One of the most overwhelming parts of blogging are the many, many numbers you’ll want to keep track of: page views, comments, retweets, Facebook shares etc.

I’m competitive. It’s hard for me not to judge the quality of my work by the amount of feedback I receive, but as I have become more experienced in building online communities, I see that what matters is not the number of interactions but the quality.

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A well thought out editorial calendar can help you keep focus on your blog’s mission and larger goals. Since I mentioned the necessity of an ed calendar, I’ve gotten a few puzzled tweets and emails asking me for an example.

I prefer to handwrite my blogging plan. It feels much more personal, but while preparing to share my personal editorial calendar with you guys, I realized my content planning needed an upgrade.

I put together this editorial calendar template that you can complete online or download as a PDF.

Plan up to four weeks of content at a time. Put it to good use!

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Kimberly N. Foster is the founder of Black Girls Blogging and Editor of For Harriet. Email or Tweet her.

Don’t get it twisted. Great content is the key to successful blog. Without it you’ll get lost in the crowd. Many bloggers fall victim to their own disorganization as they try to lure readers with compelling blog posts. Create a content plan, and hopefully you’ll never have to scramble for a blog idea again.

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As a kid, I often felt voiceless. I didn’t grow up in one of those TV drama homes where we discussed our feelings. I’ve always been opinionated, but I, like many Black women, was taught to turn emotional affairs inward. Subsequently, I became a great actress and fooled most everyone I encountered for the majority of my life. And then my house of cards came tumbling down during my third year of college.

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Developing blog post titles for social media sites like Twitter has been paramount to the site’s. Creating can’t miss content is difficult, but making sure people actually see that content is even harder. 

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These are just a few things I’ve learned during the 5 or 6 years I’ve spent building blogs. My site is nowhere near “massively popular,” but it’s much more successful than I thought it would be nearly two years ago.

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I’ve said it before: a blogger without a plan is a blogger destined for failure. (You can expect to see that countless more times here.)  Knowing exactly who you’re blogging for and why you’re doing it from jump will help you avoid any competition with other bloggers that’s usually more demoralizing than inspiring.

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At For Harriet, my biggest concern is creating community. It’s not about ad dollars or page views, but it’s about developing a platform for thoughtful women to come together to dialogue about issues that impact their lives. I’m a big advocate of literacy so when I came up with the idea of an online book club I knew it would be a perfect fit for the site’s mission. Not only could we support Black women authors with the feature, but we’d choose books that discussed important topics for Black women.

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As we’ve discussed, picking a specific, interesting blog topic is the first step toward building a successful, sustainable blog.

Interesting is a given but why did I emphasize the importance of specific? Because a blogger without focus is a blogger destined for failure.

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I’d guess most Black Girls Blogging readers (BGBers) didn’t start blogging to make money. Most of us just want to tell our stories and connect with like minds. But once you get a few posts up and your first visitors start trickling in, it’s natural to say to yourself, “Hey, I see all these ad units everywhere. I want a piece of that.” 

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