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A well-designed workflow has always been important to the editorial process.
Without one, content creation, publication, and distribution can be chaotic, causing delays, slowing down teams, and compromising content quality.
The tools may have gotten revolutionary upgrades over time, but the concepts for boosting productivity in the editorial workflow remain the same: plan, organize, strategize, optimize, and ensure quality control.
To kickstart an improved editorial workflow, here are seven ideas and reasons why they work.
An editorial workflow is the journey a piece of content takes from ideation to publication.
This includes writing, editing, reviewing, rewrites, approvals, and any other steps that need to be taken between the day the topic is dreamed up and the moment the final piece goes live or is put into print.
Workflows can vary widely, depending on the team and the content type — a social media post, for instance, might have a different set of steps than long-form content.
The important part is that all content types have a process, the whole team is aware of it, and it is followed every time.
The more systematic and structured the editorial steps are, the smoother the production process becomes, allowing teams to be more impactful.
A fluid editorial workflow starts with a solid content marketing plan. Know your target audience, what types of content you’ll create, what topical authority you want to establish, which marketing channels you’ll use, when you’ll publish, and how you’ll measure success.
A content strategy is the top priority for streamlining the workflow because it defines the essential purpose behind all of your content efforts: what you’re creating, why it matters, and who it’s created for.
The workflow is how you bring that content to life and accomplish the goals you’ve strategized.
An editorial calendar, also known as a content calendar, is a key part of content strategy and serves the editorial process by establishing deadlines.
Once you have mapped out your content themes and categories according to your content goals, you can set your content frequency and build out the framework for your calendar.
Your calendar should accommodate various content types and the time required to create, review, edit, and refine them. A well-maintained editorial calendar keeps production on schedule and provides a helpful visual of your overall content plan.
Frictionless, efficient workflows include different paths for various types of content. An infographic will have a different workflow than a white paper, and a case study requires a different set of steps than a blog post.
Map out these workflows from the start, using visual flowcharts or setting up templates in your project management software. Identify the different steps in each process, such as creating the content, editing, reviewing, approval steps, and quality checks. Estimate the expected turnaround time for each step.
By customizing the workflows in this way and having a defined process for each type of project, you avoid wasting time trying to fit everything in the same mold or retrofitting and customizing each time a new project begins.
For additional time-saving, remember to include a workflow for:
When defining the workflow for each project, ensure that you assign each step to a specific role on your team and create a timeline for each workflow.
Clearly define responsibilities for writers, editors, designers, reviewers, and other team members, so everyone knows what is expected of them and who to turn the project over to next.
Set realistic deadlines that account for revisions and potential delays, and share the timeline with everyone involved. This is a key step in optimizing your workflow.
Having a clear and accessible style guide is a must for a smooth workflow. Whether you use a house style guide, a popularly recognized one, or a mix of both, make sure everyone knows it.
When writers, editors, and quality checkers all know what they are looking for in terms of grammar, punctuation, tone, voice, and other style-related guidelines, it saves everyone from second-guessing.
Providing structures like this to follow is priceless to a content team, as clarity and consistency go a long way in making a workflow hum.
Once you’ve strategized, scheduled, and structured, automating repetitive tasks is one of the best ways to refine the production process. Start by identifying which commonly repeated tasks consume valuable time and find ways to automate them.
Workflow, project management, and collaboration tools save time and effort for editorial teams by creating a centralized workspace that allows real-time editing, communication, and document sharing.
By integrating time-saving tools and platforms into your sequence, projects move more fluidly and are transparent to the whole team, allowing production to stay on track.
AI tools are invaluable to an established process.
At nearly every step in your editorial workflow, AI tools can assist with some of the heavy lifting to keep your editorial projects moving.
From researching topic clusters for your pillar content and developing content briefs to analyzing competitor content and optimizing for SEO, AI tools can expedite and expand what you can accomplish within your timeframe.
Strategically use AI tools as a way to boost efficiency and maintain standards, freeing up more time for your creative team to dream up ideas, refine strategy, and maintain quality control over the overall content planning and production.
Check out Originality.ai’s best-in-class editorial tools, including AI detection (to review potential instances of AI-generated copy in your content), AI grammar checking, and content optimization with intelligent AI-powered SEO insights.
Keep in mind that when creating content, it’s essential to write it with Google’s people-first guidelines in mind. AI-generated content that doesn’t comply with Google’s spam policies can result in Google penalties.
Further, in 2025, Google released updated Search Quality Rater Guidelines that advise raters that if they find that the main content of a page is primarily AI-generated (and doesn’t provide value), then it should be classified as the lowest quality.
So in 2025, AI Detection and Site Scans are an essential part of the editorial process.
Creating and maintaining workflows for all the content you create is key to moving projects smoothly and allowing your team to focus on crafting premium content, rather than getting distracted and frustrated by a clunky, disorganized process.
By infusing the workflow with AI and automation tools, your team not only saves time but also stays current and competitive in a rapidly changing marketing world.
Most importantly, a carefully created workflow paves the way for high-quality, consistent content while keeping creative teams happy and productive.
Sign up to try Originality.ai’s full suite of editorial tools today!
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