Yakkety Yak tips on writing an editorial calendar for your company blog.
One of the biggest objections we hear for putting together a company blog is figuring out what to write about. At Yakkety Yak, we use an editorial calendar to help brainstorm topics and establish a posting schedule. That's right, there is even a process to managing a successful company blog, but the good news is that building an editorial calendar doesn't have to be difficult. In fact, it's a great tool to stay organized, address the various services your business offers and increase your online presence through SEO.
To think about your business in terms of an editorial calendar, start by breaking down your company services into what we call content buckets. Content buckets are the four or five bread and butter topics that should be addressed on a regular basis. Picture it like a menu—and then write about all of the courses that you offer. Let's use the example of a residential real estate firm that might want to address multiple topics under the buckets of Buying, Selling, Market Trends and Construction.
Once you have the content buckets in place, think about the different ways your services can be applied and start brainstorming post ideas. For example, under the "Selling" bucket for a real estate firm, topics to cover might be, "Getting ready to list your home" or "Quick decor tips to make your home marketable." These topics will cover a wide variety of subjects all under a specific subject matter. Brainstorm at least ten or twelve ideas for each content bucket, mixing in posts that are promotional, alongside those that are more informative.
When you have a substantial list of topics, think about the frequency of publication. Is it more manageable for your business to publish once a week or twice a week, or even more than that? Pick a consistent day or days to post each week, then assign a topic to those days, alternating by content bucket. You might be surprised to find that with just a little bit of elbow grease, you have over 40 blog ideas.
Voila. An editorial calendar is in place. Granted, now you have to find someone to write, edit and post each of those blogs, but a schedule that promotes various aspects of your business is now yours to implement. Just make sure to stick with the schedule—because there is nothing more irksome than visiting a company blog page that hasn't been updated in six months. An updated blog lets your client base know that the lights are on at your business, and somebody is at home.
About Yakkety Yak:
Yakkety Yak is a full-service content marketing company that produces custom written content for businesses, including blogs, website copy, case studies, newsletters, social media marketing, public relations and more. We want to be an extension of your marketing team to help you connect to end users and decision influencers, based on the principle of one common voice, for one target audience. Yakkety Yak helps you find the words you were looking for —so let’s YAK.