Editorial Calendars: a Blogger`s Best Friend - Advantages of an Editorial Calendar
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One of the biggest advantages of an editorial calendar is the most obvious. If you know what's coming up, you can plan around it - get the research done in advance, polish the writing, make sure all the images are in place, contact anyone you need to, etc. The posts you present will be more polished and less rushed; they'll be both a pleasure to read and to write.
Your struggles with figuring out what to post will end once you have an editorial calendar in place. Since you'll have the topics all laid out for you, your work is already a third to halfway done. This may not entirely prevent writer's block, but it makes it a lot less likely.
Editorial calendars also fight writer's block's disreputable cousin: procrastination. If you can see in black and white pixels that you WILL go live on Tuesday with "Ten Ways to Improve Your YouTube Videos," you'll probably start writing that little masterpiece all the sooner (assuming you don't get too caught up in the research!). An editorial calendar makes concrete a promise you've made to yourself. If you're like me, it's easier to keep that kind of promise than something that stays in the head; this is why people are encouraged to spell out their goals in writing, after all.
Editorial calendars are also a promise you make to your readers. If you choose to make your editorial calendar public, as many bloggers who use them do, they will know what to expect every day you post. This means that they can make it a point to come by your site whenever they know you will be posting on a topic that interests them. You can even ask your readers what they would like to see you cover regularly, which can help you flesh out your calendar.
If your blog features more than one writer, and you're striving for professionalism, an editorial calendar is practically a must. It's a time-tested way to coordinate several writers at once. Also, if you do have multiple writers for your blog, an editorial calendar lends it an air of stability and continuity that it might not have otherwise.
If you do sell display ads or other advertising on your blog, an editorial calendar will help you by letting potential advertisers know what to expect. You can focus on the ones who would be interested in readers seeing their ad near particular content. If you're writing a blog for re-enactors, and you're trying to convince a maker of findings for jewelry to advertise with you, chances are he'll be a lot more interested if you can show him on your editorial calendar that you have an upcoming series on reproducing the look of period jewelry by making it yourself.
After you've worked with an editorial calendar for a while, you will have statistics for your web site that show you which items bring more traffic. For example, if you notice a spike in traffic on Wednesdays, and that's when you usually publish an interview with a small business owner in your community, you know that your readership is interested in this topic. You might tweak your other weekly topics to give them a more local focus and see if that increases your traffic, or do a "Starting a Small Business Checklist" on days when you run lists, or explore other reasons that readers were drawn to those articles by bringing those angles into other items.
Next: How to Build an Editorial Calendar >>
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