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FRANCIS BACONNET
|Multimedia Creation|
Web and internet blog » How to create an editorial calendar
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At the beginning of this year, I think back to my assessment of the previous year and remember that the results obtained with my website are certainly due to a set of actions and quality articles but above all to the management of these articles and their referencing by search engines.

From an organizational point of view, as a good manager, I will have to reveal my work trick: the editorial calendar!

Interested in an explanation of the Editorial Calendar?

As you can see on my website which is constantly evolving, articles called Content Marketing are published as regularly as possible because the publication rate is important for SEO…

As a writer, regularity of publication is a very important point in SEO.

For this I use a tool to manage my design via Google Sheets that I call an Editorial Calendar to manage guess what: my editorial line!

With time and especially the work of writing and managing social networks, it was time to turn this Article Production Calendar into an editorial calendar.

This is what I realized at the beginning of the year 2021.

Using Google tools to prepare my publications, I created a powerful project planning tool to do inbound marketing.

So the Editorial Calendar allows me to manage my publications on my audio, video and web blogs, on my social networks, on my YouTube channel, my newsletter, my news, my backlinks and my promotional campaigns…

That’s a lot, isn’t it?

No because it is above all organization to know :

  • What is my target audience?
  • What are the objectives of the article? For example:
    1. Gain visibility
    2. Subscribe to the newsletter.
    3. Encourage to download a white paper
    4. To suggest a service
  • Content theme and format:
    1. Blog post
    2. A brown bag page
    3. Facebook and others…
    4. Infographic
    5. Ebook, the list can be long…
  • The author of the content and the proofreading.
  • The date of publication
  • Publishing automation

Mon calendrier éditorial est devenu un outil indispensable pour structurer ma création de contenu. Ainsi j’ai une vision globale de ma stratégie de content and I optimize my organization without forgetting my SEO.

Editorial calendar and SEO!

And yes, and here we come to an area of work that I am passionate about, the SEO strategy.

Imagine that you publish articles without knowing your target audience, without linking your articles to your products or services by using keywords without any overview of your content, it will be difficult for you to optimize their natural referencing in the long term.

This is why the editorial calendar becomes a valuable ally.

Editorial strategy

With a good editorial strategy, I can focus my web content on keywords that my readers are looking for. I organize my publications with the idea of grouping my content by theme with a good internal linkage that allows me to link pages, services or products with the articles that contain calls to action.

5 steps to create an editorial calendar

Here are my 4 steps for creating your editorial calendar

  • Define your target audience

Often, when we create a blog, we do it in relation to our experience or know-how, or simply for information purposes, but before finding the subject to create content, it is important to know who we are addressing.

By knowing your targets it is possible to set up a relevant editorial strategy with content involving added value.

Your goal is to know who your ideal customer is, I invite you to find your buyer persona.

The advantage of the buyer persona is that it allows to draw a precise portrait of the prospects according to several criteria:

  • Information on the interested public.
  • The difficulties they face.
  • Their research.
  • Their interest in certain topics.
  • Visits to their favorite sites.
  • Their use of social networks…

The list can be long but this way it is possible to directly address readers with relevant content or engaging content whether it is via a blog post, newsletter or infographic on Pinterest for example.

Thus, in the editorial calendar, you can also define which topics are dedicated to the different targets.

2. What are your goals

Without an action goal, it will be difficult to implement a proper content strategy.

To tell the truth, what I publish has a precise goal and the objective is in adequacy with the target and the contents.

Below are some examples of goals:

  • Generate a large volume of traffic over the long term by leveraging the natural referencing of your articles.
  • Get short-term visibility, with a publication that will be shared en masse on social networks.
  • Get conversions with a landing page specific to an operation or sale.
  • Get subscriptions to your newsletter…

The list of goals can also be long. Don’t forget that in the stages of Inbound Marketing you have to attract, convert, sell and retain.

So your content must move your prospects through your conversion funnel.

3. Get ideas for topics

It’s good to write articles but how can you go fishing for relevant topics?

To do this, I have several techniques. Based on the needs and problems I have identified among my targets, I will list topics. I also use Google Analytics to see the most read articles and those that have had little audience in order to refine my content choices.

I also rely on feedback from my clients, comments on articles. Of course, I also look at what the competition is doing in case they have thought of a subject that I have forgotten. I must admit that I look at social networks or specialized forums to learn more about the questions of my prospects.

I analyze the requests of Internet users and the most important searches made on search engines. This allows me to identify potential targets and to identify requests that I can answer. This work requires the use of tools such as SEMrush, Ubersuggest or the site Answer the public which is very useful for me to propose quality content.

4. There are topics and good topics

When I work on topic research, I have for example for my audio blog about 50 topics!

But I have to classify and evaluate my audio topics to keep only 12 which represents 1 article per month and if I take the example of themes, in audio I have 3, Logic Pro, Ableton Live and tips and tricks. That’s 4 articles per theme every year.

The need to rank allows you to validate content ideas that correspond to a stage in the conversion funnel to generate traffic, encourage form filling, build loyalty, etc.

5. Topic integration

Here we are and this is where Google Sheets becomes interesting. Especially if you think about managing everything in your Google Drive.

How do I do it?

I simply create my table in Google Sheets and my articles in Google Docs.

The advantage is that I can create links in my table on the topic titles to access the Google doc of the article in question. A great option is to be able to share with another author or a proofreader.

les sujets liés dans le calendrier éditorial
Les liens en bleus sur les articles dans le calendrier éditorial

In Google Sheets I create columns for the following items:

  • The status with 3 icons
    • ✓ for published article
    • ↻ for article in progress
    • ☆ for article idea
  • The date of publication
  • Type of Publication
  • The topic
  • The URL in French
  • The URL in English because my site is in French and English
  • Automation for information that is very useful 😉
  • Author
  • Main keyword
  • Keyword difficulty
  • Targets
  • Goals
  • Categories :
    • News
    • Web Blog
    • LPX Blog
    • Live Blog
    • T&T Blog
    • Video blog
  • The social networks
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Google my Business
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube
    • TikTok

Isn’t that a bit much?

I don’t think so, because you mustn’t forget one thing: the editorial calendar is not fixed! It is essential to regularly monitor your content and its performance with Google Analytics for example. This allows you to identify articles that generate little traffic and topics that have a high conversion rate!

However, there is a trap to avoid: if some items work well one year, it does not mean that they will work well the next year because the needs of customers change…

My ongoing editorial calendar

I use my analysis to make adjustments and optimize my editorial planning regularly.

I don’t hesitate to delete topics that seem doomed to fail. And of course to work hard on the articles that work.

One important thing is to experiment with new ideas, to produce content, to keep up with new formats, new publishing channels…

Perfection as in everything does not exist, in an editorial strategy it must be regularly improved and reworked to keep up with current trends.

Welcome to the world of digital marketing 😉

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