A Guide to Content Calendars (+ Free Templates for Making One)

What Is a Content Calendar?

A content calendar (also called an editorial calendar) is a schedule of when and where you'll publish your upcoming content. It helps you manage your content creation and publication process.

You can use a content calendar for blog content, social media posts, email campaigns, videos, and more. 

And it might also include fields for:

• Titles
• Publication dates
• Team members involved
• Statuses

Here's an example of what a basic content calendar might look like:

Download our free content calendar template to get started.

Why Are Content Calendars Important?

Content calendars streamline your content creation and publication process. To ensure you know what stage each piece is at, what’s coming up next, and whether you need to adjust for any delays. 

Here are some more specific ways a content calendar can benefit you:

• Consistency: It ensures regular content publication. Which helps you maintain a steady content flow that can keep your audience engaged.
• Collaboration: It creates a central reference point for all content-related tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities. Which can streamline communication.
• Resource management: It allows you to allocate time and team members appropriately. So you can balance workloads.
• Content diversity: With a calendar, you can incorporate a mix of content types and topics. To appeal to different audience preferences and cover your subject area comprehensively.

How to Create a Content Calendar

Below, we’ll walk you through how to build a calendar that allows you to effectively plan and publish your content.

Let’s break down the process into a few steps:

1. Choose a Calendar Tool

First, think carefully about what tool you want to use for building and maintaining your content calendar. Because you want to ensure it works well for your team. 

You have two main options:

• Spreadsheets
• Specialized software

Each has its pros and cons.

Pick the tool that works best for your team size, budget, and content needs. 

Here are a few other tips to help you decide:

• Look for integrations. For example, if you use a message platform for communication, choose a tool that connects with it.
• Ensure it fits your workflow. If you need an approval process, pick a tool with built-in review features.
• Test before you commit. Most project management tools offer free trials—use them.
• Get your team's input. The tool should be user-friendly for everyone.

Remember, you can always switch to something different as your needs change over time.

We’ll discuss a handful of different tools in detail later in this article. 

2. Customize Your Calendar

Regardless of the tool you picked, make adjustments based on your specific needs and requirements. To ensure it’s as useful as possible.

For example, these are essential fields for any calendar:

• Publish date: When your content goes live
• Due date: Internal deadline for content completion
• Owner: Team member responsible for the content
• Status: Current stage of content (e.g., in progress, approval pending, etc.)
• Title or topic: What your content is about
• Content type: Format of your content (e.g., blog post, video, podcast, etc.)
• Link to files: Where to find drafts or final versions

Depending on your content types, you might need additional fields. For example:

For blog posts:

• Primary keyword (+ search volume)
• Secondary keywords (+ search volume)
• URL slug
• Title and meta description
• Featured image

For podcasts:

• Link to script
• Interviewee information
• Original audio files
• Edited audio files

For videos: 

• Link to script
• Interviewee information
• Captions
• Original video files
• Edited video files
• Thumbnail

Once you have your content calendar set up, it’s time to populate it.

3. Generate Content Ideas

You now need to brainstorm content ideas that align with your audience's interests and your business. So you can fill out your content calendar.

Jot down a list of broad topics related to your niche. So you can conduct keyword research.

Use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool for this.

Enter one of your topic ideas, select your target country, and click "Search."

You’ll see a list of keyword ideas with data points like search volume, keyword difficulty (how hard it is to rank for a given term), and search intent (the reason behind the query).

Look for keywords that are particularly relevant to your niche. The subtopic groups on the left are helpful for this.

It’s also a good idea to use the “Questions” tab to see question-based keywords. Which are often informational terms that can be great for building content around.

Jot down the ideas you want to cover, repeat the process for other topics, and then determine how you want to cover each. 

Some may work best for blog posts. While others may be a better fit for something else.

When it comes to social posts, you may be able to create multiple posts from a single idea.

Also, don't forget that not everything has to be completely new. You might have existing content on these topics that can be improved. 

Next, we recommend identifying any gaps in your planned content using the Topic Research tool.

Go to the tool, enter one of your topics and choose your target location.

Then, use the “+ Enter domain to find content on” to enter a competitor’s URL and click “Get content ideas.”

You’ll see different cards on related subtopics. 

Click on any card to see:

• Volume: How many times this subtopic is searched each month
• Questions: Related things users ask about
• Headlines: Titles of existing articles on this topic

Make note of any cards highlighted in green. Because that indicates a subtopic your competitor is ranking for. Meaning it’s likely a good idea for you to include in your content plans.

Again, think of how you want to cover each subtopic.

Once you’ve brainstormed, add relevant ideas to your content calendar. And include a working title, the content type, etc.

Further reading: Content Planning: How to Create a Content Plan, Step by Step

4. Schedule Your Content

Determine how often you'll publish each type of content. To ensure consistent publication and content variety without overburdening your team.

Start with a realistic schedule you know you can maintain. Because it's better to publish high-quality content less frequently than to rush out subpar pieces just to meet deadlines.

Then, populate your calendar accordingly.

And be prepared to adjust your schedule as you learn what works best.

5. Share the Calendar with Your Team

You’re now ready to invite colleagues and collaborators to your calendar. So you can start streamlining your content processes.

Most project management software allows you to assign users as “Owners” of a task. And they receive a notification when the status of the task changes in some way. 

And spreadsheets can be shared easily. To do this in a Google Sheet, just click the “Share” button at the top right corner to add team members.

It’s also a good idea to schedule a meeting to walk through it. So everyone knows their role and how to use the calendar.

For example, writers should know how to mark when they've completed a draft. And editors should understand how to indicate when they've reviewed a piece.

Be patient and ask for feedback. You can always adjust your process to make it work better for everyone.

The Best Content Calendar Tools (+ Templates)

Here are our favorite content calendar tools, arranged by business size:

For solo marketers or small teams with limited budgets:

• Google Sheets (can use our calendar template)
• WordPress Editorial Calendar

For larger businesses with a team of content creators:

• Trello (comes with a template)
• Notion (comes with a template)
• Asana (comes with a template)

Let’s review each one. 

Google Sheets

Google Sheets is a free, cloud-based spreadsheet app. It's a great starting point for creating your content calendar because nearly everyone is familiar with it.

This is what a content calendar built with Google Sheets looks like:

Google Sheets works well for beginners and solo marketers. It's easy to use and allows basic collaboration.

But as your content production scales up, you might need more robust project management tools.

Download our Google Sheets content calendar template. 

WordPress Editorial Calendar 

The WordPress Editorial Calendar is a free plugin that helps you manage your blog content. 

It’s a simple but effective plugin. 

It generates a calendar that shows all your articles (draft, scheduled, etc.).

You can edit or delete posts from the calendar. And use the drag-and-drop feature to easily make changes. 

This plugin helps you schedule your blog posts, but it doesn’t offer any collaboration options. 

To try this plugin, log in to your WordPress dashboard and go to “Plugins” > “Add New Plugin.” 

Search “Editorial Calendar” and start the installation.

Trello 

Trello allows you to create and manage kanban boards. Which let you visualize your progress in one place. 

It looks like this: 

As you work on a task, you use Trello’s drag-and-drop features to change it to a different status (column). 

You can start with this content calendar template from Trello. 

Trello also allows you to visualize your kanban board as a calendar. (But you’ll need to pay for a Premium account.) 

Notion

Notion allows you to create a tailor-made content calendar and configure different views for it. 

Notion stands out because it’s highly customizable.

It takes a bit of getting used to, but you may find it to be a helpful tool. 

Notion has several ready-to-use content calendar templates. You can start with this basic option.

Asana

Asana is a project management tool that’s good for bigger teams with complex processes. 

This is what the calendar view looks like: 

With Asana, you can create and assign tasks, visualize your progress using different views, and manage your workflows.

It also offers integrations with some of the most popular tools. Like Slack, Gmail, and Zoom.

You can get started with their basic editorial framework.

The Strategy Behind Your Content Calendar

Your content calendar helps you execute your content strategy. 

Here are the strategy basics that will inform all your content creation and distribution efforts:

Understand Your Target Audience

Before you start creating content, you must understand your target audience and define your buyer personas (detailed profiles of your potential customers).

This is key for creating quality content that drives results. 

By defining your buyer personas, you can decide on:

• The topics you’ll talk about
• The content formats you’ll use
• The platforms you’ll be on

How do you perform audience research?

You can do the following:

• Talk to employees in your organization who are in touch with customers (though keep in mind this will yield information about current customers—they aren’t necessarily the same as your target audience)
• Read industry reports
• Study your competitors

One2Target is especially helpful for getting to know your potential customers based on one or more competitors. 

Start by entering your competitors’ domains. (You can add up to five.) And click “Analyze.”

You’ll see a dashboard with in-depth information about the collective audience (demographics, socioeconomic information, behavior, and more).

This is a great way to understand your audience and plan content that fits their needs. 

You can even see which social media platforms they prefer.

Read our in-depth guide to finding your target audience for more details.

Perform a Content Audit

Conducting a content audit means analyzing the performance of your content. 

It will help you understand the following: 

• The types of content that work best. Analyze these to create similar ones in the future.
• The content pieces that are outdated. You can improve them or delete them. 

It’s helpful to audit all types of content: blog posts, YouTube videos, podcasts, and more.

After conducting a content audit, you can start filling out your content calendar with new content pieces. Or content pieces that need improvement.

Plus, an audit can give you a baseline understanding of your overall performance. Which helps you set goals for what you want to achieve.

Set Clear Goals

Having clear goals provides direction that can drive your content strategy's success. And they should align with your larger business goals to ensure organizational alignment. 

We recommend that your goals be SMART:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Actionable
• Relevant 
• Time-bound

Let’s say you’re going to focus mostly on long-form blog articles based on your audience’s interest in publishing and media. That your audit revealed your current blog content gets 800 organic visits per month. And that one of your business’s main goals is to increase leads by 5% in the next year.

An example of a SMART goal for your content would be: Publish 40 new blog posts and increase organic traffic by 20% over the next year. 

You can also come up with more granular goals for each content type. 

This ensures every piece serves a purpose. Allowing you to track progress and adjust your strategy as needed. 

Define How and When You’ll Measure Results

Finally, determine what your key performance metrics (KPIs) are and how often you’ll track your performance. So you can see how you’re tracking toward your goals.

This will largely be informed by your goals.

If you’re aiming to publish 40 new blog posts and increase organic traffic by 20%, that means both the number of published posts and organic traffic are KPIs.

But you might want to include others as well. Like keyword rankings.

It’s also important to determine how frequently you want to measure results. 

This can vary, but you might want to do this on a monthly or even weekly basis. 

Further reading: Content Performance: 19 Metrics to Track Your Results

Start Filling Out Your Content Calendar

As you can see, a content calendar is a simple tool for managing everyday content-related tasks. 

But it’s also powerful. Because it can keep you on track. So you’re more likely to reach your goals. 

Ready to begin?

Start your audience research with One2Target. And then research ideas with Topic Research.