Those responsible for content within an organization have to plan out content for the upcoming weeks, months and year. This helps build alignment between teams and also keep writers accountable for their work. According to Curata research, 90 percent of marketers now use an editorial calendar.
For top-of-class calendar functionality, workflow, and analytics, the Curata CMP content marketing platform is one of several options available on the market. There are also several excellent free templates available—included below.
The following table lists the creator of the template, the format (Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, WordPress plugin or PDF) and its accessibility (gated or un-gated). This will help you choose a template based on your preferences.
A more detailed description of each template and a glimpse of what each one looks like follows. Cross-reference with The 12 Must-Have Fields for a Content Calendar to ensure your template has all the essential attributes.
Do you use a template that we haven’t listed here? Let us know in the comments below!
Content Marketing Editorial Calendar Templates
Excel Spreadsheets
Madison Miles Media
Download here
Accessibility: Gated
Keep assignments organized with this excel template. Align content with keywords and audience segments, connect content to the buyer’s journey, and track keyword usage.
Curata
Download here
Accessibility: Gated
This template features 12 essential fields for creating an editorial calendar. (Learn more about the importance of these fields in this step-by-step process.) Detailed instructions, steps, and suggested meta tags are provided for each field, as well as links to additional resources.
Hubspot
Download here
Accessibility: Gated
This template lists a week’s content on each tab, allowing plenty of room for details such as keywords, personas, and calls-to-action.
Convince & Convert
Download here
Accessibility: Ungated
Look at the year ahead with this template. It lets you see several months at once, along with a tab called “Content Repository” to dump ideas in.
Pam Moore
Download here
Accessibility: Gated
This template separates each month into a different tab, along with a tab for “Content Inventory” to keep track of published pieces.
Bob Angus
Download here
Accessibility: Ungated
A standard calendar that includes a high-level road map to view large events throughout the year such as product launches and conferences.
VerticalMeasures
Download here
Accessibility: Ungated
This color-coded template offers both a month-to-month view and an entire year overview.
Lee Odden
Download here
Accessibility: Ungated
This spreadsheet simply lists each piece of content in chronological order. It suggests filling in several categories, such as audience, media, keywords, and tags.
Shareaholic
Download here
Accessibility: Gated
This week-by-week spreadsheet also includes a tab to track URLs of content to enable campaign tracking.
myMarketingCafe
Download here
Accessibility: Ungated
This basic template also comes with a small business marketing guide, including a general marketing calendar.
Web. Search. Social.
Download here
Accessibility: Gated
This spreadsheet allows you to categorize content in a number of ways, including keywords, status, topic, talking point, and due date.
Content Marketing Institute
Download here
Accessibility: Ungated
CMI’s template includes a general marketing calendar, an editorial calendar with a week-by-week view, and a spreadsheet to store all blog post ideas.
Bluewire Media
Download here
Accessibility: Gated
This template provides a color-coded key to categorize pieces of content by stage, such as pending, planned, or published.
98toGo
Download here
Accessibility: Gated
In addition to a basic editorial calendar, you can track assets by type—such as blog post or eBook—and by buying-cycle stage.
Brett Snyder
Download here
Accessibility: Ungated
This template is chock-full of examples. It provides plenty of space for detailed responses in many categories such as subject, focus keywords, key elements, and sources.
Google Sheets
Webpage FX
Download here
Accessibility: Ungated
A robust template that not only tracks pieces of content week by week, but also gives space for ideas and downloadable assets.
Crackerjack Marketing
Download here
Accessibility: Gated
Another option for marketers using Google Sheets, this template has a section specifically for measuring content performance.
WordPress Plugins
EditFlow
Download here
Accessibility: Ungated
If you’re a WordPress user, this is a great way to look at upcoming posts in a month-to-month view. It’s also highly adaptable—you can drag and drop unpublished pieces onto new dates and months.
Editorial Calendar
Download here
Accessibility: Ungated
Similar to EditFlow, this tool allows you to look ahead at all scheduled blog posts in WordPress and also quick-edit titles and times within the calendar.
PDFs
Roger Parker
Download here
Accessibility: Gated
Want to print out your calendar so you can scribble all over it? Download this template, which maps out an entire year.
CoSchedule
Download here
Accessibility: Gated
Another option for printing, this calendar also comes with an eBook detailing the benefits of using an editorial calendar.
One of these editorial calendar template options will suit the needs of most content marketers. Want a free editorial calendar template pre-loaded with 12 essential fields? Download Curata’s free template here.
This content was originally published here.