By this point in the process, you’ve completed 90% of the content planning work. So let’s do a quick recap of what you’ve already accomplished:
- Chosen a publishing time frame.
- Decided on the number of articles you’re going to publish.
- Planned out which days of the week you’re going to publish content and the specific due dates for articles to go live on the site.
- Selected how you’re going to batch your content together based on keyword types and topics.
The only missing piece here is arranging the chosen keywords from your keyword tracking template in the correct order so they’re mapped out to the specific dates on your content publishing schedule.
Once you do that, you’ll know exactly what you’re going to write about, in which order, and when each article is due to be published on the website. This will give you a finalized plan of action to follow to keep yourself accountable for meeting your content publishing goals.
As explained back in step 3, you can create your own content publishing schedule template with software like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets based on the items you see listed below. Or, you can grab a copy of the pre-made scheduling spreadsheet I’ve developed to be used alongside this playbook so you don’t have to make it from scratch by purchasing the Keyword Accelerator Cheatsheets & Tracking Templates Add-On.
The spreadsheet includes a downloadable file you can open and use in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets to set up your entire publishing plan for each month of the year.
Your content scheduling template should contain five columns with the following list of headers to record the most important data for your chosen keywords:
- Due Date
- Status
- Keyword
- Type
- URL
Here’s a sample of how the content publishing schedule should be set up with each of the rows filled out where it’s appropriate:
| Due Date | Status | Keyword | Type | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/3/22 | Published | types of skateboards | Informational | https://domain.com/ types-of-skateboards |
| 1/10/22 | Not Published | best skateboards for beginners | Transactional | |
| 1/17/22 | Not Published | history of skateboarding | Informational | |
| 1/24/22 | Not Published | how to get into skateboarding | Informational | |
| 1/31/22 | Not Published | best skateboard gear for beginners | Transactional |
A few notes about these columns:
- The “Due Date” column includes the target date you want the content focused on each keyword to be published each week.
- The “Status” column should contain one of two options: “Published” or “Not Published” to indicate the status of the article.
- The “Keyword” column is where you put the target keyword phrase.
- The “Type” column should contain variables for “Information”, “Transactional”, and “Navigational” so you know what type of content the article is targeting. This can help you during the process of batching your keywords if you’re concerned about sorting your content by types.
- The “URL” column is where you’ll put a direct link to the article after it has been published for easy reference.
Important Reminder: As you’re selecting keywords from your keyword tracking template to put into your content publishing schedule, you need to update the “Scheduled” column in the keyword tracking template for each term you use with a “Yes” or “No” to indicate which keywords have already been assigned to your content publishing schedule. This will keep you from accidentally writing more than one article based on the same keyword.
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