Automations is where the findings from everything else turn into a schedule: what is being written, when it goes out, and what happens on a repeat.

The calendar

A calendar of planned and scheduled pieces, each with its target query and its brief.

The thing that makes it more than a spreadsheet is where the briefs come from. A piece scheduled here can carry the concept gaps that content score identified and the sub-questions that fanout queries surfaced, which means the writer is not starting from a keyword and a guess.

Scheduling that actually schedules

A scheduled piece is written at its time. It stays a draft by default, or publishes through the WordPress plugin when you schedule it as Live and your site is connected.

This is worth saying plainly because calendar features in SEO tools frequently mean "a list with dates on it" and stop at the point where publishing would happen. A date that does not publish anything is a reminder, and you already have a calendar for reminders.

Recurring work

The parts of the job that repeat: refreshing pages on a cycle, re-scoring after the results move, checking the pieces you published a quarter ago.

This is the work that gets dropped first when a month is busy, and dropping it is how pages quietly decay. Putting it on a recurring schedule is the cheapest insurance in the product.

Start with a cadence you will keep

One good piece a fortnight, published, beats four a month planned and two delivered. The calendar makes the gap between intention and output visible, which is uncomfortable and useful.

Building a month

  1. Start from the content ideas

    When you add an event, Automations suggests content ideas from your site scan and the Search Console queries you get impressions for, with the impressions beside each. The few with real demand are your month.

  2. Check the fanout gaps for each

    Fanout queries tells you which sub-questions the piece needs to cover. This is the difference between a page aimed at a keyword and a page that enters an answer.

  3. Schedule with room

    Leave space between pieces. Publishing three in a week and none for a month reads worse to the engines and to readers, and it makes the effect of any single piece impossible to see.

  4. Add the recurring refresh

    Schedule a re-score for each piece a few weeks out. The results move; the check should be automatic rather than remembered.

Where it connects

Briefs from content score and fanout queries, ideas from your site scan and Search Console performance, optimization through Auto-Optimize, publishing through WordPress.

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