Blogging is incredibly valuable – but you already knew that. After all, that’s why you have a blog in the first place.
Editorial calendars enable webmasters to establish a regular workflow and overlook the entire scheduling process without having to leave the WordPress dashboard. In this post, we’ll run the rule over some of the best editorial calendar plugins for a post-filled year.
Importance of Installing an Editorial Calendar
An editorial calendar is an absolute must-have for bloggers who aspire to monetize their blog or increase viewership. Gaining fine control over the posts’ scheduling system is just one of the many benefits that come with installing an editorial calendar on your WordPress website.
- Establish a consistent publishing schedule. Editorial calendars help you maintain regularity when it comes to publishing blog posts. It’s not about how many blog posts you publish but how consistently you publish them.
- Manage your blog’s editors and author. If you have a team of editors and authors contributing to your site’s blog, it’s a good idea to set up an editorial calendar to ensure that everyone’s on the same page. Not only does it improve the workflow but it also creates transparency between the webmaster, editors, and authors.
- Organize all of your content on one platform. Organizing blog posts and scheduling them ahead of time makes it easier for webmasters to shift their focus to more important matters. As a bonus, you can take time off around the holiday season when you know all your blog posts are scheduled to be published.
5 Editorial Calendar Plugins to Help You Get Started
Editorial calendars significantly reduce the effort that webmasters put into organizing work and maintaining a steady scheduling system. Instead of moving their entire writing team to a third party platform, why not manage the blog posts from within the WordPress admin panel? Let’s take a look at some of the best editorial calendar plugins to help you get on track.
CoSchedule
CoSchedule is an all-around editorial calendar plugin for WordPress that makes your content marketing publishing efforts easy. The plugin links your blog directly to social media publishing saving you from the chore of sharing your content manually.
Features
CoSchedule features a built-in marketing calendar that’s designed to help users publish consistent content. According to the developers, you’ll save up to 30 minutes for each blog post you create! Its social media scheduling and workflow management features enable webmasters to fully control the editorial process and social media efforts by simplifying and automating tasks.
The plugin displays a visual editorial calendar that makes it easier to keep track of the blog posts and move them around by dragging and dropping them into place. By customizing your workflow you can communicate with your writing team through a single platform and save tons of time.
Pros
- Features an intuitive drag and drop interface.
- Includes everything you need in an editorial calendar solution.
- Simplifies workflow management and social media marketing efforts.
Cons
- Premium plugin with a costly pricing plan.
- Interface differs from most WordPress plugins and requires some getting used to.
Starting at $15 per month, the CoSchedule plugin is a premium offering that offers great value for money.
Editorial Calendar
The Editorial Calendar plugin is the most popular editorial calendar solution available in the WordPress plugin repository. Its intuitive user interface integrates seamlessly with your site’s admin panel without requiring you to mess with the settings panel.
Features
The interactive, visual calendar enables webmasters to get an overview of when a particular blog post will be published and lets them drag and drop the posts to a specific date for publishing. The calendar also lets users quickly view the status of their blog posts from one place rather than having to open up each individual post.
If you’d like to make quick edits to the title, content, or publishing time, that’s entirely possible with the Editorial Calendar plugin.
Pros
- Interactive, drag and drop interface.
- Integrates seamlessly with the WordPress admin panel.
- No need to mess with its settings.
Cons
- Limited set of features.
Drafts Scheduler
Although the Drafts Scheduler plugin isn’t nearly as feature-rich as the others, it’ll get the job done. This lightweight plugin enables webmasters to schedule all of their draft posts easily without having to go into the WordPress Quick Edit.
Features
Users can choose from one of three options to configure their Drafts Scheduler:
- Sequentially.
- Random.
- Fully random.
Once the user clicks the Schedule button, all of the posts with a Draft status will automatically be scheduled according to the selected option. The latest update of this plugin enables users to specify how many random posts to schedule over any time interval.
Pros
- Easy to install and configure.
- Schedule bulk posts with one-click.
- Gradual learning curve.
Cons
- Limited set of features.
PressForward
PressForward isn’t a traditional editorial calendar plugin but it enables webmasters to integrate their editorial workflow for curating content. If you’re managing a team of editors and writers and need a single platform for them to collaborate on then the PressForward plugin is for you.
Features
The PressForward plugin provides a collaborative editing interface for your team of writers to discuss content on. Its handy dandy collect functionality enables the entire team to aggregate content in one place. The plugin comes with a host of sharing options right out of the box for easy publishing and exporting.
Pros
- Lightweight team collaboration tool.
- Speeds up the editorial workflow.
Cons
- Limited functionality.
Wrapping It Up
One of the best ways to increase traffic to your website is to blog consistently. Publishing research-backed, engaging blog posts that are well-written can bring you reliable traffic instantly. Once you have a steady stream of articles that are ready to be published, all that’s left to do is to set up a posting schedule.
Which editorial calendar plugins have you tried and how was your experience with them? Let us know in the comments section below!
