How to plan your company blog editorial calendar for 2020

Raubi Marie Perilli 27/11/2019

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Stay on track

One of the most difficult parts about running a company blog is regularly publishing posts. It’s extremely easy to forget about an assignment, quickly fall behind and fail to post. But there is a way to stay on track. It’s by using a robust, annual blog editorial calendar.

An annual blog editorial calendar allows you to lay out your entire year’s worth of blog post assignments, schedule dates far in advance and carve out time in your upcoming schedule to make sure all of the blog posts get done.

So as you go into 2020, set your company’s blog on the right path and create an editorial calendar that will keep your team on track and your blog filled with content.

How to create a blog editorial calendar

Every company’s editorial calendar will look different based on their unique needs and team. But all businesses can follow these five steps as they lay out their editorial calendar.

Decide where your editorial calendar will live.
Decide how often you want to publish.
Include relevant blog post details on your editorial calendar.
Assign each person involved with the blog post.
Work backward to assign deadlines.

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1. Decide where your editorial calendar will live

The first step is laying out your editorial calendar. This can be created in something as basic as a spreadsheet or as complex as an editorial planning tool.

As you choose which platform is right for your company, consider how many people will need to access the calendar and how you would like to manage collaboration. Also, look at how many posts you will produce and how robust your calendar will need to be.

A few popular blog editorial calendar platforms to try are:

2. Decide how often you want to publish

At the very least, a company should publish one blog post per month (at least one post per week is much better). But, there is no magic number for how often a company should publish posts. You need to choose what is right for your organization based on your goals and resources.

Consider the following factors as you lay out your publishing schedule.

Start with a schedule of once a month, and then decide if you can publish more than that. Don’t push past what you realistically think you can publish. It’s better to publish regularly and infrequently than to publish a lot of content sporadically.

Consider your resources. If you have a budget for writers, how many posts can you afford? If you’re relying on an internal team, can you get them to commit in writing to meet deadlines and hold them accountable for delivery?

Look at your competitors. If you have no idea how often to publish, look at your top competitors and see how often they publish. Start with this benchmark to compete closely with others in your industry.

Consider your goals. If your goal is to drastically increase traffic to your website, then you might need to publish more often. If your goal is to have content to send in a monthly newsletter, you may need less content.

3. Include relevant blog post details on your editorial calendar

Start to lay out what information will be included with each post. In your blog editorial calendar, include fields or columns for:

Topic: In one to three words, describe the general theme or concept of the post.
Title: Come up with a draft title which explains the idea for the post. Keep in mind that the title might change during the writing process.
Keyword: Assign the target keyword that the post will be optimized for using blog post SEO.
Abstract: Write a brief overview of what should be included in the content. Be more specific if multiple teams of writers will be receiving assignments.
Resources: Include any relevant information or links that will help the writer create the content.
Audience: If you have more than one target audience, define which audience the post will target.
Call-to-action: Every blog post should be designed to lead the reader to take the next step toward doing business with you at the end of the content. Define what that next step is by labeling the call-to-action for the post (which could be to schedule a free consultation, read another post, get a free eBook, etc.).

Pro tip: Instead of describing the audience in detail for each post on your blog editorial calendar, create a buyer persona that identifies who the post will target.

4. Assign each person involved with the blog post

A blog production schedule might include one or many people depending on the size of the company and structure of the organization. Consider who will need to come in contact with the blog post during all of its phases of production, and create a place in your editorial calendar to assign to each person. The blog post may come in contact with:

Writer
Editor
Graphic Designer
Quality Assurance
Manager for Approval
Legal for Approval
… etc.

5. Work backward to assign deadlines

Once you know all of the people who will work on the blog post and how many steps it will go through before it’s published, you can start to fill your editorial calendar with dates.

Start with the date you want to publish and work backward to assign due dates for each step of the process. To make sure you can stick to your deadlines, give a large cushion of time, such as a week or at least three days, for each step of the process.

Find ideas for your blog editorial calendar

Now that you know how to structure your blog editorial calendar, it’s time to fill it in with post topics. Here are five ways to find inspiration if you’re looking for 12 or hundreds of post ideas.

1. Look at important dates for your brand

Start by synching your blog editorial calendar with a schedule of what is going on with your company. Talk to management and pinpoint important dates throughout the year. Those dates might be related to:

Promotions and specials
New product or service launches
Company events
Your company’s birthday or big anniversaries

Plan content that will need to be launched around those important dates.

2. Look at holidays

Next, look at important dates around the holidays. Consider top holidays and how they impact your business. Decide if you want to engage in any holiday marketing through your blog, and plan if you want to release warm wishes posts or other fun themed holiday content.

3. Look at social holidays

Don’t just focus on nationally recognized holidays. Also look at a calendar of fun “social” holidays, which are unique days often celebrated on social media through hashtags. Days like #NationalHatDay or #NationalCheeseLoversDay can give you fun inspiration for posts and also help you promote your post when it’s published.

4. Look at your analytics

As you plan future content, look to your past content. Consider your website analytics and look at what posts performed well in the past. Give readers more of what they already like. Develop ideas that expand on popular topics and themes.

5. Do keyword research

Do more research to find topic ideas by performing keyword research. Use keyword tools to find popular phrases that your target audience uses in searching. Create blog topics that target those themes, terms and keywords.

Publish great content

If you go through these steps, you can create an editorial calendar that will keep your blog filled with great content, help you never miss a deadline, and give your readers relevant content they want to read.

Now that you know how to create a blog editorial calendar that will be filled with great blog posts ideas for 2020, refresh your skills on how to write great posts. Check out “How to write a great blog post” and get ready to take your content marketing game up a notch.

Image by: Cristian S. via Unsplash.

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