Web Content Strategy: 10 Benefits to Developing an Editorial Schedule

Feb 17
17:27

2014

Adam Bauthues

Adam Bauthues

  • Share this article on Facebook
  • Share this article on Twitter
  • Share this article on Linkedin

As you develop a web content strategy, it is necessary to start thinking of yourself as a publisher. Publishers have every single thing planned in advance based on the yearly cycle as well as their product cycle. They know up front exactly what type of content they need to create and produce for any given month and why. If you think more like a publisher, you're going to be much more successful in your web content strategy implementation.

mediaimage

As you form a web content strategy,Web Content Strategy: 10 Benefits to Developing an Editorial Schedule Articles it is necessary to start thinking of yourself as a publisher. Publishers have every little thing planned out ahead of time based on the annual cycle together with their product cycle. They know in advance precisely what kind of content they have to create and compose for any given month and why. If you think more like a publisher, you're going to be much more successful in your web content strategy execution.

1) Ability to Formulate a Theme

By utilizing an editorial calendar, you can develop an overall theme for the year or the quarter according to the products and/or services that you're advertising, as well as the time of year. Preparing it all in advance makes it easier to be prepared and formulate the ideas, content, and images that you desire to use to promote.

2) Makes It Easier to Find Your Voice

By planning out your web marketing year in advance, it means you will also be planning your product creation. If you offer services, you'll already know up front which services you'll be focused on. This will make it much easier to know what type of content to publish and in what tone you need it to be, because you'll understand ahead of time when you need it, and what it's for. When you have a web content strategy plan, finding your voice comes a lot easier.

3) Makes It Easier to Diversify Content

If you know ahead of time what the topic of your content needs to be, it will be easier to prepare different forms of content for your needs. You can plan ahead of time to produce blog posts, vlogs, videos, reports, and more, based off a selective subject or theme designed to market a particular product or service. By not doing it "on the fly," your content will be more natural and diversified.

4) Keeps the Content Ideas Flowing

By creating an editorial calendar, you actually create a situation where you make it easier to keep content ideas flowing. Some people believe planning makes content uninteresting, but the truth is, planning makes content useful, well-suited and enjoyable for your target market. It gives you time to compose relevant titles and outlines, to ensure that you get the message out that you want out.

5) Makes It Easy For You to Write Top-notch Content

By planning your content ahead of time, you have more time to make the content true top-caliber content that speaks to your audience. Whether you'll be preparing it and editing yourself, or hiring others to accomplish it for you, it is vital to plan in advance what sort of content will be needed in order to produce the highest quality content that you can.

6) Keeps Your Website on Topic

It is easy to get off topic sometimes if you haven't planned your web content strategy in advance. By jotting down what content you will be generating before you create it, you'll have time to kill ideas that slide off topic, or move them to the right time and place. If you try to produce content at the eleventh hour, you may end up with irrelevant content that has no purpose.

7) Functions as a Map to Help You Hit Your Goals

Your editorial calendar is similar to a GPS system or a map. You can examine it in one glance and see where you'll be in the future, and you can look more deeply into it and realize what you're supposed to be doing immediately. You won't go into each day without a clue of where you've been or where you're going.

8) Helps Boost Collaboration

Having a publication calendar that you make visible to the public can also help grow collaboration. If you allow for guest writers and bloggers, they can see your publication calendar and it will be easier for them to decide what to write, and allow them to plan their own web content strategy within your guidelines. Additionally, it will help your outsourcers and people who work with you understand the direction you're taking your business.

9) Attracts More Visitors

Having a set calendar as part of your web content strategy will make your content show up more regularly, thus increasing the rate of visitors to your website. Your audience will learn to expect certain content from you at certain times and will appreciate knowing when, what and where to go to see it and view it.

10) Establishes Expectations and Target Dates

Despite the fact that you are just setting deadlines for yourself, it is necessary to do so. If you have no expectations of yourself or others it will be hard to build a truly lucrative business. For instance, if you are growing a furniture business, but you can not ever tell anyone when the furniture will be completed, you won't ever have the opportunity to sell anything. Set expectations and target dates for yourself and anyone you outsource to; this will help you reach your goals.

Lastly, by using a publication calendar as a component your web content strategy, you will ultimately have a more organized and planned business that will make more money in the long run. Content that is distributed and marketed according to your editorial and/or publication calendar will see a lot more success than content that is haphazardly put out without any notion of a goal or a plan.