A Blog Planning Template for Founders Who Hate Blogging
For a long time, blogging felt like the thing I was always behind on. I would open a blank post, stare at it, and close the laptop. Sound familiar?
A blog planning template fixed it by letting me decide everything up front. Then writing day was for writing.
If you run a business and dread blogging, a template is the difference between a task that hangs over you and one you can actually finish. Here is the one I use.
Quote graphic about feeling behind on blogging
What goes in a blog planning template
A good blog planning template holds a few simple columns. A working title. The main keyword or question the post answers. The reader it is for. A publish date. And one line on the goal, like bring in inquiries or answer a question clients always ask.
That is it. You are not writing the post here. You are making all the small decisions that usually stall you, before you ever sit down to write.
Here is what one row might look like. Title: how to prepare for a brand shoot. Keyword: brand photography preparation. Reader: a founder booking photos for the first time. Publish date: the second Tuesday of the month. Goal: answer the questions clients ask before we start. One row, and the post is already half decided.
Plan a quarter in one sitting
Set aside one focused hour and fill the template with a full quarter of posts. Aim for a realistic number. Two posts a month is plenty for most businesses, and it beats planning ten and publishing none.
Pull topics from questions your clients ask, searches your audience is making, and the content you already know performs. If you get stuck, here is how to find content ideas when you feel like you have none.
Use the Small Business Administration's marketing guide to choose your audience, goal, and plan for each post.
When the quarter is mapped, blogging stops being a weekly decision. It becomes a list you work through.
Batch the parts that drain you
Most of the dread around blogging comes from switching tasks. Writing, editing, finding a photo, adding links, and formatting all pull on different parts of your brain.
Your template makes batching easy. Draft two posts in one block. Edit them in another. Handle images and links in a third. I run mine on time blocks, and time blocking changed the way I run my business more than any app ever did.
Google's people-first content guide says to write for a real audience and help them reach a goal.
Batching also means a low-energy day never blocks the whole pipeline. If the writing will not come, you switch to editing or images and still move the plan forward.
Make the template match your real capacity
The fastest way to abandon a blog plan is to build one for a version of you with endless time. Plan for the season you are actually in.
Busy quarter? Schedule fewer posts and repurpose ones that already worked. Slower stretch? Get ahead while you can. The template should bend to your capacity, not shame you for having one.
A blog that supports your business should fit inside it, not take it over.
Blogging gets easier the moment you stop making every decision on writing day. Fill in the template once, and the hard part is already done. When your posts are ready for photos that make them look as good as they read, I would love to help you plan a brand shoot.
Only you can see the world the way you do, so share your work.
Don't stop starting.
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