Why Every Blogger Should Have an Editorial Calendar

In order for you to have a blog that entices more and more traffic on a monthly basis, the key is to be consistent with your content and schedule ahead. The creation and management of content are essential parts of your digital marketing strategy.

On the one hand, there will be periods when you are posting quality content and number of your readers will be on the rise; on the other, there will be times when issues arise, slowing you down, ultimately taking you to a stage in which you are falling behind your schedule.

The best way to have a clear view of your blog’s progress is to have an editorial calendar which will help you follow a consistent schedule. Here are some of the benefits the editorial calendar can bring you.

It’s essential for an organized content marketing strategy

By having an editorial calendar, you can easily organize the publishing of your content on all your platforms, from blog posts to social media updates on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Once you have opted for a particular calendar template, set aside the time early in a month to create, plan out and schedule the content that’s going to be published. This includes social media posts with the latest articles from your blog, as well as re-sharing some of the older ones that is still relevant.

It helps you to be two steps ahead

The best way to maintain a content marketing strategy is to plan ahead, and having a comprehensive and structured content calendar is the best way to do this. It enables you to have a clear vision of all the steps of the content creation process, as you can see what’s up ahead and plan accordingly. You can easily have control over each segment of the process and determine necessary deadlines.

However, maintaining a content calendar is more than just setting up roll out dates for your articles. It is crucial for you to determine and plan out all the necessary steps, tasks and technicalities which are an essential part of the content publishing process.  If you notice at any time that you’re up for a challenge, cut the deadlines back a few days - quality trumps quantity at all times.

It helps you with link building

An editorial calendar is helpful with link building because it becomes a lot easier task when you have your blog content planned out ahead. It allows you to form a consistent and compact content marketing strategy, with the minimal crossing of the designated guidelines.

When we spoke with the guys from SEO reseller, they told us that when websites outsource their link building services, it is much easier for agencies to work on attaining links from high-quality leads when their clients have a content calendar. Same goes if you do your own link building. You know in advance what type of content you’ll have at your disposal, and can prepare accordingly.

Use it for email marketing and social media posts

If you use your calendar to combine your email marketing efforts with what you post on your blog or social media it will help you to see overlapping sections that you might miss out on otherwise. This could be a tweet that would be a good idea to embed in an email, or a campaign that would work out well on Facebook.

It would be a good idea for you to implement newsletter signup forms into your Facebook page, or integrate a MailChimp account with Twitter and Facebook so that your campaigns get automatically posted there. MailChimp’s social profiles enable you to target subscribers according to their activity on social media, and you can then connect with them via Facebook Custom Audiences or Twitter Tailored Audiences.

In summation

Having an editorial calendar is an essential part of your content marketing strategy. It’s not enough just to post quality content – you need to have a schedule and stay ahead of it. A good content calendar helps you anticipate all the necessary steps, including practices such as link building, email marketing and posting on social media.

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