How an Editorial Workflow Can Enhance Your WordPress Blog

As a business owner, it’s essential to keep your website and social platforms updated with quality, fresh content consistently. However, maintaining a steady stream of articles can be challenging, especially without a clear strategy.

Fortunately, there are methods you can use to keep yourself organized. For example, establishing an editorial flow will position you to produce content that keeps your audience engaged, and helps your site rank well in search engine results. 

In this post, we’ll discuss the importance of generating content in a manageable and scalable way. Then we’ll provide tips on how to do so, and talk about which tools can help. Let’s get started!

Why You Should Consider Creating an Editorial Flow Process

When you’re running a blog (or an entire business website), there are many moving parts to take care of. It’s all too easy to let important tasks, such as publishing new content, fall to the wayside. Before you know it, you’re slipping in the search engine results, and noticing a decline in your engagement rates. 

Creating consistent blog content that achieves your goals is no easy feat. However, it’s an essential task. Establishing an editorial workflow can help you solve a variety of problems.

For starters, it can minimize and even eliminate the issue of inconsistent, scattered content publishing. You (and your team) are more likely to churn out quality articles aimed at meeting your business goals if you have a well-oiled machine powering the process, rather than an aimless, figure-it-out-as-you-go approach. 

A clear and documented process can also make it easier for everyone to know when specific assignments are due. As such, it can keep all team members accountable, consistent, and on deadline.

Finally, it’s simpler to create a content schedule and stick to it in a sustainable way when you have a strategic process in place. It also becomes a lot easier to scale your content production as necessary without causing a lot of confusion among your team.

You can think of an editorial flow process as a roadmap for your content creation. From ideation to publication, each step guides you, helping you produce blog content that adds to your bottom line. 

How to Create an Editorial Flow Process (In 7 Steps)

It’s one thing to know you need to create an editorial flow process, but another to put one into action. Let’s take a look at five essential steps you can take to get started.

Note that this is not a one-size-fits-all approach. The specific steps you include in your flow will vary based on a number of factors, such as the type of business you have, the content you’re creating, and so on. However, you can use the following checklist as a general guideline.

Step 1: Perform Keyword Research

When creating an editorial plan, it’s important to conduct research beforehand. This will provide you with specific keywords and phrases you can target with your content. In addition, it gives you a starting point to base your articles around.

You can also use keyword research to see which terms your competitors are targeting, and what types of content seem to be performing well. Some popular tools for this include Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, and Moz:

You can begin by focusing on high-level keywords, and then getting more specific. Keep in mind that you can always revisit and modify your list of target keywords as you grow your business and begin fleshing out your content calendar. 

Step 2: Pick a Topic

Once you have a handful of keywords you want to hone in on, the next part of the editorial flow is to choose a topic to write your post about. That means brainstorming topics focused on your target keywords. 

When deciding what to write about, ask yourself what questions your current audience is asking and which topics are most relevant to your business and goals. Again, you can start with high-level ideas and branch out as you go. 

Sometimes, coming up with new blogging ideas can be more challenging than creating the articles themselves. However, there are a few ways to beat writer’s block. For example, you could try using a mind-mapping tool, such as the Mind Maps extension for Google Chrome:

This tool enables you to create visual representations of your ideas and explore them in detail. As such, you can connect different topics and strategize how to address each theme. 

Step 3: Create a Content Brief

A Content Brief is a summary and outline of the content to be written. It contains all of the information a writer needs to create the content. It might include:

• The target audience – who is the content aimed at?
• The goal – what should this content accomplish for both the reader and your business
• Editorial guidance – includes word count, what point of view, tone of voice to use, specific messaging needed, etc.
• SEO details – targeted keywords, suggested title and description
• A suggested outline of headings and subheadings to ensure all relevant topics are discussed in the article.

Step 4: Assign a Writer

After you establish what you’re going to write about, the next logical step is to figure out who will create the article. You can also identify any key parties (such as editors, checkers, etc.) who will be involved. Of course, if you’re a one-person show, this step won’t be necessary. 

However, if you work on a team of multiple writers and contributors, it’s important to ensure that all relevant parties are clear on the editorial flow and what their particular roles are. 

Step 5: Write the First Draft

Once you know what to write about and who is handling the article, the next step is to begin the actual creation process. The amount of time required (and, in turn, the number of drafts) will depend on your particular business, experience level, the content quality you’re going for, and so on.

For example, suppose you want your blog to be lighthearted and casual. In that case, you probably won’t need to spend as much time on statistics and research. In this phase of the workflow, it’s also wise to have a timeframe for how long the writing process will take.

Step 6: Edit, Refine, and Review the Draft

After the first draft, you can move on to the editing and review process. Again, the length and thoroughness of this step will vary depending on your specific goals, and how many team members are involved in the process. 

The editing and review stage is an essential part of the editorial flow process because it helps with quality control. It can prevent you from publishing posts that are riddled with mistakes and errors, which can discredit you and make you look unprofessional.

It’s usually a good idea to have at least two pairs of eyes on a post before bringing it to the publishing stage. This can help you spot and correct any inaccuracies, and improve the overall flow. 

However, if you are the only one writing and editing the post, we recommend letting it sit for a few days. If you’re working with a tight timeline, consider leaving it for an hour or so before giving it another pass. 

Step 7: Schedule, Publish, and Share the Content

The final step of the editorial flow process is to finalize and publish the content. If you’re adhering to a content calendar and creating articles ahead of schedule, you can use WordPress’ built-in feature for scheduling posts:

There are also various third-party plugins and tools you can use to schedule and promote posts. We’ll discuss a few options in the next section.

3 Editorial Flow Tools You Should Consider Using

To make your editorial process flow that much smoother, you might consider using some project management, collaboration, and SEO tools. Let’s take a look at a few solid options.

1. Yoast SEO

One of the primary reasons for publishing new content is to boost your Search Engine Optimization (SEO). WordPress SEO plugins and tools such as Yoast SEO can make optimizing your content significantly easier. (If you have a plugin-enabled WordPress.com account, you can purchase and install Yoast SEO Premium without ever leaving your site.)

This freemium plugin helps you focus your content around your target keyword. In addition, it provides suggestions for improving your articles and helping them rank well in search engines. 

2. Trello

Trello is a platform you can use to create editorial boards. It provides you with an overview of your content, enabling you to visualize the entire editorial flow process from ideation to publication.

It’s an excellent collaboration tool that enables multiple team members and stakeholders to view, contribute, and communicate on individual assignments. Trello makes it easy to ensure transparency throughout the editorial flow process and allows other people to share ideas, updates, and comments. 

3. CoSchedule

CoSchedule is an editorial flow tool that can help you seamlessly manage your content schedule and tasks. It’s free to use (although plugin-enabled plans are available) and incredibly user-friendly. Plus, it comes with a WordPress plugin that you can use to integrate your account with your blog. 

3 Tips and Tricks for Creating a Successful Editorial Flow

Once you’ve ironed out the general steps to include in your editorial flow, and have an idea of the tools that can help you along the way, you’ll be ready to get to work. Below are some helpful tips and tricks to keep in mind during the process. 

1. Use Templates for Content Briefs

To streamline your editorial flow, it’s critical to identify and minimize repetitive and redundant tasks. One way to do that is by creating and using templates for your content briefs. This document could cover key elements of each post, such as:

• Suggested post title
• Target word count
• Primary and secondary keywords
• Important links, references, and resources to include

Using a content brief template will save you time, because you don’t need to start from scratch for each post. It will also ensure that you don’t overlook critical details and elements. To get started, you can check out the content brief template provided by Zapier for reference.

2. Automate Processes Whenever Possible

You can also use a tool such as Zapier to streamline various tasks:

With Zapier, you can easily put a lot of essential processes on autopilot. For example, you can use it to connect various applications and platforms that you use for editorial purposes (email, project management, etc.).

Then you can configure your apps so that you’re automatically notified when certain things happen, such as when a post is approved. This level of integration can help ensure a quicker and smoother editorial flow.

3. Keep Your Content Goal-Oriented

Finally, it’s important to make sure that each piece of content you create serves a purpose. More specifically, it’s wise to ensure your blog posts help you move towards one of your business goals. 

To make this easier, you might want to consider adding a relevant field in your content brief. For example, you could outline the specific customer persona and Call To Action to target for each piece of content. This can help ensure that your articles stay tightly focused on a goal throughout the creation process.

Conclusion

Regularly producing quality content is an essential part of managing a blog or business. Unfortunately, it’s often easier said than done. The good news is that taking the time to create a sound editorial workflow can make blogging significantly easier. 

As we discussed in this article, you can do this in seven steps:

1. Perform keyword research.
2. Pick a topic.
3. Create a content brief.
4. Assign a writer.
5. Write the first draft.
6. Edit, refine, and review the draft.
7. Schedule, publish, and share the content. 

WordPress.com empowers you to publish great content and share it with the world. Combine that ease of use with a solid editorial workflow to bring your content publishing to the next level. If you haven’t seen what WordPress.com can do for you lately, you might be surprised. Click here to see what the fastest managed WordPress hosting has in store for you.