In this post, we show you how to create a blog schedule that will help grow your audience and boost your authority.
Using this blog schedule template, you’ll be able to increase productivity while balancing each area vital to your blog’s growth.
If you’re ready to create a schedule that focuses on achieving measurable results, then this post is for you!
Let’s dive right in..
Building A Successful Blog
Often, blogs are started without a deep plan or strategy for long term growth. The initial focus might be on making the blog look nice, or maybe just publishing lots of articles.
At some point, the realization sets in that blogging is a slow process.
Many bloggers will start looking for a shortcut; like finding out the best blog posting schedule, how to make content go viral, or looking for easy backlinks.
The truth is, your success is determined by how you organize your day.
Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.
How do bloggers organize their day?
Successful blogs are built on successful systems. It’s less about what happens any particular day, and more about forward momentum.
Blogging is more than writing content, more than posting on social media, more than sending emails. Blogging is the sum of many different areas, all working together.
Before worrying about how to organize your day, work on building a larger system that includes all of these areas and breaks them down into daily actions.
In the next section, I’m going to detail the blog schedule we’ve developed and implemented across all of the blogs we manage.
How To Create A Blog Schedule
A full-time blogger schedule should be built on both Discipline and Adaptability.
A blog schedule built on these two principles ensures progress is made each day, while retaining a self-correcting mechanism to improve the schedule over time, as needed.
The following are 5 Pillars that make up a successful blog. When addressed in this order, your traffic, subscribers, and overall authority will increase.
Each week we move from one pillar to the next, and then after the fifth week, we are ready to start the process again.
We've nicknamed this process "The Wheel".
In the same way the wheels of our vehicle move us forward as they turn, each time we rotate through these 5 Pillars our blog progresses and improves.
And when we start this process again in 5 weeks, we are starting from a place of greater experience and can better direct our efforts.

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1. Strategy Week
This area is as simple as it sounds. For strategy week, we decide on our upcoming content, look at analytics to see what’s working (and what isn’t), and develop a plan of action.
Much of this time is spent brainstorming, thinking about the long term vision of the blog, and then seeing what actions would move us towards that vision.
We start with big picture thinking and then, as the week progresses, start focusing down to the next four weeks.
By the time Strategy Week is coming to a close, we are clear on our upcoming content topics (including keywords, titles, and SEO strategies), and have a general idea for our marketing.
2. Content Week
During Content Week, all of our effort is put towards writing blog posts (mostly for our own blogs, but this sometimes includes guest posts).
This week takes the most effort, but has a big payoff. And everything was laid out for us during Strategy Week.
Here is the formula we use for creating great content:
- Start with a broad topic
- Narrow down to a keyword
- Craft a Catchy Headline
- Make a detailed outline
- Write the first draft
- Proofread & edit, as needed
- Build the post in WordPress
- Add images, links, etc.
- Schedule or publish the post
Now that our content has been created, we are ready for blog promotion and outreach.
3. Outreach Week
Once you have great content published, it’s time to promote it. It can take a while to start receiving traffic from search engines, so Outreach Week is about bringing in traffic now.
Most of this work will be on social media marketing, but if you’re practicing the Social Media 80/20 Rule, it doesn’t take too much effort.
You’ll need variations of marketing images for social media sites and anywhere else you promote your posts. It’s important to treat them as brand assets, so they will mirror the look and feel of your website.
This is also the week to network with other bloggers and look for guest posting opportunities.
4. Email Week
Now that our content is published and promotion is underway, it’s time to put the focus on our existing audience.
Week 4 is where we work on our email marketing.
Email marketing has a few moving parts. Things like:
- Opt-in forms
- Lead magnets
- Automation
- Campaigns
Once you have good opt-in forms and lead magnets in place, most of the work for Email Week will have to do with the automated drip sequences and one-off campaign emails.
For our sites, we rarely send one-off campaign emails in real time.
We instead focus on writing emails to add into our automated drip sequences.
This means we need to write at least 5 new emails for our weekly newsletters, so subscribers always receive a weekly email, and never reach the end of the sequence.
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5. Optimize Week
The last section of our schedule is where we make adjustments. This is the time to implement the changes we talked about in Strategy Week.
For a blog to grow it must constantly evolve & improve. You can make updates to just about anything.
It can be as little as changing a featured image or as big as a complete overhaul of your brand design & identity.
We regularly optimize our blog post titles, update old content, make tweaks to our WordPress theme, and revisit our website security measures.
Optimize Week is how your blog adapts and makes the necessary changes to stay on course.
And now we've come full circle, and it's time for another turn of The Wheel. Which brings us back to Strategy Week..
Final Thoughts
Most blogs rarely change. They are in a slow state of decline.
To keep growing, there needs to be consistent effort towards growth.
Creating a blog schedule is how you blend the exciting with the mundane, the short & long term priorities, and never neglect anything that’s vital to your blog’s growth.
Take the schedule we use and adapt it to your needs.
Remember, successful blogs are built on successful systems. Keep that forward momentum going.
What about you?
How do you organize your day?
Let us know in the comment section below..
Hi Patrick, I tend to organize days like your week schedule mentioned above. However, I’ve found that we need more time to promote than to actually create the content. It sounded crazy at first but that’s how it ends up being every time.
Exactly right, Lisa. A few years ago, my ratio was around 70% creating 30% promoting. Now, it’s almost the complete inverse.
Another helpful post, Patrick! I like the way you approach everything and focus on setting up systems and best practices instead of specific techniques. This makes it easier to adapt the info to my needs.
Thanks for the kind words, Benjamin! I’m always thinking in terms of systems because the techniques will keep changing over time.
Thanks for giving me so many good ideas! I need to get a better strategy together to make sure I don’t skimp out on the aspects of my business that I don’t enjoy so much..
My pleasure, Keri! Creating processes & systems for the parts you don’t enjoy definitely helps to make them more bearable!
I set up my days using time blocks. I do a couple of hours in the morning, and then a couple more hours late in the afternoon. This helps me stay sharp while I’m working and not suffer diminishing returns when working in a single longer time block.
Time blocks are a great way to organize your day. Thanks for commenting, Jerome!
I’ve been doing all of these except for strategy and optimize. How important would you say those 2 steps are?
I find them to be more important than the other 3 steps, Corey! Strategy makes sure you are going in the right direction, and Optimizing helps you adjust & improve each time the wheel turns.
Your article helped me a lot, I’m going to focus on building a system that works for me. Thanks!
Nice to hear it, Bess. Good luck!
I follow a process similar to your “Wheel”, but I try to do a little of each of them every day. Mine are 1. Content, 2. Social, 3. Email, and then I have a big strategy session every 6 months to make sure I’m on track.
That’s a great system, Nina! The big strategy sessions make all the difference!
I use the Pomodoro Technique when working throughout the day, but I use 45 minute blocks instead of 25. It’s been a huge productivity boost.
I also use the Pomodoro Technique, Reggie! I find the ‘forced’ breaks to be as important as the work sets for maintaining my focus.
Very nice post. Bringing some order to my workdays will increase my productivity!
Thanks, Stephan! Good luck!