MyContentDash + AirTable

AirTable is a great tool for organization, working with your teams, and content auditing. See how you can use AirTable with your MyContentDash account to amplify your content auditing efforts and really improve overall organization.

• AirTable Signup (my referral link)
• Free AirTable Credits — Be sure to sign up for a paid AirTable account before filling out this form. Startups can get $2,000 in AirTable credits.

How To Use AirTable & MyContentDash

Step 1: Download Data From MyContentDash

▶︎ Login to MyContentDash and select "Manage Site" in the upper-right corner.

▶︎ Select the "Export" tab and then download the "Export: All" report.

Step 2: Import CSV To AirTable

▶︎ Create a new AirTable base and import CSV as a new table.

▶︎ After data has been imported, assign field types. Here are the fields imported along with the field types they should be:

-  URL >> URL
-  Post Title >> Long Text
-  Date >> Date (local, don't include time)
-  Modified Date >> Date (local, don't include time)
-  Categories >> Multiple Select
-  Tags >> Multiple Select
-  Post_Type >> Single Select
-  Words >> Number  **Same for GA Page Views, Headings, & Images
-  Recipe_Card >> Single Select
-  Recipe_Count >> Number
-  Yoast_Available_To_Search_Engines >> Checkbox
-  Recipe Ingredients >> Multiple Select
-  Cook Time >> Number   **Same for all the other Recipe metrics
-  ga_pageviews_90days >> Number
-  ga_pageviews_30days >> Number

▶︎ This is your import tab and you do not customize this data. Label this AirTable tab "MCD Import" (I include a 🔒 emoji as a visual reminder not to touch/edit this tab's data). 

Step 3: Create Dashboard

▶︎ Create a blank table and label it "Dashboard". This will be your main dashboard in AirTable.

▶︎ Delete all fields but the first 'Name' field. 

▶︎ Create 2 new fields: URL (type: URL) and Topic (type: single line text). *To create new fields you can use the + symbol at the top of the table.

▶︎ Create a new field, select 'Link to another record', then select 'MCD Import' as the table to connect it to. Once you select to add this you'll have the option to add lookup fields, select all fields except for the URL field. Rename the 'Link Record' field as "URL Reference" so you know that is the reference point for all the data being pulled in (see next step). 

▶︎ Copy all URLs from MCD Import table and paste these into the Dashboard table in the 'URL' column and then the 'URL Reference' column. Once you paste them to the 'URL Reference' column sit back and watch the magic happen as all the data from MCD Import gets pulled over here into your Dashboard. 

▶︎ Change the first 'Name' field type to 'Formula' and then enter this formula: IF({Topic},CONCATENATE(Topic," - ",URL),IF(NOT({Topic}),CONCATENATE({Post Title (from URL Reference)}," - ",URL),"N/A?")) 
**If anything doesn't format with a color like you see below then you may need to rename it to fit the field properly.

Step 4: Customize Your Dashboard

Now that you have your data connected, you can customize things from here however you want. If you're familiar with AirTable then I'm sure you'll have no problem doing this. Keep reading and we'll give you some ideas and tips below.

Customization Tips & Ideas

Feel free to use any of these ideas or customize them to fit your own needs. Be sure to share your ideas as you come up with new ways to utilize MyContentDash and AirTable together.

▶︎ Assign Team Members — Create a 'User' field type and use this to assign members of your team to certain records.

▶︎ Create Tasks — Create a 'Multiple Select' field type and create various tasks for things that your content may need (ie. update photos, add internal links, social push, add content, etc). If you really want to get sophisticated with tasks and to-dos you can create another data table and connect it to your dashboard so you can create unlimited task items but you can connect the task to a certain piece of content if needed.

▶︎ Publish/Republish Date — I create a 'Date' field type and label it "Publish/Republish" so that I can use this for my content calendar. This allows me to use that date field for existing content that I want to republish or new content that I'm creating to set a publish date for it. *The image below is using this date field and the color coding is based on whether there is anything in the 'URL Reference' field (if there is then it means it's existing content). You'll see below that the blues are existing posts that I'm republishing and the yellow is new content. I can just drag and drop to create my content calendar.

▶︎ Level Of Risk — This is one of my favorite fields. Create a new 'Formula' field and label it "Risk". Copy and paste the formula I've included below and then adjust the numbers to create risk levels based on the amount of organic traffic that content has gotten over the past 365 days. 

Formula: IF({Org Visits}>25000,"(5) Very High",IF({Org Visits}>10000,"(4) High",IF({Org Visits}>2500,"(3) Medium",IF({Org Visits}>=400,"(2) Low",IF({Org Visits}<400,"(1) Very low","N/A")))))  

Customize the numbers to fit your risk levels. In my example, I have >25000 as "(5) Very High", >10000 as "(4) High", >2500 as "(3) Medium", >=400 as "(2) Low", and <400 as "(1) Very Low". Keep in mind that AirTables prioritizes these in order. Anything in that first bucket (>25,000) will only fit in that bucket, which means that something >10000 will only go into the second bucket (>10000) if it's not already in the first bucket (>25000). So the second bucket is essentially >10000 but <=25000. 

This is what you get once you customize things (now you can quickly assess how risky it is to touch/edit your content)...

▶︎ Notes — Add a 'Long Text' field and label it "Notes" so that you have a free field to add whatever notes you might want to include there. 

▶︎ Checkboxes — Add checkbox fields for various elements that you like to include in your content (such as a video). Now you can check that off when it qualifies, or filter to see which content doesn't.

▶︎ Seasonality/Months — Create a 'Multiple Select' field, label it "Seasonality", and then add the various months and seasons of the year. This will allow you to tag content with a time of year that it will perform best in so that you can sift through ideas. The longer you use this the more valuable it becomes. This is great when you're sifting through opportunities and you find something that isn't relevant right now, tag it with the month/season that you should be working on it and come back then. You can create filters easily to see what's showing in these. I find ideas/opportunities that I forgot about that turn out to be very valuable.

▶︎ Forms — Create custom forms to add things to your AirTable dashboard. I use this to add new content ideas to my dashboard and then I create a view in AirTable to see all of my content where the URL Reference field is empty. I typically group this by "Post Status" to see where I am in the writing process (see next idea).

▶︎ Post Status — Create a 'Single Select' field and label it "Post Status" to create the various steps in the content creation process (Idea, Research, Writing, Editing, Ready, Scheduled, and Published). Now you can group these in a view like this...

Or create a Kanban board like this...

▶︎ Connect More Data — Do this same process with other data to enrich your Dashboard even further. You could do this with something like your ad network's RPM report so that you can see which content has higher RPMs to help you decide what content to work on (this can act as another 'Risk' assessment of sorts). *Just make sure that the URL is the first field in the dataset because that's what connects things.

AirTable Interfaces

Something that I didn't cover in the webinar was AirTable's Interfaces feature. This lets you build more customized reports and tools that may be easier to navigate for many of you. I love databases and spreadsheets, which is why I hadn't really gotten into the Interfaces within AirTable. Let me just say this, I'm stoked to add more to this training after we've been using Interfaces for a little while longer. Interfaces make it easier to customize what you see and pre-filter pages/reports/tools to allow you to jump in and get to work. 

Check back in to see what we've created here later. Feel free to share what Interfaces you've created and let's all collaborate to create some bad-ass tools. 

Ps- You sharing these things allows us to see your workflow. The better we understand your workflows and what you need the more we can add to MyContentDash to potentially help with these things.