How to Plan Your Blog Content (In a Way That Gets You on Google)

Okay, be honest, how many times have you Google-d “what to post” or headed to ChatGPT to ask for blog post ideas? I have. My clients have. My business ‘besties’ have.

Content planning—for whatever platform—is usually not the top of the list for business owners, OR it’s something you tried, it didn’t work, and now spending time on it is the last thing on your to-do list. This almost applies double for blogging, even when we know how important blogging is for your business.

Planning blog content is time-consuming in the least and brain-numbing at the most, especially when you’re going in blind. Luckily, there’s a recipe—there’s habits, tips, and tricks you can use to speed up the process, get better results, and help you plan blog content that actually gets you on Google (and Bing, Yahoo, and yes, even AI).

Here’s how to plan your blog content in a way that gets your blog (and business) on Google →

Heads up: I use affiliate links for my fave products that I use and trust. If you click and purchase, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you!!

Planning Your Blog Content vs. Writing Your Blog Posts: What’s the Difference?

There’s planning your blog content, AKA what posts you’ll write and when you’ll hit publish—and then there’s writing your blog post content. Planning is the preparation, writing is creating the content.

Planning your blog content should always come before writing.

Now, I’m not saying you should have every little thing mapped out before you start typing away, but you should absolutely know:

• What your post is about
• What purpose your post serves on your site
• How your blog post will help YOUR audience
• How your blog post will interact with the rest of your content (this is KEY)

Essentially, you need to know what you’re writing and why you’re writing it. Bonus points if you do keyword research while you’re planning it—then you’ll confirm that your audience is actually searching for what you’re writing (or asking the questions you’re answering).

Planning is the difference between posts that you have to link drop to get traffic and blog posts that are optimized for SEO—and show up on Google.

p.s. if you want to learn how to improve your SEO when it comes to blogging, snag my free SEO Blog Post Checklist here!!

How to Plan Blog Content That Gets You Searched & Seen on Google (and Beyond)

Quick recap: blogging is great for SEO. It allows you to target keywords and write content that connects with your audience at any stage of awareness and readiness.

You’re able to answer questions before they’re asked (and as they’re asked), you can reach the people who are searching for solutions to the problem you solve (who just haven’t found you yet), and provide a “choose your own adventure” based on what your audience is comfortable (and ready) for.

They get to choose whether they’re ready to work 1:1 with you, buy your product, sign up for your email list (or freebie), or simply spend more time consuming your content and learning more about YOU and what you do.

Keep this in mind when you’re planning your blog content—I promise, it’ll make a HUGE difference.

Now that you have that little note to remember, let’s get into actually planning your blog content:

#1. Pick ONE Thing to Focus on for Your Blog Posts (for Now)

I get it, as a small business owner, there’s a lot to talk about—and often, different offers in our offer suite. The very first thing you’re going to do is focus on ONE offer when planning your blog posts.

Pick an offer (or product) you love. This is going to be the “core” of your content, where it’ll all point back to!! When you start with one, you’re able to fully address the questions, concerns, and build more awareness while also ensuring that all the content you’re planning connects to each other.

The more your blog content connects, the better your user experience (how your readers behave on your site—and if they’re having a good time or a not-so good time). The better your user experience, the better your conversions.

#2. Brainstorm Blog Post Ideas

Before you even start thinking about how many posts you want to publish per month, start brainstorming post ideas! You’re going to aim for at least 4-5 posts (a few more will help when we get to the next step). Think about things your audience needs to know about what you do.

For brainstorming, you can look for blog post ideas by:

• Looking at what your competitors are publishing
• Googling your ideas and seeing what pops up
• Taking your ideas through the “what, why, where, who, what, how”
• Analyzing your past content on other platforms for key ideas you can reuse

Remember, this isn’t your finalized post list, just write down whatever you’re thinking! You can clean it up later!!

#3. Research Your Keywords

There are two main things you need to keep in mind when planning your blog content:

1. Everything needs to connect (and backlink) to each other
2. Good keyword research can go a long way to get you on Google

Using your brainstorm, pull out potential keyword ideas. Keywords can be full questions or short statements—test both!! You want to find keywords that have low difficulty with some volume so you have a realistic chance of ranking AND you know people are searching for it.

I highly recommend signing up for a trusted keyword research tool, my personal favorite is Mangools, they have a user-friendly interface for keyword research AND they’re more affordable in the world of SEO tools. You do not need the AI portion of the tool (so make sure you turn off the option to pay for it) → you can sign up for it here!

#4. Choose When (and How Frequently) You Want to Publish a New Blog Post

The reason you choose how frequently you want to publish after coming up with ideas is because you’re coming up with the same number of blog posts no matter what (this helps with your SEO and planning ahead)—it doesn’t matter whether you’re posting one of them a month or three a week.

When it comes to publishing your blog posts, it’s important to pick a cadence you can realistically maintain. For example, while I would love to publish two posts per week—I don’t have time to make that happen.

What I can do, however, is plan to publish once per week. The same applies to you.

Choose a cadence that works for your business and lifestyle. If you start getting stressed-out over publishing a new post, you’re not going to want to publish a new post.

#5. Keep Everything Organized in a Blog Post Planner

You have 984353489 things to do in a day, let’s not sit here and pretend you can memorize your entire blog content plan (I know I can’t). Keep your content organized in a planner!! I love using Airtable for this (and you can even snag my OWN template here—or get it free when you snag the “Better Than AI” Blog Content Planner)

This also allows you to keep up with your keyword research, what you’re promoting in whatever blog post, AND when you want to hit publish on your post!

Why You Shouldn’t Rely on AI to Plan Your Blog Posts

So, what’s the issue with plugging in all your information and asking AI to come up with a blog content plan? Well, it doesn’t have the data nor the context. It doesn’t know what your audience is searching—it’s guessing.

When you follow the planning steps above, you’re constantly considering what your audience needs (which is a requirement to rank), how your content interacts, and you’re doing the proper keyword research…the kind that has real data behind it.

Still not convinced? I tested AI not too long ago, and you can watch the full thing here:

What’s Next? Writing Your Blog Posts & Keeping Up With Your Content Plan

Now you know how to plan blog content that ranks, you still have to write the content. Of course, to get the most out of your research and get the best chances for ranking on Google, you’ll need to follow SEO best practices within your post content, too.

This is basically providing further context for and around your keyword and content to make sure Google (and other search engines) know exactly where to rank you in search and for who.

Once you rinse and repeat this process a few times, you’ll have unlimited blog post ideas—and they’re all what your audience is actually searching for.

Want to make it even easier? Get the “Better Than AI” Blog Planner & Mini Course → you’ll never have to wonder what to post, when to post it, and if it’ll rank ever again!! Click here to learn more!