Using Google Calendar to Set Up a Blogging Schedule

May 22, 2009 // Author: Jacob Stoops // 174 views // View Comments

Utilizing Google Calendar can be a great way to keep your blogging schedule organized and running efficiently.

I wanted to post a quick article on setting up a blogging schedule via Google Calendar. If you’re trying to take your blog to the next level and looking for a way to get organized, then setting up a schedule for your blog is the way to go.

I want to give a quick shout out to Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger for sharing this tip, as it will be sure to make mine and a lot of other people’s blogging a lot less stressful!

Using Google Calendar to Set Up a Blogging Schedule

What is Google Calendar?

Google Calendar is a highly useful Calendar tool organize yourself much like Outlook. If used correctly, it can really help you get your ducks in a row. There are many functions that I like about it, but the two that help the most are the ability to set up Events & Tasks. In Google Calendar, you can view your agenda by day, week, and month (I chose month).

Events & Tasks

As I mentioned above, you can use Google Calendar to set up events and tasks. I have used the events function to set up my blog’s post topic schedule.

For each day of the week, I have a specific post type in mind to write about. This feature allows you to set up one-time events, or schedule repeating events till the end of time (or Google) if you wish.

In addition, you can set up tasks which can help you remember to take care of some additional blogging or SEO tasks such as link building or checking for broken links.

Why is Google Calendar good for your blog?

Keeps your blog organized & focused.
Keeps your blog topics consistent & precise.
Helps you add a steady stream of fresh content to your blog.
Help you remember the to complete the little SEO details.
Sends reminders to you about blog events.
Allows you to schedule events just once or ongoing.
Good way to get a monthly blog overview.
Keeps other publishers of your blog on topic (if there are more than just you).
There’s more, but I can’t think of it all!

My Example

Sundays: Blogging & Social Media (In Weekly Rotation)
Mondays: Technical SEO Tips
Tuesdays: Search & Tech News
Wednesdays: WordPress SEO Tips
Thursdays: SEO Videos
Fridays: Link Love
Saturdays: Rest Up & Drink a Beer!

Note: I didn’t include tasks in the example (I’ll probably do those as I go). This example is just how I’ll be doing things, but I encourage you to mix it up and add as many events and tasks as you like.

Tags: better-blogging, Google, Google Calendar

Like This Post? Why Not Share it.

If you like this post, then you might like these as well!

Eric

Jake, first off, the new layout is slick, the bear on a scooter is my favorite!

Second, I use gCal for all of our organizational meetings and have integrated the google docs program to share agendas, collaborate on projects, etc. It's a great free tool!

I really like how greg has set it up for multi-author publishing.

Great work at WordCamp Columbus by the way! You're a true SEO sharp shooter!!!
Usman

WoW Nice Tips, I really amazed to see your excellent tips. I would really try them myself. Will you provide more information?
Jacob Stoops

Sweet! Hopefully it works out for me too! I would be interested to know what types of monetization strategies you have?
greg

Hey Jacob, great advice here. The #1 reason that I've seen blogs fail is due to lack of updates. The scenario usually goes something like this:

1) OMG I'm so excited about having a blog.
2) POST. POST. POST.
3) Post. Post. Post.
4) post. post...
5) Eh... what's the use?....

Then they fizzle out and dry up like so many raisins in the sun.

I've implemented a similar gCal Blog structure across SageRock. Except that instead of topics on particular days, since we're a multi-author blog, I've setup different users on each day. Every author at Sagerock has their own gCal plus access to a gCal that is strictly for blogging. Therefore everyone knows who is supposed to post and when they are supposed to do it. We're only a few months in but the gentle reminders and constant attention paid to the calendar schedule has proved a win-win for us.