Better Websites: Use an Editorial Calendar for Better Articles
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:
- 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.
- Gives the ad sales teams a chance to presell pages to relevant advertisers and have ad copy ready to go on time.
- 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.
- 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:
- Choose your weblog’s overall topic.
- Brainstorm all the subtopics that you will want to cover over time. You can even use a mindmap to brainstorm.
- 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.
- 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.