Why An Editorial Calendar Can Help Make Your Blog More Productive

As a small business, online content productivity may not be at the top of your list of things to do. But in today’s online world, it should be.

If your website is sitting there accomplishing no more than a simple brochure, you are losing online customers and relevance. Blogging works. But its quality content that pushes you far above your competition. And if every blog post feels like the largest chore on your to-do list, it will be the one chore that is pushed to the wayside every time.

To increase your online content productivity, the easiest way is to start your own editorial calendar. Magazines do it. Large websites do it. Why not you?

To get started, you’ll need an easy two step process.

Step 1: Create a monthly editorial calendar of topics or themes for the coming year. This is your basic structure.

Step 2: Create a weekly editorial calendar for every month to flush out topics you want to go into more depth on.

That’s it. Easy enough, right?

The benefits of doing it this way are many, including:

Focus – This simple step means you can focus in on an entire years worth of promotions, which ultimately will help your business in more ways than one.

Perspective – Looking at one year at a time divided down by months gives you key goals and objectives for the entire year.

Consistency – Having a plan in place automatically gives you more likelihood you’ll follow through. Consistency wins the race every time.

Scalability – Whether you are a one person shop or a company with 50 employees, this easy system can add value to any size business.

Now lets get into how to set up your two step system.

Step 1: Monthly Calendar

Set up your calendar in a place you can refer back to it every week. You can start it for a calendar year, or simply start with the next full month coming up.  Choose a theme or topic for each month, and add in relevancy for what you’ll be doing with your business for that month. For example, a catering company may do a lot of parties during the month of December. They may choose “Planning Great Holiday Parties” as their November topic to start bringing in potential customers for the holiday season.

Be sure you choose a topic that has depth to it.  “Planning Great Holiday Parties” can easily be split out into a variety of different topics, giving you something to write about every day of the week.

Step 2: Weekly Calendar

With your year full of monthly calendar topics completed, its time to focus in and narrow down on what you truly wish to talk about.

Identify topics that provide ideas and details that fully support your monthly topics. With our “Planning Great Holiday Parties” in mind, let look at how this can be broken down into weekly ideas.

As a catering company, they may work with individuals for home holiday parties, holiday weddings, offices for holiday luncheons, and large companies for large corporate holiday parties. If these are their four sources of primary business leads, they can incorporate each of these topics into week long themes. From there its easy to see how you can write anywhere from one to five articles on each individual topic.

Above all, remember your editorial calendar is a work in progress. While you should always have your weekly calendar completed a month or so out, you can make changes as you go along. If you discover a new niche you would like to pursue, or suddenly offer a new product or service, it’s easy to change direction, and keep everything in your online content system on track.

Your calendar system will only be as good as the time you put into it. Don’t do this in a rush and forget about it. Instead, dedicate time to it and get it as complete as possible. If you write, it will aid you in your daily tasks. If you outsource it and hire a ghost blogger to do it, it will be an easy way to keep you both on track, relevant, and on topic to help you with your business throughout the year.

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Why Creating Blog Content Is So Difficult

Have a blog? Then you probably understand how difficult it can be coming up with new things to write about again and again. And again.

You probably started out with good intentions. You wrote faithfully day after day, week after week. Until life got in the way.

And then things changed.

A client had an “emergency”, which means everything else was put on hold while you put that fire out.

Or you took a long weekend with four days off. And of course that meant playing catch up for the next week – and the blogging was put on hold.

Or maybe you had every intention of writing. You were even poised at the computer, hands above the keyboard ready to type. What do you type about? After surfing aimlessly for 30 minutes with no concrete idea in mind, you eventually shut everything down.

Yep, writing can be difficult. Especially if writing isn’t your favorite thing to do. In fact, people usually come up with three reasons why blogging is hard for them:

1. Thinking of things to write about is difficult

2. Finding the time to blog is difficult

3. Writing in a responsive manner is difficult

You probably see yourself in one of those three statements. All can be legitimate reasons for holding you back, and not accomplishing what you set out to do.

Yet all can have solutions as well if you put your mind to it.

Thinking of Ideas

Lets start with a few tools to come up with things to write about.

What do your clients think?
Clients are always filled with ideas and can help you come up with dozens of new topic ideas. As you are meeting them, whether its for the first time in a pre-sales consultation, a client meeting, or a follow up conversation, have a pen and paper handy and write down their questions and comments.

If you see questions popping up again and again, this is a sure indication of a place your clientele needs more education. And a perfect place to start writing and creating blog content.

30 days
There is something about brainstorming that works well, no matter what you are trying to accomplish. If I asked you to come up with one thing you want to do around your home this weekend, you would probably stop to think about it. But if I asked you to give me 30 things you want to do around your home this summer, I’m sure the list would quickly form itself.

One thing is concrete. You must settle on the one thing you wish to do, which puts importance and relevance on that one project. So you stop to think about it to determine if that is the best thing you could do with your time.

Yet by coming up with a list of 30 items, there is no measurement in place. It’s a “wish list”, even if you have every intention of completing all tasks. 30 times also allows you to put things together and build off of a previous idea. Things naturally go together and feed one item into the next when you are giving it your full attention.

Give it a try. You’ll see how easy the ideas pop into place.

Finding the time

Once you have ideas in mind, the next part is scheduling the time to actually create your blog content.

If you have a client meeting, you put it on the schedule and are in place waiting for when they arrive. If you have a doctor’s appointment, you leave your home or office in time to drive over and check in on time – all thanks to putting a note on your calendar.

Why don’t you schedule the time you need to write as well?

If you make writing a priority – and it should be; it is a marketing tool – then you’ll create the time to do it.

Creating responsive content

And finally it may come down to the thought of having to create blog content that is motivational, attracts visitors that want to read what you wrote, and motivates them to take action.

You never liked English class in school, and it takes you hours to write a simple letter. Do you really want to try and create fresh content on a regular basis?

In today’s world, its not a necessity to do it all by yourself. In fact there is an easy way to have great content on a timely basis – you get the credit and do little of the work.

Its called ghost blogging. A writing expert creates content targeted towards your niche and market, and you get all the credit.

If you can’t write, hate writing, or simply don’t have the time, what could be better?

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How To Be An Effective Content Writer

What makes a storyteller great? It’s the same thing that makes a content writer great – they understand how draw you in and make you believe.

My daughter has been blogging this summer, and she came to me this week with a statement I hear from people all the time. “I have nothing more to write about.” So we started talking.

Her belief stemmed from thinking that because she started a story on another blog post, she couldn’t use the same thoughts again in the current one she was writing. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When a person finds your blog post, they are usually coming in on that blog post. Which means they’ve been pointed to your post via Twitter or Facebook, the search engines, or maybe your newsletter. In any case, they don’t live and breathe your business like you do. So they don’t know that three weeks ago you wrote a post on something similar, and essentially started your story. You can tell them:

“Three weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about …” and then hyperlink it over to your post so they can read if they choose to do so. But they don’t know the beginning to the story unless you tell them.

Every post is a single thought.

Every post is a single story.

Every post should have a beginning, middle and end.

And if you infer previous knowledge into your post, you’ll likely lose and confuse your reader. Which is the last thing you want to do if you are trying to gain a following, and gain new customers.

Before you start your next blog post, ask yourself a series of questions:

  • What do I want to teach in this post?
  • What knowledge do people need to understand before reading my post (if any)?
  • Can I hyperlink them to other pages on my site, or throughout the web in order to make my point stronger?
  • Can I use pictures or graphics to provide a visual to what I’m talking about?
  • Does my title sufficiently state what my post will be about?
  • Does my post tell a story, and have a beginning, middle and end?

If you think about the best movies, or the best books you’ve read, it’s probably because the picture was painted so completely, you almost felt you were there along side of the characters. The beginning gave you enough knowledge to become intimately involved with the characters. The middle provided some hurdle or some problem they needed to overcome. And the ending gave you the solution – a solution you could buy into and accept.

While a book is going to paint a much deeper picture than a blog post, on a smaller scale it’s a similar process. State the problem, and give a solution. Set the stage in the beginning to make you get involved with finding the solution. And allow people to get involved.

Whether you fill up your blog with content, or wonder how to Tweet or Facebook again and again without getting bored – or boring others – just remember it’s always about the story. Your story may be 140 characters long, or span 30 blog posts. It’s all content. And in order to make people want to read more, they have to come along on the journey with you. No matter how long the story needs to be.

And that’s the only way to become an effective content writer.

image source

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Being a Content Writer Means Writing For Your Visitors

What’s the hardest thing to do with a blog? Finding new things to write about on a weekly basis.

But in order to stay meaningful to your readers, and relevant to the search engines, being a content writer means doing exactly that – writing content. Content Writer

Keep these 5 tips in mind when you’re finding new things to write about.

1. What questions do people have when you’re out networking? These are informational ideas that would be great starter posts for your blog. Probably the most common question I get when out networking and talking about how to use social networking for your business is, “Why would people care what I have for lunch?” So that spurred my post on Social Copywriting.

2. What questions do your customers have? A recent client came back several months after we had developed her blog. She stated she still wasn’t having any results, even though she had been blogging for several months. One look at her blog gave me insight – and a reason to create my blog post on Blog Titles.

3.What resources are new in your field? When Sony released their Bloggie Camera earlier this year, we were one of the first in line to buy it – and share it on our site as a resource. If you’re blogging, this is a must have camera. Why not share it as a resource with our followers? What makes a great resource for your readers?

4. What can you teach? Every industry leader has a huge amount of knowledge they can share with their prospects and customers. It’s not about giving them all of the information they need to accomplish everything – it’s more about sharing your knowledge to showcase your expertise on your subject matter. How about a how-to section? You can write your content – or use your Bloggie to create a video.

5. Make people aware of what they might not know. Your customers don’t work in your industry, and don’t keep up with the latest happenings. Put simply, they don’t know what they don’t know. Which is why you are there to remind them of things. When they get that a-ha moment, and you’re the one that provided it, you’re more likely to remain in their minds. And become a valuable resource in their toolbox.

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Content Writing For Top Performance

What is the secret of content writing? How can you write content for your site in such a way that it attracts the attention of both your readers and the search engines?

Ultimately, it starts with your readers. When people come to your site, whether they’ve been reading for years, or have just found you through the search engines, you’re ultimate goal is to have them attracted to your writing style. content writing

In just a few moments, you want your reader to be able to really get into your story, see him or herself in your writing, and have the desire to move to the next level. To take action.

The easiest way to become better at writing is to create your blog posts like you would be telling a story to a potential customer. How would you speak to them?

“Selling isn’t fun and most people don’t enjoy it.”

You may agree with that sentence, but does it really motivate you to want to take the next step or to find out more about what the person is saying? Compare that to:

“Jane hated selling. She hated it so much she almost decided to close her business because of it. She loved working with the clients, making them happy, and following up with them after the sale. But it was always the initial meeting that made her nervous. She never wanted to come across as a used car salesperson. She didn’t want people thinking she was pushy.”

If you hate selling, you can instantly feel Jane’s pain. You can put yourself into her situation, and feel exactly what she’s feeling. You also want to read more of the story – what happens next? Does Jane shut down her business? Or does she find a solution?

That’s the way you want to write. Let your writers feel what you are talking about. Bring out the details. Describe the situation how someone looking in would see it. Describe it from one person’s point of view.

Great books always pull you in because they tell a story. They make you want to read further because you want to find out what’s next.

Do the same with your blog.

Do this with every post. And do it between different posts. Make people move from one spot to the next.

The more you can pull them in, the greater they will stick to your blog. And the bigger the chance of them becoming customers in the future.

[Need help with your own content writing skills? Why not hire a ghostwriter? We’ve been writing online and blog content for clients for over 8 years, and can help you reach out to your target audience, and find new ways of bringing in business.]

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