If content marketing is a part of your SEO plan, you need a content calendar. A content calendar documents things such as topics, ideas, publish dates, etc. Once you’ve built the calendar, you’ll want to share it with everyone on your content team and hold to it. The calendar should help you organize your ideas and post more consistently by reminding you and having ideas ready to go. Let’s talk a bit more about what a calendar looks like and the kind of content you need to be producing to make it worthwhile.
What Does Your Content Calendar Look Like?
Since you’ve determined who your target audience is, it’s time to make a schedule of when you’ll create content, what you’ll be sharing, and on what platforms you’re planning on sharing your new content. The key is to create a system that helps you to stay focused, organized, and consistent.
Developing a content calendar with your content topics, publish dates, and all other important details will help you to maintain that focus with your content marketing goals and plans. It will also lend a hand in keeping you motivated and on track so everyone knows what they are accountable for in the process.
Whether you create a separate calendar for content creation on your Google Calendar or you decide to keep track of everything on an ultra-organized spreadsheet, consider what will be most helpful in keeping you and your content team in the loop with everything. . You can even consider a more robust solution such as DIVVY, Contently, or ClearVoice. Regardless, you need to have some way to manage the status and flow of content you plan to produce and use for your marketing initiatives.
Find a system that works best for you and will keep you organized.
Once the content is organized you can start the creation process. Something to keep in mind when creating content is to create quality over quantity.
Quality over Quantity
You’ve probably heard the old adage quality over quantity. That holds very true when it comes to content. While you do want to create a lot of content, you need to make sure it’s great quality. Consider if it’s evergreen, helpful to the reader, establishes you as an expert, and is well-researched. All of these things play key roles in quality pieces of content.
Mediocre content will hurt your cause
More often than not, less is more. While this shouldn’t be the reason for only posting once or twice a month, it should serve as a reminder to be mindful of how often you’re posting and what you’re posting about. If you posted on Monday about “How to Exercise at Home with Baby”, you shouldn’t be publishing a post on Thursday titled “At Home Exercises with Baby”. Stay intentional and strategic. Also, consider what your customers really want to read about and need help with in their daily lives. Posts should be focused on their needs and research.
Editing
Once your content has been written, it should go through at least one editing cycle. This should not be done by the original author- where possible, having someone on your team dedicated to taking care of editing is a good way to go. If not, getting another set of eyes on the content to make sure everything is in tip-top shape needs to be a priority. If you only have one person to do editing, make sure they are writing the piece, then taking a break before editing. A fresh set of eyes, when editing, can make a huge difference.
We understand that getting the content published is exciting and often time-sensitive. You might find yourself tempted at times to skip over the editing process. But remember- quality is our first priority. Looking over the first draft of a piece of content will ultimately make it more valuable and more helpful to your audience, and the editing phase is not something you want to overlook.
Having content that is relevant, consistent, and tailored to your target audience is so important to your overall marketing plan. Content that your customers can count on and that helps you rank is important for a number of reasons that you can’t afford to miss. If you’d like help creating great quality content and a content calendar, reach out to our team for a consultation. We’d love to see if we’d be the right fit for your business.
Looking for more content marketing tips to help you grow your e-commerce business? Check out these posts:
- What is Content Marketing & Why Is It Important For Your Ecommerce Business?
- How To Create A Content Marketing Strategy For Your Ecommerce Business
- Why & How To Perform a Content Audit For Your Ecommerce Business
- How to Document Your Content Marketing Strategy For Your Ecommerce Business
- Where Will You Share & Distribute The Content For Your Ecommerce Business?
- How To Understand The Buyer’s Journey For Your Ecommerce Customers
- How to Optimize Your Ecommerce Content For The Best SEO Rankings
- How To Perform a Content Analysis & Reporting For Your Ecommerce Business
- How To Scale Your Ecommerce Content Marketing
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
