Do you know what your company’s hardest working asset is? If you answered your business blog, you’re right! Chugging away 24/7, it drives traffic and leads to your website while increasing your search engine ranking to boot. However, far too many companies treat their blog like a 30-day challenge. Full of good intentions and enthusiasm at first, they’re sure they’ll keep up the effort going forward. But when the novelty 
wears off, regular postings tend to taper off. And then, the inevitable questions arise about why the blog isn’t delivering results long-term.
Successful company blogs require consistent content that provides value to readers. Why not put an editorial calendar to work for your blog and make your life easier? Here’s a tip. Traditional publishers have been relying on editorial calendars for years because they provide the necessary framework for publishing.
If you need further convincing, here are a few ways a blog editorial calendar will keep your blog on track:
- See the big picture. It’s easy to focus on week-to-week posts, but an editorial calendar provides a long-term overview, whether it’s monthly, quarterly or yearly. Maybe too much content is coming from marketing and not enough from support. Are numerous support calls coming in about the same issue? Maybe it’s time to offer up some guidance (hint, you can repurpose that blog post topic as a FAQ and post it elsewhere on your site too!)
- Align with your company goals. When is your company’s biggest trade show of the year? Are you announcing a new product? Let “friends and family” know so they don’t feel left out. Is there an industry trend, such as security or the Internet of Things, on which you want your audience to recognize you as a thought leader? Share a strategy perspective from the CEO.
- Plot your blog’s story arc. Some novelists call themselves plotters, some say they’re pantsers. A plotter comes up with at least a minimal outline of their story before they write, even if it’s no more than a sentence or two. A pantser sits down and sees where the muse takes them. Your business blog is your business story – it needs clear direction to interest readers.
- Deadlines are powerful motivators. When projects don’t have clear deadlines, it’s all too easy to move them down the to-do list. As New York Times bestselling author Rita Mae Brown says, “A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.”
- Reduce writer’s block. Speaking of inspiration, there’s nothing more terrifying to a writer than a blank screen. It can lead to the dreaded writer’s block, when you can’t think of what to write or how to proceed. With an editorial calendar, you already have a topic/idea. You may change it, but you have a starting point.
- Eliminate duplicate content. Hopefully, you’ve lined up multiple contributors for your blog. Great minds tend to think alike and if everyone submits articles on the same topic, you may end up with too much of a good thing.
An editorial calendar can be as detailed or simple as you like. Build and manage your editorial calendar using an Excel spreadsheet or a tool like Google Calendar, or even be totally old school and use pen and paper. Here are some suggested categories to include:
- Publish date
- Due date for copy
- Social media channels to promote your blog (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)
- Content contributor
- Category (development, support, marketing, executives, etc.)
- Notes or a brief description
- Analytics
When you invest resources and money in creating a business blog on your website, ask yourself why. Is it because (#1) everybody has a blog and content marketing is trendy? Or is because (#2) you want to provide valuable information to prospects and customers? If your answer is #2, then take the time to create an editorial calendar for your blog. Even pantsers can benefit from a little planning.