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When I first started blogging, I kept on hearing about the all-important editorial calendar, I didn’t really understand why I needed one or what made them so important. Fast forward 5 months and I found myself using a large desk diary to note down when and what I was posting and the keywords for that post.
The problem with my desk diary? I could only see a week at a time, which I suppose would be fine if I was posting a few times a week, but I only post once a week, twice at the start of the month. I also couldn’t get to grips with planning anything else in the desk diary.
It’s a shame because I love my desk diary and spent a lot of time choosing it. Isn’t it lovely?….just me that gets all mushy over diaries?…ok, moving on.
After searching on Pinterest I couldn’t find anything I felt suited my needs. So I turned to the ol’ faithful. Google. That is where I found Regina’s Blog byregina.com. Regina writes amazing content on how to grow and develop your business.
What actually brought me to Regina’s blog is her Epic Blog One-Year Editorial Planner. I read about it, I watched her youtube video about how to use it and what was included in the planner. I then decided that I NEEDED this editorial calendar. It was written by a blogger, for bloggers. Regina knew exactly what a blogger needed and created it.
I wouldn’t be without an editorial calendar now and I’ve listed some points below as to why you deffo need one if you’re a new or seasoned blogger. These are the exact reasons I wouldn’t be without one, especially being a mum of a toddler and a newborn!
12 Reasons you NEED an Editorial Calendar for your Blog
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Helps you organise your blog
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An editorial planner helps you stay consistent with your topics
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Helps you keep to your writing schedule
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Having an editorial planner helps you organise when to post which posts
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It helps you hone in on your marketing plan
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It keeps everything written down in one place so you can have more brain space
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Planning everything and writing it on a calendar, holds you accountable when you don’t do something
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It makes it easy to plan a year’s worth of content in one go
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It’ll save you time and streamline your process
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Keeps you motivated
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Allows you to beat writer block, as you can swap between different posts
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You can plan accordingly to your schedule, this is great, especially if you have kids
Why the EPIC Blog One-Year Editorial Calendar is what you need as a mum blogger
I recently purchased the EPIC blog One-Year Editorial Planner created by Regina @ byregina.com. I started to use it the other day and was surprised at how easy it made planning content. In about 40 minutes I managed to come up with post ideas for nearly a years worth of content and draft a whole months worth of content in WordPress and add notes and headings. I felt particularly lucky that both children were occupied enough to allow me to actually do that though!
The blog planner has a great editorial calendar in it, with enough space for a while years worth of content. I thought it would be helpful in making your decision to buy this planner if I did a little walkthrough of all the pages. With honest opinions so that you knew of all the awesome planning tools that will help you streamline your process as well as make your content consistent.
You’ll also be able to have a little sneak peek of some of the content that is coming up on the blog within the next year!
Epic Blog One-Year Editorial Planner Walkthrough
The editorial planner is A4 sized. Which is a nice size for your desk or work space. Not so easy to transport around, but if it was smaller then filling it in would be more difficult. It’s a soft textured cover and quite thin internal pages. It is then followed by a lovely little welcome message. Regina suggests using a pencil so that what you write is flexible and easily changed.
The following pages are what Regina calls ‘Orientation‘ This is basically a quick low down on exactly how to use the different sections of your planner to get the best out of it. It is quite brief and some of the pages I didn’t quite understand, so I had to look up a few things. Regina has also made a video that goes through each page explaining it on YouTube, this proved very helpful!
As you can see, I started to fill out my Epic Blog Planner. Eclectically Ema is centrally focused around motherhood. There are of course subcategories I talk about such as blogging, but they always relate to how you can accomplish things while being a mother as well. It took me a while to fill this page out, as I wasn’t quite sure I understood what the planner was asking me to do. In the end, I interpreted the questions in my own way. This works for me and helps to stay focused on the main topics I discuss.
The Simplified Blog Business Plan.
The brand summary page is a section I feel like could evolve quite dramatically over time (hence the pencil!). My vision for the blog could and probably will be very different in a years time, which I feel is only expected in the world of blogging. I found that by writing down my hopes and dreams for the blog made me realise that they are quite possible with proper planning and patience. I was impressed with this section of the book. In hindsight, I think this will be especially helpful for brand new bloggers so that they can form some solid foundations about what they want their blog to be.
This is a page that I wanted to leave until I had grasped planning a month of content and then actually written it. I think all the points on these two pages are a good idea, although the middle grey columns don’t really explain what you are ticking. I think it’s important to remember that you don’t have to fill out all these pages straight away because our goals develop and you might not be thinking about monetisation yet or growing your traffic. You might still just be learning the ropes. Don’t forget that, that’s ok to do.
Do Your Research BEFORE Filling Everything In.
The reader attraction strategy and blog promotion strategy sections I think need some research before filling in. Or even better yet, some experience. You may write down, ‘I want to gain all my traffic from Instagram’. Then realise that your target audience isn’t on Instagram, but twitter instead.
Those blogs you read and keep going back to week after week. Those are the blogs you should be writing in here. There’s a reason that you keep going back to them. I think this is an awesome page to have in the planner because it allows us to see in black and white how our small piece of the internet relates to the bloggers that inspire you.
This is a page I should have filled in, but I am guilty of leaving it till ‘later’. In all honesty, my ideal reader is myself…..does that sound stupid?! I mean, my ideal reader is in the same situation as me and of a similar age bracket. This is very important information to have to hand, it means whenever you want to write a post you can flick back to these pages and see if your ideal reader would love your post. Name them if you like, might make it easier.
Everything for a newbie blogger! Including the Best Editorial Calendar for EVERY Blogger.
This is where the Epic Blog One Year Planner really lends itself to a newbie blogger. As the book proceeds it really wants you to lay everything out in black and white. For me writing down my process of how I create content isn’t really helpful. I chop and change how and in what order I do things. This helps me prevent procrastination and beat the dreaded writer’s block. Of course, my process isn’t what works for everyone. I can see what Regina is trying to get us to do here. By pinning down a process, we can refer back to this process when we’re feeling a little lost or unmotivated because when you don’t have to think about things too much, it makes life a lot easier!
The next few pages of sketching out your ideal image designs, however, I think are pretty pointless. There’s going to be a lot of trial and error with your images. Maybe use these pages to sketch out layouts you find work instead?
A lovely little inspirational quote and then a quick how-to for the next section. This is very self-explanatory and very helpful when trying to plan content around themes such as seasons, holidays etc.
Related: 19 Essential Resources for Bloggers that Want to Grow Their Blog.
This seems like a very big and dramatic page for telling you your monthly planning is coming next.
This is a great double spread because you can see the whole years of brainstormed content at a glance, as well as the theme you may have set. Since taking this picture, I have pretty much filled up each box on this page. I think its good that you can see the whole year on a double spread. If you post more regularly, some bigger boxes may be needed.
I LOVE this blog planner. Designed by a blogger, for a blogger. It has everything you will EVER need! #blogger #bloggerlife #blogplanner #editorialplanner Click To Tweet
The monthly view in the editorial calendar has helped me be more present in my daily life.
The monthly view calendar page in the Epic Blog planner has just about enough space to plan out your month. I decided to use a colour code for a certain task to save space in the boxes. I like how everything is left completely blank so that you could even start this halfway through the month if you wanted. Being able to see your month like this makes it really easy to plan around the rest of your life. If you’re a mum like me, then you might have doctors appointments or play dates you need to make sure you don’t forget or double book yourself on. That’s why having your month in the editorial calendar planned out makes everything lot less stressful! I now know what I’m doing and when without having it all in my head.
The following page has sections to fill out at the start of the month as well as the end of the month. This is great because it makes you set monthly goals you want to achieve and how that’s going to make you feel. This is great because it always makes you have something to work towards. The tracker on the right-hand side lets you see if your blog and social media stats have increased or decreased. This is again, helpful for you set goals for the next month and reflect upon what has and hasn’t worked.
I don’t think the left-hand page is completely necessary because you would have already written in your monthly calendar. I personally felt like I was just repeating myself. The only thing helpful was writing down what I needed to do for each post e.g. take photographs or create opt-in graphics. This and the right-hand page could have bee spread across the two pages in the editorial calendar. Which would give us much more room to write different ideas down.
The Perfect Place to Keep Track of ALL Your Ideas!
A good amount of space on all these pages for your blog post ideas, blog themes or series ideas, your opt-in and product ideas as well as collab or sponsored post ideas. Regina has made sure to give you a few pages for each of these things. This means when inspiration strikes you have plenty of space to jot down the idea. I like these pages and I always have my Epic Blog Planner on my desk so if I can quickly write the ideas down before I forget them with my mummy brain a the moment.
This is the last section of the blog planner. It lets you see a summary of your year so far in a glance, as well as keeping track of your affiliate and blog logins. I love the tracker on the right-hand side. It just condenses down the stats to one place from the end of the month page. It also allows you to see any trends. Maybe your content is more popular in summertime or Christmas time. It can help you clearly see this and help you make adjustments so your traffic or income is more consistent throughout the year.
I personally won’t be having all my login details written out in the book, but you could write a hint I suppose. Your affiliate logins hold a lot of personal info about you, including your bank details. So probs best not to have that all laid out for someone, should your planner go missing!
Epic Blog One Year Editorial Calendar Summary
I personally love my editorial calendar. Yes, it has some pages that I probably wouldn’t use, but that’s going to happen with everything right? The Epic Blog One-Year Editorial Planner has way more pages I would use, so that’s a winner for me. It helps me plan my content, establish who my ideal readers are and keep track of my stats each and every month. This is everything I knew I wanted in a planner and the only decent one I could find that had been created by a blogger. I know, it’s up to you if you want to buy it, but I highly recommend it if you are a new blogger starting from scratch.
Do you have a go-to planner? Or what do you do to stay on top of things?
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