SEO Best Practices: Creating Content Calendars

We’ll let you in on a secret: no one is witty, clever, smart, engaging, or relevant all the time. That’s not the secret, this is: you can appear to be witty, clever, smart, engaging, and relevant all the time. The key is creating editorial content calendars. In essence, this is simply charting your social media content course for delivery to your blog, Twitter feed, Facebook page, or wherever else you consistently publish content. This keeps you from rushing around trying to find something to say, conquers writers’ block, and ensures a coherent approach to content that can help disseminate your message more effectively.

You can find online tools to help, including the WordPress Editorial Calendar, which has an interactive calendar layout of posts past and present. You can also create your own template, use a spreadsheet, or even use a literal calendar. Whatever your method, here are a few tips:

• Think about the types of content you need to produce. Blog posts, news items, photos, events, videos, tweets, and Facebook statuses can all be pre-planned.
• Consider the goal of each type of content. With a blog, for instance, it is to provide useful information. With Twitter, it is to engage the community. What type of content does this most effectively?
• Similarly, think about the audience for each medium and what their needs are.
• What is your brand message? How can you keep it consistent throughout various platforms?
• Who is going to be responsible for producing specific content? Make sure that each person on the content team (even if it’s one person!) is aware of responsibilities and deadlines.
• What types of events can you structure content around? Do you have a big annual sale? Do you need to produce content for the holidays? Are there industry events, like conferences or product launches, that need to be written about?
• How can you evaluate the effectiveness of specific content and modify planned content to reflect changes?
• Build in flexibility; you need to be able to respond to news, comments, crises, and other unplanned events.