WordPress Post Planner Plugin

Posted on March 10, 2008
Filed Under Real Estate Websites |

Effective content planning for your WordPress blog.

Some time ago I had a friend write me a small PHP application of sorts that was used to assist in the assembly of well structured written content following the 5 paragraph narrative format of a thesis writing project.  Having built the mini-app for one of my classes, the idea behind the tool was based almost entirely on the process of good writing.  Taking from the influence of the Scott Forshmans English Writing Handbook, the mini-app was essentially a collection of RTF generators where fields were filled in depending on the format chosen.

Now, you may have seen or even used content generators in Microsoft Word or other popular document publishing solutions, but none seemed to exist for the web and certainly none seemed to exist for blogging. If a blogger could publish content based on pre-formed and well structured writing formats, the expected quality of the content should increase right?

Well, after looking at all the old documents I had on writing styles and processes taught in grammar schools and English classes, I came up with an idea to make many of these "rote format" methods of writing a tool for bloggers by building a WordPress plugin to assist in the writing process.  Although many professional bloggers tend to use offline tools for drafting content, many I’ve spoken with said that the tools for truly professional writing and editing are not available in most blogging solutions although they wish such tools were. So, I ran the idea by my coder in order to take that mini application and turn it into yet another FREE Plugin for WordPress that will help bloggers write better content, online.

Writing Better Content! WordPress blogging 101

What this next plugin will feature basically centers around the process of writing and the management of resources specific to writing using formats often found in good research writing taught in schools and colleges.  So here is a brief summary of what is currently in this plugin and what is pending prior to release.  Again, this plugin is being released as a FREE plugin for WordPress.

POST PLANNER PLUGIN FEATURES

When you sit down to write, how do you approach a writing project?  For me it always begins with the idea of what the subject should be about and then I write down a clear statement of who the target audience is before I begin to write (in most cases that is).  With my audience in mind and an idea of their expectations I write according to those expectations presenting to them my ideas and thoughts related to the subject I write.  I may start out with a thesis statement of sorts and certainly an introduction that may either fully set the expectation of the content or I’ll shoot from the hip and use a technique in writing I learned where you take a person one direction only to arrive at another.  A common technique in politics you may have noticed.  

So what this plugin seeks to do is simple, it seeks to provide you a way to write content based on optional structure and methods of writing while providing essential tools for writing good content. 

More than just a collection of available pre formatted fields to fill in, this plugin will feature some basic file management and even analytical tools for testing keyword density and other SEO important things prior to publishing your post or page.  Now in the test I have been able to get the keyword analyzer to work rather quickly, but some of the features of the plugin are going to clearly require a person well versed in AJAX and mootools which I’m actively seeking now. 

Mark, my programmer, has also assisted me in the creation of the admin interface which will feature a modified version of the FCK editor along with some drop down user defined preselects for rapid publishing of content.  With the plugin a writer will be able to organize notes, organize resources, gather files and other media elements, prior to the writing stage. Getting the ducks all in a row as the cliche goes makes the writing process much easier. Now its a lofty goal naturally for some features I have planned but my sincere objective is to make this plugin worthy of serious use by any professional writer or journalist by providing features many in such a line of work would require.

Does this replace the standard POST editor page? In part, yes especially with the addition of some new fields and the customized editor.

I’ll get you a screen shot later today of what we have already come up with.

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