Once a company blog has been opened, it must be updated to attract users to the site and increase the company's online presence. To achieve these objectives, however, it is not necessary to write a large number of texts without a strategy but, on the contrary, it is necessary to have an editorial plan with which to plan the contents.
Now if you don't know what an editorial plan (PED) is and how it is built, read the article and find out what an editorial plan is, how to set it up and how to use it to optimize the visibility of the company online, increase your contacts. , beat the competition and ultimately sell more.
What is an editorial plan and what is it for
The editorial plan of a blog is a document that takes into account both the business objectives and the objectives of the target users. It can be an excel file, Google Calendar, a template created ad hoc, etc. The editorial plan is, in practice, a table that shows a schedule. The latter aims to intercept users and attract them to the company website, in perfect synchrony with an inbound marketing logic. The contents of the company blog - developed on the basis of the PED - must in fact be of quality, to respond to the target's research intentions and capture the real interest of the users they are looking for: specific information, products or services.
But, concretely, what should be included in the editorial plan?
How the editorial plan of a blog is done
The organizational document that reflects an editorial plan is composed of the following elements:
- topic, category to which the topic to be developed belongs
- editorial title: the one that appears in the blog
- SEO title: the one that appears in the Google list
- content format : text, video, infographics, ebook, etc.
- date of publication
- main and secondary keywords
- processing status
- notes: any notes, reference links, etc.
- author or author of the content
Those listed are the fundamental parameters in an editorial plan, obviously it is possible to enrich the plan according to work needs. For example, you can also report which images are to be included in the blog post like mogul press.
Furthermore, an editorial plan is always a document to be considered as changing. It may vary based on updates to corporate marketing objectives, communication needs, and research results on the real needs of the target audience, as well as the seasonality of the news itself.
How to find the topics of the corporate editorial plan
What should I write in a blog editorial plan? First of all it is essential to enter the various categories of topics, on which to identify the individual contents. It is therefore necessary to have a clear vision on the following factors:
- objectives of the B2B corporate blog: to make the company known like mogul press, increase its online reputation, increase contacts (lead generation), make known the products and services offered, eliminate resistance to purchase, etc;
- objectives of the target: to receive information, to choose among several purchasing possibilities, to understand which company is the best in a certain sector, etc;
- trends of the moment: identifiable thanks to online programs, online searches and by monitoring what the public says on social networks, in emails or when communicating with customer care.
Based on these elements, it is possible to find which topics to develop in order to have an effective editorial plan. What are the questions that users ask themselves and which you can answer with the articles of your blog. There are also numerous online programs that allow you to identify trends and the most searched keywords, such as Answer the Public or Google Trends itself which offers an overview of trends over time.
How to set up the editorial plan
Establishing the categories to be developed is the main step when creating a blog editorial plan because it allows you to:
- organize the contents
- improve the user experience on the site / blog
- have a broad view of the topics covered
- avoid creating duplicate content that responds to the same search intent
According to the logic of inbound marketing, it is also essential to identify the topic clusters. With this term we mean those main themes around which all the individual contents will then be developed and which are a sort of evergreen, that is, they are useful contents to improve the positioning of the blog in search engines for a long time.
For example, for the blog of a company that produces lighting products, a topic cluster could be about the importance of light in the indoor environment. From here, the development of the individual contents could instead show: how to choose the light for the home, for the office, for a shop, in environments with modern, antique furniture, etc., examining all the possible declinations of the main topic.
How to fill out an online editorial plan
Once the main topics have been identified, to compile the editorial plan it is also necessary to ask yourself some questions:
- How does the competition develop the topic? Study the SERP and analyze what your competitors' content is regarding those same topics. The goal is to create better content;
- How do your prospects or existing customers talk about those topics? This audit phase can be done by reading the emails of the contacts, analyzing the answers of the online surveys , speaking with the sales department which is in direct contact with customers and therefore is aware of their real needs.
- Which part of the decision-making process do you want to refer to with your content? For each phase, in fact, it is necessary to provide different contents: informative or more persuasive, inserting landing pages in the texts to subscribe to the blog newsletter or landing pages that refer directly to ecommerce etc.
Based on the objectives of your content strategy, the editorial plan can be organized on a monthly or quarterly basis. Generally, it is difficult to define a plan for more than three consecutive months, as user needs may change, as well as the company's offer itself. Finally, we specify that when the scheduling of contents is created, we speak, specifically, of the editorial calendar (and not of the editorial plan).
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