How to Build a Kickass Editorial Calendar for Your Blog

[UPDATED FOR 2023] 

Your company finally started a blog, and it’s going great! The comments are trickling in, lots of new contacts are subscribing to notifications, and you have a steady weekly posting schedule laid out. But now you’ve hit a bump – it’s hard to keep up with the topics you’ve already written on and those that you should write about in the future.

How can you keep your topics organized? How do you make sure your marketing team is organized and that topics are not repeated? How can you delegate buyer persona targeting in your content? Here’s the perfect solution: building an editorial calendar!

WHAT IS AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR?

An editorial calendar is a visual representation of your company’s content marketing tasks that are based on your blogging strategy. It makes it easy for your marketing department to keep track of subject matter, buyer persona, cadence, themes, and more that might impact your content marketing calendar.

Unlike a content calendar, an editorial calendar looks at the big picture and then breaks it down into content themes and topics. Think of it as a blueprint for all of your content plans. 

RELATED: BEYOND YOUR BLOG: CONTENT THAT BOOSTS ENGAGEMENT

WHAT ARE THE BEST PRACTICES WHEN USING AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR FOR YOUR BLOG?

It’s important to realize that an editorial calendar is usually a work in progress. Content marketers must tweak it constantly to find a strategy that works for them. However, there are aspects that one should always consider when creating a calendar.

1. PUBLISHING FREQUENCY

Your editorial calendar should reflect how often you plan on publishing content (daily, weekly, monthly). Creating the calendar around your publishing schedule makes it easy to visualize it and break it down based on timelines.

2. NUMBER OF USERS

How many people will be using the editorial calendar? If you’re creating one for the marketing department, brainstorm and collaborate with the other users. You should also make a provision for the stakeholders to give real-time feedback on it.

3. TYPE OF CONTENT

If you create more than one type of content, you have to find a visual way of distinguishing them. For example, you can color-code YouTube videos with red, Facebook posts with blue, and Instagram posts with purple.

RELATED: WHY YOUR INDUSTRIAL BUSINESS NEEDS A BLOG, TOO

4. THE COMPLEXITY OF THE CONTENT PIPELINE

How many stages does your content go through before it is published? If the review process is substantial, make sure there is an effective way to distinguish what content is in different review stages including approval status

5. ORGANIZATION FORMAT

Go for a format that aligns with your team’s workflow and organizational goals. The different formats include:

• Spreadsheets.
• Traditional calendars or calendar apps.
• Content management apps.

HOW DO I BUILD AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR THAT WORKS FOR MY BLOG?

A one-size-fits-all approach does not apply when it comes to editorial calendars. You have to create one that is specific to your unique organization’s needs.

1. Come up with a blogging schedule — determine how often you’re going to be writing and ensure it is consistent. Writing one blog a month, consistently, is way better than writing three blogs in a week and following it with a dry spell of two months.
2. Identify your target audience — map out your ideal customer and the stages in the buyer funnel. This will help you determine the type of content to write.
3. Create the blog categories — create at least five categories of niches that your target audience is interested in. They should be fairly broad but specific to your industry.
4. Map your content  – Identify stages in buyer personas, buying journey to ensure all stages are covered within the time frame
5. Do your keyword research – Integrate SEO strategies by incorporating relevant keywords into your content. Plan content around high-performing keywords to improve search engine visibility.
6. Come up with blog post ideas — create at least ten blog posts based on the categories created. Make sure they are helpful to your customers. AI can be especially helpful with this task because it can come up with industry topics and inspiration for you to build up. 
7. Map out all special events — this includes holidays or events that you’ll attend. Make sure there is content around them.
8. Time to create the calendar — organize all of the above information in a visual framework that is easy to understand.

RELATED: 8 BEST WAYS TO REPURPOSE CONTENT IN 2023

LET YOUR EDITORIAL CALENDAR WORK FOR YOU

Editorial calendars make content creation extremely easy! Make sure you keep track of your calendar and update it regularly so that you never run out of content. Our content team would love to help you create a game-changing editorial calendar. Contact us today!