Epic Blogging Schedule: 14 Magic Ways You Can Do

This post was most recently updated on July 8th, 2023

[This article was originally published in July 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.]

From the very beginning when I decided to launch my blog, I have everything that I have to do in my bullet journal. Start by choosing my blog name, brand, what content I should write, figuring out my blogging schedule, and how to promote my blog.

It’s a BIG DEAL to start my self-hosted blog.

My weekly and even daily blogging schedule is always changing. There was no real rhyme to my blogging strategies at the beginning. I have top priority tasks, what I focus on, and how I accomplish my blogging goals. However, I don’t always follow the pattern.

2020-2021 has taught me a lot and the growth that I have gone through is pretty much well.

And I am finally here to share some helpful tips on how to keep your blog on a schedule.

Monthly Blogging Schedule

My monthly blogging schedule isn’t always perfect. Life happens. I try my best to stick with my tasks. The tip I can share is don’t force yourself. Blogging life takes a lot of work and it’s not easy.

Keeping your tasks on track is good, but, when you start to feel overwhelmed, exhausted, drained, and frustrated, it’s really okay to take a break. Going out and getting fresh air; self-care is really important!

Create A Blogging Schedule

Starting in 2020, I have my planner to keep me scheduling every single thing I have to do. I used to forget things, and listing them in the planner is really helpful to balance working two jobs at once.

• Create a blog vision on your note or planner, and put what content you need to publish, and by which day. You don’t need to follow through with it – it’s a rough vision.

Map out when you will research, write, edit, and create graphics for each post. When publish and also promoting the post are all part of creating your blogging schedule. Figure out what days work best for you. Trial and error will be your friend but you know, we aren’t perfect, so don’t stress if you have a few missteps.

• Write every day: you should try to make time to work on your blog or at least write every single day. Whether it’s outlining new content ideas, or writing down keywords ideas, even for a few minutes, is an important part of getting a good ahead.
• Set goals: I love setting monthly or weekly goals for my blog. This allows me to schedule how and when to share my blog post.
• Take a rest: Don’t suffer yourself because you write and do something blog related every day. But on the weekend, I try my best to rest my mind from blogging.

You can still be productive on your rest days. You can be consistent and productive on blogging breaks by scheduling your tasks ahead.

Google Analytics Overview

I regularly check (in-depth overview) my google analytics at the end of (every) month. As part of my monthly blogging schedule, I check which content performed the best, which platforms were my top referrers, my bounce rate, and where my audience is from.

You need to study your analytics in order to increase your blog traffic. You wouldn’t want to miss out on this one. Knowing what content is performed well can help create your content in the future. You need to know what your audience loves about your blog so they can keep coming back for more.

Don’t check the analytics daily as it will cause a lot of stress and make you compare yourself with other bloggers. Instead, check your stats monthly and compare them to previous months to see what you need to do to improve.

You also can keep a notebook or digital planner with details on what you did each month to drive traffic, so you can compare the previous month to the current month. This will help you to see what strategies are lacking and what strategies might be working.

Organizing E-mail List

If you already have a large email list, you definitely need to list them up, which means you need to go through and clean up your email list once a month.

Why should I clean the list? If someone hasn’t opened up your emails in a month or more, you can consider them to be uninterested. The same goes with when you unsubscribe, it means that you don’t want to get an email from them and fill your inbox.

By having email list management, you can see how many have opened your email but never clicked through. Getting rid of your subscribers who aren’t actively reading your emails can help you build and grow a more engaged email list.

Affiliate Marketing

The blogging schedule I do once a month is to figure out what brands or affiliates I want to pitch for my quality content. I have a month’s worth of content in front of me so I will think about which affiliate I like and who could help me with some of my blog posts.

You will see tons of affiliate marketing lists on Pinterest even for beginners. And joining them is part of how you make passive income from blogging.

Update or Delete Plugins

Actually, you can set the plugins to update manually by clicking the ‘enable auto update’ on the plugins area. Inactive plugins and those that are not updated are equally dangerous for another reason: Backdoor entry points for spam and hacker attacks.

Track your Income and Expenses

As a business blogger, you’re likely to be spending a little more than the average blogger who just shells out money once a year for hosting, domain, and maintenance costs. Ideally, keeping an Excel sheet with your income and expenses is a perfect way to determine if a future investment is both practical and worthwhile.

Schedule Social Media Posts

I practically use Buffer to schedule Facebook Pages and Tweetdeck for Twitter. In addition to the fact that it frees up my time, it leaves me free to focus on things that matter: content creation and audience engagement.

Weekly Blogging Schedule

Create A New Blog Post

Every blogger is different, and that includes how often they post and schedule those posts. You can publish at least one or two posts a week. It’s totally up to you.

Sometimes when feeling inspired, I might write more than 4 posts a week. This usually allows me to have a head start on the following week. I always try to finish one blog post per day if I have more time or when I get random inspiration.

Typically, I publish three posts a week. Of those, two will be a quick-tip tutorial for my lifestyle category, and the other one usually long-form, detailed posts about blogging.

Writing a blog post is something many people break up into different batches: writing, image curation, editing, formatting, and more. For me, it’s a single-day task. So I spend 3-5 hours on a post on the day it’s supposed to be published. Everything else happens in real time.

Bulk Photography

You need photos for your blog, especially your blog post. My weekly blogging schedule also includes bulk photography. Either you purchase stock photos (if you’re not on friendly terms with photography things) or create your own photos with a camera or phone.

Check your blog planner and see what photos you might need that week for your content. You can pick a day once a week to take all the photos you need.

Backup your Blog

If you have a very reliable hosting provider who does daily backups, then you’re mostly safe. But even so, all hosts insist that you have a backup of your blog content as well, to be on the safer side.

Set one day a week to run a backup of your blog. Use a good plugin and save the backup to your Dropbox folder or Gdrive. I use Updraft Plus and it’s free!

Reply to Blog Comments

Engaging with your readers is key to building trust and authority as an expert in your niche. It also makes people feel appreciated when you take the time to reply to their comments. And while this is one task I can definitely improve on, I do try and make time on a weekly basis to reply to comments on my blog. Keep the conversation going.

Visit Other Blogs

I used to visit multiple blogs. This gave me plenty of scope to understand other writing styles and most importantly, helped me build my blogging community today. While this can be a time-consuming task, restricting it to 2-3 days a week is totally fine.

Keep your blog hopping to blogs more or less in your niche or interest areas. Leave a genuine comment to engage with the blogger and don’t just do it for the sake of backlinks.

Plan For The Week Ahead

It would be impossible for me to work on my blog and my social media channels if I didn’t have a plan in place. So, every Sunday evening, I chalk out my action plan for the week ahead.

That will include the posts I intend to publish, the blog posts I need to write or update, and the analytics I need to track. Keeping it all written down makes my life so much easier!

Daily Blogging Schedule

This one is going to be different from many bloggers. What I usually do is check my planner and see what daily to-do list I have to get done. I prioritize my list from the most important to the least important.

As I am also a translator, I finish my job first and then focus on my blogging tasks. I don’t stick with a time-blocking strategy but I try my best to set a reasonable time to complete the task. I have tried time blocking but it’s not really the best strategy for me. I can do multiple tasks at one time. Checking emails, design my pins, and watch at the same time.

Sometimes it’s really easy for me to get caught up on one task but at the end of the day, I could still finish my daily to-do list, as I always check them during my break.

Here are some of my dailies MUST blogging tasks:

1. Blog check (update plugin, check comments, anything related to my blog)
2. Checking email (sort it out, delete if not important)
3. Brainstorming or planning blog content or reading up on free content
4. Checking, editing, and updating old blog content
5. Creating blog draft (decide title, keyword, outline)
6. Engaging on social media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook)
7. SEO Audit: broken links, redirections, etc.

Those above are basically what I need to get done daily. I also check my e-mail list, make freebies, checking Pinterest, and affiliate programs. But, it depends on the situation. Not every day is the same. You have to prioritize what you need to do.

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Setting your deadlines and sticking to them is tough, as for me I can’t always follow my blogging schedule, but it makes a big difference. By the end of the day, you will know what is lacking and what you should improve.

The Smart Blog Planner is a collection of printable worksheets designed to help you to manage your time more efficiently, manage your blog daily tasks, reach your monthly goals, organize your task lists, keep track of everything that matters easily, and get things done like a pro blogger.

Set goals that will create balance, and push you but also be achievable at the same time so you don’t burn yourself out. Setting goals will help a lot to figure out an actionable blogging schedule and make you stay organized and reach your goals.

Let me know below how you manage your blogging schedule. And are there any tips for sticking to it? If you find this post helpful, please share it with your fellow bloggers!