Five Tips For Creating The Best Editorial Calendar

Content marketing is a hugely successful marketing strategy that uses the production of quality content to increase organic search engine rankings. The centerpiece of a content marketing strategy is an editorial calendar. Without an effective and well thought out editorial calendar, your content marketing will likely fall apart. Here are five tips for creating the best editorial for your content marketing.

1. Start with organization – A good editorial calendar is more than just a list of links to news articles or one sentence summaries. Editorial calendars need to include detailed information, including the title of the proposed piece of content, when it is due, when it will be posted on the website, what practice areas the content will relate to, any statistics, studies, or links to helpful information for the content, and a paragraph summarizing what the content will be about. This may seem like a lot of work, but over time you may forget why you chose a topic, and the editorial calendar will not only keep you on track, but also help guide you on your way to creating excellent content. Additionally, if more than one person on your team is writing content, having the strategy outlined all in one place should help ensure consistency.
2. Keep it relevant – Every topic you write about should be relevant. The best place to find relevant content is from news outlets. If there was a distracted driving accident in your city or a recent appeals court ruling that affects the law in your state, these would be great things to include in your editorial calendar. This tactic is called news scraping, and it can greatly help improve user engagement and retention.
3. Do your research – Content works best when it is thorough and has reputable sources. This means you might have to do research to see how many truck accidents occur in Texas each year or the average length of time it takes to resolve a construction contract dispute. Remember that users don’t know you, but they do know the Texas Department of Transportation and the Construction Management Association of America, so citing and/or quoting reputable sources lends more credibility to your writing.
4. Stay flexible – The point of an editorial calendar is to plan out your content, but you should still be flexible. If a better topic comes up, or if a scheduled topic becomes more relevant, you need to adjust the editorial calendar.
5. Stick to it – The key to a successful content marketing strategy is consistency. It might be tempting to “take a week off” or “catch up next week” but this will actually hurt your content marketing efforts. If you can’t commit to at least three pieces of content a month, then there isn’t really a point in creating an editorial calendar for your content marketing strategy.

Get Help With Your Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is a time intensive marketing strategy. If you need help developing and implementing content marketing or any other type of marketing strategy, the legal marketing experts at Stacey E. Burke, P.C. can help. We create individualized strategies to help your law firm stand out amongst competitors and obtain more leads. All of our content is read, analyzed, and edited by a licensed lawyer. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation to see how we can help.