You’ve decided that your company needs a website and have already setup a domain. Now you’re in the process of also setting up a weblog. Of course, even a small business weblog needs articles - more so than maybe your main website. If you want to provide your readers better quality articles and not just random posts, make your life easier by developing an editorial calendar. While editorial calendars live mostly in the print world, they can be greatly beneficial for a managing a long-term weblog.

What

Traditionally, an editorial calendar essential lists the topic/ theme for a given issue of a print publication. It’s simply a month by month breakdown of the scheduled themes. Each issue might be broken down further into sub-topics.

Why

In the print magazine world, an editorial calendar serves several primary purposes:

1. Editors can slot proposals toward specific issues and assign concrete deadlines. While a general content plan lists all the topics a publication might ever cover, the editorial calendar says, “August will be about Entrepreneurs Under 30.” Editors can then decide on feature topics and supporting topics for each issue.
2. Gives the ad sales teams a chance to presell pages to relevant advertisers and have ad copy ready to go on time.
3. Advertisers often will get a discount for buying in bulk and in advance, and the calendar helps them to decide whether to buy one month or six.
4. Freelance and staff writers can plan and research in advance, then propose an article to editors.

An additional benefit is cohesion of topics in a given issue for readers. Readers do like themes in magazine issues, even if they are not aware of it.

Who

Typically, the editorial calendar is determined by the Editor in Chief (EIC), Managing Editor or Assistant Editor. Sometimes, though, the Publisher will dictate the general themes for a given year or two.

Where

The editorial calendar is mostly used by magazines, though some daily and weekly newspapers might use them. Department-wise, both the editorial and ad sales teams will be aware of the schedule. For the online world, you can use editorial calendars for websites, weblogs, linkbait, ebooks, viral campaigns and more.

When

Publications vary, but editorial calendars are often defined for a twelve-month period - normally from January to December, or possibly something resembling a publication’s fiscal year.

How

How do you develop an editorial calendar for a weblog? Here is a suggested step-by-step process:

1. Choose your weblog’s overall topic.
2. Brainstorm all the subtopics that you will want to cover over time. You can even use a mindmap to brainstorm.
3. Produce a list of tenative article titles. Whether you produce the articles or hire a blogger, the list will remind you of general areas of interest.
4. Choose a schedule for feature articles. Regular blog posts don’t really have to be schedule, unless you want to run weekly themes and have enough material to do so.

Ultimately, for a weblog, an editorial calendar simply serves as a guideline for research and writing of feature articles and supporting articles. When you know what’s coming up, is much easier to research. You can change the schedule if you like, or produce editorial calendars spanning a single month instead of a year - ahead of time of course.

I came accross this video on YouTube that shows how hypothetically Microsoft might deal with their naming and branding excersise. This makes sense when you look at Microsoft products that line the shelfs at your local software store. They are so confusing and consumers really find it difficult to chose the right product. It is hillarious and does really demonstrate the difference between how Apple and Microsoft view branding.

PS: We too faced a similar situation in terms of how our brand and our services were expressed on our website. Our current website design (version 7) and service structure is a result of trimming out excess fat and needless graphics and design elements from the previous design. Here are a few tips to improve your website design. Prior to version 7, our website, brand representation and packaging was chaotic and directionless. Hopefully our new site design is step in the right direction.

Please do share your experiences with simplifying design and/or packaging.

I read a interesting post on Seth Godin’s blog on logos. Seth compares the 3 most popular logos of all time - Nike, Star Bucks and Apple and how much the companies paid to get those logo developed, to the ridiculous amount that went into developing the London 2012 disaster logo.

Seth says that if you are picking out a logo then you should look “an abstract image that is clean and simple and carries very meaning–until your brand adds that meaning”. I agree to a certain extent. But if you look at the average small business owner who is just getting started, spending time on developing a “brand” might be the toughest thing they can do. If they start out with a logo that is too asbtract or too simple with out any clear meaning or message then it becomes that much more difficult to start creating an impact with the target audience.

Take the case of Jason, one of our clients, who is launching a new “coffee roasting” business in Hamilton, Missouri. All Nite Roasters would be an interned based Coffee Roasting Company dedicated to absolute quality and service above all other things. They are seeking a very unique and strong image to distinguish their company from their competition. Being internet based their only retail presence will be their web site. It must be strong, professional, well executed. Even though they are not a million dollar company there is no reason not to put forth the best image that they can afford.

For Alll Nite Roasters, the logo would play an important part in communicating not only what they do but more importantly to stand out from other coffee roasting comnanies that are more “brick and mortar” and less of “100% online based”. All Nite Roasters is entering a niche market. If we started out with an abstract image in their logo that does not convey what they do - roast coffee - would mean that Jason would have to invest more time and money into trying to convery this message. Of course it could be argued that the company names explains what they do. But I am talking about boradcasting the logo on coffee bags for example.

We came up with this memorable logo with a coffee bean comet in a cup to instantly convey the meaning of “roasting”. The background night sky supports the name. Jason wanted to be different from the rest of the coffee roasting market. He chose a name that is definetly different and we created a logo that would definetly stand out. Here is another logo example of another company that actually sells coffee to the consumer.

Of course a company logo design also has to evelove and mature over time. Take the case of how Canon’s logo developed into it’s current form or how Visa overhauled their company logo.

Visual elements of a better website go beyond just a good logo design and includes formatting the text of your articles. If your website/ weblog’s pages are looking a little text-heavy and dense, there are some relatively easy ways to improve your look without having to be a typesetting or CSS expert. The rules of typesetting for computer screens are not that different than for print, but there are some nuances, and you have the benefit of special HTML tags and CSS code to make life easier en masse.

1. Font size.
   Try for 11 or 12 pt as your base body text font. Not all your readers are in their 20s. Eyesight does start to slip, albeit slowly, after 30. The difference is that a computer screen is much farther from your face than the average book. So you have to factor in that distance. Not doing so guarantees you’ll lose those readers who don’t know how to increase font size on their browser. Even that is unreliable because some themes/ templates do not handle that well.
2. Font family.
   The problem with computer screens is that very few fonts look good on them. Older research by Microsoft shows that Verdana, a sans serif font, works well for body text on screen. Some designers say that any font works if it’s large enough, but serif fonts can look really blocky onscreen. Compare this to print, where serifs such as Times Roman are preferred.

   On the other hand, serif fonts such as Georgia are okay for onscreen headings. Jim Whimpey suggests that only three fonts look good onscreen: Verdana, Georgia, and Lucida Grande. Poynter Online also suggests Trebuchet. These four tend to be available on most home computers, so most readers will see text render they way the author meant them to be.

3. Line leading.
   Leading refers to the amount of vertical space used for each line of text in an article. The general rule of thumb is that increase in leading should be proportional to increase in width of the line of text. This is one primary reason why you should avoid “fluid” width web page templates/ themes, despite the fact that owners of gigantic monitors seem to love them. Keep in mind that even if readers are not aware of it, too little leading makes for reduced concentration for longer articles, and can even give some people headaches. You can control leading in CSS code: line-height: 1.25em;.
4. Character tracking.
   Space between characters is important. Characters should not touch, but neither should they be overly far apart.
5. Single space after punctuation.
   Word processing and weblog software handle spacing differently. Use only one space between sentences.
6. Paragraph spacing.
   In addition to line leading, you can control the amount of vertical space between any two paragraphs. This can be done in a number of ways, including tweaking your paragraph CSS code.
7. Right-ragged or justified text.
   Whether you use right-ragged (aka left-aligned) or fully-justified text depends on a couple of factors: the width of your articles and the length of the average word in your writing. Try both types of justification with a number of articles and see what looks better.
8. General whitespace.
   Not everyone agrees that lots of whitespace is good. It’s generally fine in print, and is a good idea onscreen. However, too much whitespace surrounding text can also make the text look isolated. Generally speaking, you can control whitespace around text and other elements using “padding” in CSS.
9. Attractive blockquotes.
   If you tend to quote other sources regularly, making blockquotes look better takes a few simple tweaks in CSS. This includes:
   • Adding lines - with or without color.
   • Using a different font.
   • Using italics.
   • Adding a light colored background.
10. Callouts.
    In print, callouts - aka pullquotes - were used to fill column space. If you have two or more columns in your typesetting, you don’t want a big gap at the end of the rightmost column. Callouts served to take care of this. They also add a bit of visual texture, and work quite well onscreen, if handled properly.

    Here’s a rough guide to callouts using CSS - works for most weblog platforms. Chris Pearson also has a more indepth discussion of how to do pullquotes, which includes using blockquotes, divs and spans. Pullquotes are a direct quote of actual text in your article. Callouts need not be.

11. Harmonious color palette.
    If you’re a non-designer like myself, you may be able to tell when colors look good together but don’t know how to get there. Color Theory has a lot of rules, and can take years to master. ColorBlender is a nice, easy tool for generating a set of six colors patches that are harmonious. Each resulting palette’s color codes are given in both RGB and Hex.
12. Headlines.
    Improving your web pages can be as simple as modifying your article headlines. Or simply using sub-headlines. To do the latter means writing articles that can be sectioned off. Headline tweaking can include
    • using different HTML headline tags,
    • using a different font,
    • uppercase letters,
    • text color, or
    • more space between characters.
13. Custom comment blocks.
    If your site allows visitors to leave comments, consider customizing the comment blocks. This could include
    • alternating indentation,
      a font different from the article’s body text,
    • lightly colored backgrounds
    • numbering of comments sequentially,
    • alternating text colors in consecutive comments,
    • special icons (scroll down to the comments),
    • avatars, and
    • photos.
14. Bullet lists.
    Bullet lists are an ideal way to break up text visually. This in turn allows readers to quickly scan and absorb a lot of information, provided your bullet lists are used properly.
15. Colored links.
    Hyperlinks can be customized in several ways:
    • Remove the underline.
    • Change the color of the underline and/or the anchor text.
    • Change the color of visited links
    • Use a different color when a mouse cursor hovers over a link.
    • Add a light background to the text, possibly on hover.
    • Add a border.

    All of these add visual texture to text. You can even use several of these simultaneously on the same page.

There is of course more to website page improvement than just these tips, which have only touched superficially on the how-to aspects. However, they give you some options you can explore further. A deeper understanding will require some knowledge of CSS code, which we’ll touch upon in future articles.

After some consideration and research, you’ve decided to that your business should have a weblog. Creating and managing a weblog is very similar to publishing and editing a magazine, which requires planning and execution stages. Here are some stages that you should go through to setup your business weblog, aka blog.

1. Choose a domain name.
   Ideally, you want an easy to remember domain name, preferably one based on your company name. Ajaxwhois is a nice, quick way to check availability of a domain and its TLD (Top Level Domain) variations. E.g., example TLDs are .com, .net, .org, .us, etc.

   On a related note, there’s money in domain names. If you already have a website, your blog should be set up on the same domain. However, you could buy a few relevant domains based on keywords important to your business and have them “point” to your primary domain. [More about this in the future.] If you choose well, you might even flip them for a profit in the future. Though at this stage, you shouldn’t buy existing domains at a premium - just register new ones.

2. Plan your blog team and content.
   Because a business blog is different than a personal blog, it requires a team - however small or large, guidelines for content and its approval, as well as a schedule and editorial calendar. The latter is not strictly necessary, though aiming at a series of articles instead of typical blog posts may be more effective.
3. Setup.
   If you need some help, Daily Blog Tips provides an index of forty articles relating to setting up a WordPress blog - including configuration, themes, validation, plugins, and analytics.
4. Start writing.
   Ready to go? Start writing and posting, based on your schedule and editorial calendar.
5. Maintenance.
   Maintenance is one thing that was never part of a print publication. For a blog, however, it’s necessary. Remember to backup your blog regularly, as well as the files on your web server.
6. Measurement and analysis.
   Print publishers always measure their reach, number of subscriptions, number of copies sold per issue, and other metrics. Web publications require similar metrics, followed by analysis. Proper analytics helps determine the effectiveness of your weblog.
7. Improvement.
   What is analysis if you don’t apply it? Improving your blog should be part of your schedule. This could be as simple as adding more relevant content and choosing better fonts, or applying a full-blown SEO (Search Engine Optimization) campaign.