There’s one surefire way to turn off your readers and keep what’s on your blog from being spread around and taken seriously: don’t post regularly.

Posting “every once in a while” is the wrong thing to do on a whole bunch of different levels.  Even if you have the best intentions in the world, an inconsistent blog is a sign (a billboard, actually) reading “I don’t care”.  And if you don’t care, why should your readers?

The Worst Sentence

I’m going to tell you exactly what the worst sentence you can write in your blog is.  It’s seven words long.  You’ve read it a hundred times.

First, a word on timing.  Timing doesn’t come naturally to most people, and others will never get it.  It’s like the old Steve Martin joke:  ”If there’s one thing that’s important in comedy, it’s… …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …timing.”

Some people have a natural gift for timing; those are the ones with the super-organized closet, socks arranged according to moon phase.  They have their timing down to a science.

Most people aren’t like that, myself included.  I need practice, and the only way to practice is to have a plan. Because timing isn’t natural (anymore; it’s why we need alarm clocks), it has to be developed.  And the positively proven way to do that is to get a system and stick to it.

Oh, and the worst sentence in blogging is this:

“Sorry I haven’t posted in a while.”

Blog, Meet Calendar

An editorial calendar is a tool that’s been used since periodical tablets were sold on Babylonian street corners in 4 column 9 pt cuniform.  In other words, way before the internet.  The calendar is simple way to plan out out posts, so you’ll never miss one, and your content will always be fresh.  It’s an alarm clock for your blog.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Have a whiteboard session.

A legal pad will work, too.  Make 12 labels, one for each month.

2. Plan out subjects for each month.

Seeing your posts laid out on a calendar will allow you to plan for temporal topics, which can help with your SEO, as well as just being interesting to people at the time they happen to be interested.

3. Enter the subjects into an ecalendar.

Every electronic calendar available will allow you to set warnings via email for the due dates of each one. Do that.

4. Huge Step:

With each subject, write a title to go along with it.  This is a deeply creative process, and there’s an art to it.  It’ll take some time, but it’s going to be incredibly worth it to have your title done ahead of time.

A couple tips to go along with creating your editorial calendar:

• Be flexible

Don’t get stuck with something you ultimately can’t write about.  If something comes up on the calendar that you can’t create, keep going.  The important part is to replace it with something else.  No dead spots.

• Don’t get bogged down.

You don’t have to have all of your subjects tied to a specific date or event (July 4th, say).  It works for some subjects, but not for every single one. What I mean is, if you do tie all of your posts to a date, you end up with something that’s more like a newsletter than a blog.

• Leave space.

One thing a blog has to be above everything else (except for being current) is to be interesting.  So make sure that you have space in your calendar for things that come up.

• Commit.

Once the calendar is in place, make a commitment to stick to it.  At least, stick to most of it.  If you don’t that’s a lot of hard work going down the drain.

An editorial calendar is not a cure all for everything.  But it’s a good way to start planning ahead and being consistent.

And it’s a good way to never have to write the worst sentence in blogging.