Web designers can benefit from editorial calendars too
Friday November 14, 2008
While we are not exactly like freelance writers - we don't often create a Web page and then try to sell it (template developers, of course, excepted...). But like writers, if we work on a schedule, our work can benefit and thus our designs. I use editorial calendars in my freelance work in the following ways:
- I have set aside points in my schedule where I'll do maintenance work, administrative work, and PR/marketing of my business
- When I have multiple projects, I schedule times to work on each, so they all get done
- When I don't have multiple projects, I schedule times to work on getting new clients and new work
- I schedule out my year for topic focuses for this website in a general sense
- And I have a loose schedule of jobs I want to get done every week for this website
I’ve never thought of using an editorial calendar. I’m new to web design (as a hobby) with a site about the area a live in. I’m still learning and happy to gain any knowledge that will help me. I think a calendar would be a useful tool but don’t fully understand what it should include or how to work one out. Any advice on this would be appreciated.
Previous to seeing this article I had never heard of an editorial calendar.
Great blog post. I too use an editorial calendar approach for my various web projects. What especially makes it an “editorial” calendar rather than just a traditional work/project calendar is Jennifer’s bullet point: “I schedule out my year for topic focuses for this website in a general sense.” So editorial calendars add ideas and timing for content development into the plan, roughed out by season, month, or just a sequence to be tackled. The editorial calendar is common for magazines, where themes for a given month are planned long in advance, then content is sought to fill those themes. I use this approach on my own blogs, such as my Writer’s Handbook blog (www.writershandbook.com), where I rough out a tentative schedule of themes I want to address for the coming months. That way, I can collect needed material long in advance, which makes the content richer (I hope!) than someone who just sits down to brainstorm and create what’s needed on the spot. Same it true for website content, where planned ongoing additions make it richer, more timely, and gives more SEO power. It’s easy to spot websites that use an editorial calendar; they tend to have a deeper, more thoughtful approach to their content.
thanks for the post! I have to set up an editorial calendar and would love to see some examples of how people do it. I’m not a very list-oriented person, but am trying to work on that skill as our new seo/marketing website is launched. It will need constant adding of content.
I think a calendar would work for me too. Is there a template or software for starting one? Or would I just have to make one up myself?
To be honest, i have a plan to entire week or 2 weeks at maximum, but it’s on a papper and i don’t have it separated by days.
For example:
-Project 1 (musician for example)
finish the login page
improve the php for anti mysql injection
-Project 2
start working on design
etc
So, when i finish one task (ex: finish the login pass) i erase it from the paper, and i make another one from other project or even the same.
I don’t know if you understand it because my english is terrible (i’m portuguese), but my calendar ins’t really a calendar because i don’t have times to do jobs.
I just have a papper with the tasks that i need to do (i try to finish every papper in a week)