If you blog weekly for you business like I do, the start of 2018 means coming up with 52 brand new, incredibly awesome content ideas.

But what exactly should you be writing about?

Today I wanted to break down my content calendar strategy that helps me plan ALL of my yearly blog posts in about 90 minutes. (Give or take!)

Recently I’ve been working with a couple of clients to plan out all of their Q1 content and it’s actually been really effortless for them when we use this system. And even when I use it for myself!

To help you follow along with the post/video, I’ve created a fun little workbook for you that will walk you through these steps yourself, including a link to a Google spreadsheet where you can map this out further. Be sure to click the link below and download it first!

Now let’s dive in to how I planned my 2018 content calendar:

The most important thing you can do when planning your content is to start with the end in mind.

So first, stop and think about what you want to sell, because content alone is not the goal. You could come up with 52 amazing blog post ideas, but they could all be about weight loss and maybe you are a life coach.

While that might be a goal that some of your clients want to accomplish, that doesn’t actually meet the goal of kind of what your blog should be talking about in order to sell your products and services.

And maybe some months you won’t be selling anything – but what is the Call To Action to focus on? Such as a month focused on trying to grow your Instagram following, or having more people join your free Facebook group.

If you’re following along in the worksheet, start mapping out your offers for each month in the first column.

The second step is to create a theme around that product or offering. That theme is what’s going to be guiding your content for the month.

For example, this post is in my “content strategy” theme. For the whole month of January, all of my content will be content focused. It’s not something I’m sharing publicly (except in this post!), but internally it’s what will be guiding my own content calendar because I have the 90-Day Content offer that I’d like to sell people on the back end.

And then finally, it’s time to get creative and map out four to five blog post topics that you’re going to talk about.

Relating back to the theme for the month, what are four to five ideas you have? These could be strategic. They could be How To articles, or client case studies. They could be a portfolio piece, or a new art work or graphic design.

Whatever the ideas you have make a giant list and then narrow down to the 4 best for your month’s them. And your themes might repeat, depending on how many types of products and services you have to sell.

And best of all – not all of the content in this calendar needs to be new.

If in 2017 you wrote a really awesome article, and it’s related to your monthly them, reuse it!

Then to wrap up your blog post, be sure to work in a back link to that sales page or offer or even end your blog with a call to action to come join or check out your offer or service.

So, to recap my Content Calendar strategy for you:

1. Map out your products and offerings for the entire year and what you want to focus on selling for the month

2. Create an awesome theme for your content to be around to make it easier to talk about things, go live on Facebook and have a theme for the month’s guiding topic.

3. Come up with 4-5 blog post ideas for each month’s theme, including reusing some of your greatest hits or repurposing some content that you already have lying around.

If you are going to try and tackle planning your entire 2018 calendar in January, I would love to support you!

Click here to find out more about how you can work with me on 90 days of content and get all of Q1 out of the way. 🙂