Using Google Editorial Calendars To Achieve Insane Results
Content marketing is the cornerstone of inbound marketing. But it’s only successful when it’s personalized to a brand’s specific goals and its specific audience.
A single approach can’t be applied universally. One thing that is universal, however, is the importance of consistency.
Consistency isn’t just frequency.
Your consumers made a decision to follow your brand’s blog because of your consistency in several areas. Aside from frequency, these factors include:
- voice
- style
- language
- tone
When utilized correctly, an editorial calendar helps you stay consistent across these elements and others.
On the importance of the editorial calendar, CMI writer Jodi Harris said this:
“…no matter how you construct it, keeping an accurate account of your editorial assets and activities will make you a more effective marketer — and a less stressed one, too.” (CMI)
Spreadsheets are commonly utilized in the creation of editorial calendars.
I have nothing against using Google Sheets or similar spreadsheet apps to create editorial calendars. There’s a learning curve associated, however, and not all users are as comfortable using them as others are.
That’s why I recommend using Google Calendar to create your next editorial calendar.
Google Calendar
Google Calendar is defined as a:
“…time-management and scheduling calendar service developed by Google.” (Google)
Usage of Google Calendar has certainly skyrocketed since it’s July 2009 worldwide debut.
There are over 250,000 Google Calendar users and almost 90,000 websites around the world with a Google Calendar embedded in. (Source)
The Google Calendar app can be accessed on multiple devices and Google, as usual, makes it simple to sync your data from one device to the next.
Screenshot Of Google Calendar
The simplicity with which you can create a Google Calendar is one of the key reasons I recommend it over Google Sheets and similar methods.
First, navigate to https://calendar.google.com.
The screen should look like this:
- By default, the calendar should be set to Week. You can change this to day, month, year, schedule, or 4 days.
- The two buttons on the right-side column are labeled Keep and Tasks. Keep allows you to save notes to your calendar. Tasks allows you to add tasks to your calendar.
- The plus icon below Keep and Tasks allows you to choose from several Addons to enhance your calendar.
- The My Calendars dropdown menu displays your sets of calendars. Changes you make to the main calendar will be applied to all of the calendars you have selected. To add a new calendar, just type in the desired name in the box labeled Add calendar.
- Clicking the Create button near the top-left corner of the screen activates a popup box that allows you to add a new Event, Reminder, or Task.
- By clicking on the box corresponding to your desired day and time from the main calendar, you’re able to add events, reminders, and tasks in a more efficient manner.
Setting Up Your Editorial Calendar
Info from your content marketing strategy should be utilized to fill in information for your editorial calendar.
By answering the following questions, your editorial calendar will be optimized, setting you up for consistent success.
Who’s the target audience?
Using demographics, habits, and other data, you create an audience persona. This allows you to make informed decisions about topics and keywords, as well as the voice and tone of your articles and blog posts.
What’s your goal for this content?
Identifying and documenting your goals or intentions for the content will help you generate effective headlines, calls-to-action, and other key elements of an effective article or blog post.
Neil Patel wrote an excellent article on proper goal-setting for the Content Marketing Institute.
What resources do you currently have at your disposal?
Brands invest varying portions of their budgets to inbound marketing efforts.
If you have an in-house marketing team of dedicated writers and editors, you’ll want to plan your editorial tasks differently than if you were managing your content efforts alone, or with limited resources.
What’s your angle?
In the world of marketing and sales, a Unique Value Proposition (UVP); also called a Unique Selling Proposition (USP), is defined as a:
“…a clear statement that describes the benefit of your offer, how you solve your customer’s needs and what distinguishes you from the competition.” (Unbounce)
Applied to blogging — and content marketing in general, the UVP is the angle you take. It’s the underlying message you send with your post that makes it stand out from the sea of content already published, and that’s growing by the second.
If you don’t stand out, you blend in. If you blend in, you’re unable to compete at a high level… you’re unable to turn your blog into profit.
WWWWH?
- Who’s the author?
- What’s the topic? (Include the headline if it’s already been created.)
- When’s the release date?
- *Where will the post be published?
- **How will the post be promoted?
*When determining where your content will be published, don’t stop at one location. It’s crucial to post content on your own hosted blog, but it’s just as important to spread it around.
Posting across as many social media channels as possible is considered best-practice.
Although it’s rare, some sites that allow user-generated content also require that the content be exclusive. Google, however, will not penalize you for publishing your posts on multiple platforms and social media channels.
If you’re still worried about Google penalizing you for posting one article in multiple places, check out their guidelines on duplicate content. Alternatively, check out this excellent Neil Patel article that covers the same issue.
**When determining how to promote your post, you’ll have to consider your budget.
If you can afford to boost your post on social media, do it! If you can afford to promote a lead magnet, do it!
But you don’t have to pay-to-play.
Organic campaigns require more time, effort, and resources, but the results can be far greater and, because we’re educating consumers with relevant, valuable, problem-solving content, conversions tend to turn into repeat customers.
Generating Great Ideas For Your Blog
Most “experts” in the field of Content Marketing don’t have much to say about the Ideation process. It’s because they don’t really have a unique system. The only thing they can offer are buzzwords like mindmaps and brainstorming sessions.
These methods serve a purpose, but they’re not the most effective or efficient.
In my opinion, great topic ideas come from keyword research. Without diving into the specifics of keyword research, and despite the fact that I can’t take credit for this, I’m providing my readers with the greatest tool for ideation I’ve ever utilized.
The tool is from TheHoth.com and it has changed my approach to content marketing and blogging for good. What’s even better is that it’s completely free to use.
- Use Google to identify up to three competitors within your niche. These brands must be updating their content regularly.
- Click here to navigate to The Hoth’s Keyword & Content Gap Analysis Tool.
- Locate the five black fields.
- Enter your website’s URL into the first field.
- Enter three competitor URLs in the remaining fields.
- Click “Compare Domains.”
The next screen will look like this:
As you can see, the results are sectioned off and labeled Keywords, CPC, and Average vol.
The vertical row of zeros highlighted by the red box indicates one of the competitor sites that either doesn’t update its content on a regular basis or simply hasn’t published content using the keywords listed. The rows to the left and right are from the other two competitors’ sites.
With these results, look for keywords your competitors aren’t working for.
If you look close enough, you’ll notice the keyword “google calendar” and you’ll see that my competitors haven’t spent a lot of time writing about it.
Once you’ve discovered a keyword that’s being ignored by the competition, use it to craft a unique topic and headline.
For optimized results, be sure to include the keyword naturally throughout the article. The keyword should be added to:
- the headline/title
- multiple tags throughout the piece (H1, H2, etc.)
- the first paragraph
This method really works!
It’s the method I utilized to come up with the topic for this post. It’s the method I’ll use in the future.
Conclusion
Google Calendars is simple, effective, efficient, and free.
It syncs information for every device connected to your account and even allows you to share viewing and editing permission with team members, boosting productivity exponentially.
Google Calendars can be embedded into webpages and it comes as a widget if you’re using a CMS like WordPress.
The simplicity and integration alone make it worth a monthly fee. But Google has kept it free. Therefore I recommend it to anyone who’ll listen.
If you’d like to talk more about Content Marketing or if you’re experiencing problems implementing the tips I’ve provided in this post, don’t hesitate to email me at AllenJR289@methodtomarket.com or visit Method to Market and contact me today.
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