
Brainstorm all the ideas for posts that you have in thought of previously. Write down your ideas, and see if you can expand on them or if you can add a spin to the idea.
Think of all the things you read from other bloggers in your niche.
- What did they miss?
- Where were they wrong about something?
- What haven’t you seen that should be written for your niche?
More Ideas for Your Content Development Plan:
- Locate your bookmarks of all the cool things you found in your research. What cool finds can you write about?
- What is your personal take on issues people have in your niche?
- What is your take on common problems? (Write down all the common problems people search for information on in your niche. This includes questions you find people asking in places like answers.yahoo.com, other blogs, forums, etc.)
- What would be a cool blog post to stumble on by your target visitors? One that would have them praising you al over the web for writing?
- How can you make your content different than the other bloggers in your niche? Edgy, conservative, funny, serious, twisted, interesting, exciting?
- What is no one writing about at all that might really surprise visitors to find in your niche?
- Is there any video content on youtube you can use for posts?
- Are there any podcasts in places like BlogTalkRadio or itunes you can run regularly on your blog?
- What kinds of pictures should you use to break up text in your posts? Where are you going to get them and are you going to use pics in every post?
- What kind of "list posts" can you create? e.g. list of best bars to hit while you’re in Austin, Texas, List of the best dog sites on the web, List of the best graphics software reviews, etc.
Now you need a schedule.
Depending on whether you are full-time yet or not, adjust your schedule accordingly. You want to shoot for at least 5 posts a week. Once per business day.
You can post all your posts on one day and use the date feature in your wordpress blog to schedule each post for another day of the week. Then if something juicy comes up o a particular day you have to write about, do it. You’ll have 2 posts that day. Double the chances to get another search result, a link or two from an admiring blogger, and more conversation generated among your readers!
We have a blog network and we expect our paid bloggers to do minimum 14 posts per week. The more you post, as long as the content is good, the more traffic you get. Set a schedule for writing and posting so that you don’t deviate. Especially in the beginning it is a big no-no to let a blog sit idle.
Schedule!
Think about the types of content you will post and when. Set a schedule for when you will do a podcast (audio or video), linkbait posts, and regular posting and stick to it.
If you have set a goal for a good video or audio to post by the end of the month, work backwards and make sure reminders to set up interviews, edit, and any other work you need to do to hit the deadline.
Regular Segments
"Today, as part of our How-To Series, we’ll be talking about social media and the many different sites that you should be signed up for in order to get in front of your audience!"
Come up with recurring "segments" that readers can count on. Make the entire series linkbait-worthy and set up your readers’ expectations for the next post in your series. Most bloggers don’t do this. Think of creative ways to keep your readers coming back and expecting more and you will raise your repeat visitor stats considerably. Writing great content and making sure you have all the right plugins installed will help you achieve more with less effort.
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