Arrange Your Content Schedule
With a voice in your head and a completed style guide in your hand, you're probably raring to start writin' up some content.
Whoa, there. Not so fast.
Good web writing doesn't just happen. It needs to be organized—especially if you're coordinating more than one person's efforts.
Novelists and poets have the luxury of time and solitude. But if you're writing online content for your business, chances are you're not cloistered in a drafty garret, waiting for inspiration to strike.
For most of us, writing is more a matter of getting it done—great quality (of course) delivered as efficiently as possible.
The key to getting it done?
Taking the time to plan before you write a single word.
Creating a content schedule (also known as an editorial schedule) is an important component.
What's a Content Schedule?
A content schedule is a timeline for your content.
It lists the deadlines and publication dates for content that you and your team will produce.
It can also go further and serve as a project plan, breaking down required tasks for each content item.
Ultimately, what you want is a calendar describing when and what you will produce and publish.
For example, if you have an email newsletter, you'll want to create a content schedule showing what you'll publish in each issue, and when you'll publish it.
Why Do I Need One?
As you can probably imagine, there are a few important reasons for this.
First, creating a schedule in advance helps you determine the ideal publication frequency.
For example, newspapers publish daily. Magazines usually publish monthly.
That's because each serves a different purpose; newspapers provide immediacy and magazines provide analysis.
Clearly, if newspapers published monthly, readers would ditch them. And if magazines published daily, the analysis would be inferior.
Similarly, creating the right schedule is essential to your marketing efforts.
For example, overwhelming your leads and customers with too many email newsletters can destroy your relationship.
But so can missing that touchpoint for too long, or bombarding them erratically.
A second key reason for creating and adhering to a schedule is making sure content gets completed on time.
Deadlines are powerful motivators.
And finally, creating a content schedule helps focus your writing.
You won't waste time creating random content that's irrelevant to your audience.
And if you're creating content for a client, a schedule keeps everyone's deadline expectations crystal clear—right from the start.
How to Create Your Content Schedule
Now that you appreciate the importance of a content schedule, here's how you can create one:
Step One: List Your Content Requirements
Determine what you need to write, based on your objectives, subject matter, target market and content map. (If you're rewriting content from an existing site, use your content inventory.)
Step Two: Determine Your Ideal Frequency
How often do you need new content? How often do you need to update content?
Determine what will best help you achieve your objectives. Evaluate what will best meet your audience's needs and expectations. Consider the importance of updated content to your credibility.
And, of course, evaluate what your resources will allow you to achieve.
Step Three: Add Items to Your Calendar
When you know your ideal frequency, create a calendar listing when you'll publish content items. For example, if you're publishing a newsletter each Tuesday, you'll want to add each issue of the newsletter to your calendar.
Do this for each of your content items. It will give you an important view into how they interact.
For example, if you're publishing a newsletter and a blog, you can arrange to publish them on different days to appear more dynamic to your audience.
And you'll always know which blog posts your newsletter can link to.
Step Four: Develop Topics
When you have publication dates for your content items, you'll want to assign topics to each item for each date.
For example, if you're targeting new mothers, perhaps your first newsletter of one month will be on baby food, your next on cribs, and your next on toys.
Your specific topics will depend on the subject matter and keywords that you should already have defined.
Step Five: Assign Tasks
Now, for each content item, you need to assign tasks and deadlines.
For example, with a newsletter, you need to write it, package it, edit it and send it. (And if you're working with a client or team members, you also need to get approvals at various stages.)
Work backwards from your publication dates. And use the amount of content that you're producing and the time available to produce it to determine required resources.
Imagine, for example, that you have 500 pages of content to write. And you have an eight-month window for your project.
Allowing for revision time, you're going to have to write more than 60 pages per month—that's about 15 per week—to keep your project on schedule.
This kind of "larger picture" vision is an important benefit of creating a schedule.
Step Six: Allocate Resources
Now that you know what resources you'll need, it's time to assign them.
Decide who's going to do what—be it writing, editing and supervising.
If you're working on your own, try to at least schedule someone else to edit your work. No one's immune to making mistakes. A fresh pair of eyes can catch them—and gauge how effectively you're getting your message across.
Of course, with more than just you working on content, you'll have to monitor how things are going and keep tasks on schedule.
And yes, that means more planning.
What's Next?
Now that you've arranged your content schedule, it's time to focus on managing workflow.
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