Keeping track of fresh content can be a struggle for a business website. Getting the content written is hard enough, without all of the extra factors to take on board. Not only do you have to track down those 250 to 500-word chunks of text, you have to make sure the subject matter slots in with your SEO strategy, that the right keywords are placed at the right time and that your users will find it interesting.

Your SEO consultant should be able to help you to plan for future content, and you can consult our experts at SEO Consult for content planning. It’s vital to know how the content is going to support your SEO strategy, so plotting out keywords and publication dates is a must. However, this all pales in comparison to the incredible effort it takes to get the words hammered together

Fresh content production can feel overwhelming. That’s why a lot of businesses have stolen an old trick or two from the traditional publications industry. The ‘editorial calendar’ concept is one of these.

An editorial calendar is a method of plotting out articles that has been used in the magazine industry for decades. Unlike newspapers, magazines need to know what their issues are going to contain months in advance. While their need has more to do with forewarning an advertising sales team than it does about serving their audience, the magazines have inadvertently developed a tool that serves the blogosphere well.

There are already a few bloggers out there that use an editorial calendar. It’s just as helpful in the blogging industry to know what’s coming up as it is in the magazine world. There are only a few smart businesses that use one for their business blog.

An editorial calendar works in a fairly straightforward manner. Set up a spreadsheet or other calendar-friendly program, and note down the particular topics you want your content to feature for different times. Having a calendar for content makes it easier to note down industry events for the creation of timely content, and entire articles can be plotted within the calendar itself, providing thorough notes for the writer.

The advantages of such a tool are also quite simple to understand. It’s much easier to perform research for articles when you have advance warning. It also gives you a chance to plot the design side of your content more thoroughly, doing things such as acquiring images to accompany the content. It allows you to plan more easily, and more thoroughly.

The key word in these advantages is, of course, ‘plan.’ Not only does an editorial calendar allow you to plan ahead in practical matters, it forces you to get your content plan particularly straight for the weeks ahead. It’s all very well to sit down with your SEO expert to plot out how you’re going to implement your search engine optimisation strategies, but specificity is the key to achieving consistent and well-thought-out content.

Having an editorial calendar can also help you recognise patterns and trends. If you plot out that your site will feature a certain type of content on set days, such as an image-based story on a Wednesday, and your traffic increases, you can easily connect the two. Your business should study trends as a matter of course, but having an editorial calendar on hand makes it easier to analyse the traffic data.

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