Start Here
One business goal, the audience whose behaviour has to change, and three to five pillars. If you cannot fill this tab in, you do not have a content plan yet — you have a publishing schedule.
Free Template
The Content Planning Template that shows you what is missing
A content marketing plan that starts with "four posts a month" is a production schedule, not a strategy. This template starts with one business goal, forces every piece into a pillar and a funnel stage, and then shows you the imbalance — the thirty awareness posts and the zero decision-stage pages — before you commission a single word.
Get the TemplateFree · Google Sheets + Excel · No credit card, no trial
- Funnel-stage balance, calculated
- Overdue drafts flagged automatically
- Performance tracking built in
- Format
- Google Sheets + Excel
- Columns
- 12 tracked fields
- Capacity
- 200 pieces
- Time to complete
- 2–3 hours
What's inside
Six tabs. One you live in.
A single workbook. You type into the Content Plan; the balance, the pillar map and the calendar all count themselves from it.
Content Plan
The core sheet. 12 columns per piece: pillar, target keyword, funnel stage, format, owner, status, draft and publish dates, live URL. The Health column flags anything overdue or published without a URL.
Balance & Calendar
Counts every piece by funnel stage and by month. If more than 60% of the plan sits in one stage the sheet says so — which is the conversation most content plans never have.
Pillar Map
Counts pieces per pillar and delivers a verdict: too thin to build authority, or traffic with nothing to buy because the pillar has no decision-stage page.
Performance
Traffic and conversions next to the pillar and funnel stage, pulled in by title. Turns a year of publishing into an argument about what to do more of.
Ideas Backlog
The parking lot. Ideas live here until they earn a slot in the plan, which stops the plan itself turning into a wish list nobody believes.
The framework
The six parts of the plan
Here is the whole method, in the order the template walks you through it. It starts with a business goal rather than a publishing cadence, because a cadence tells you how much to write and nothing about whether any of it should exist.
01The premise
Start from one business goal, not a content quota
A content plan that begins with "four blog posts a month" is a production schedule, not a strategy. Start instead with a single number the business cares about this year, and work backwards to the content that could plausibly move it. Everything downstream gets easier once there is one goal to argue against.
- Write down one measurable business goal for the next 12 months
- Name the audience whose behaviour has to change for that goal to land
- Decide what a win looks like — leads, demos, signups, calls
- Agree how often you will review it before you publish anything
02Structure
Map the pillars
Pick three to five pillars — the topics you intend to be genuinely known for. Fewer than three and you are a one-note site; more than five and you are spread so thin that nothing accumulates authority. Every piece you plan afterwards belongs to exactly one pillar, and the template counts them so you can see the imbalance.
- Choose 3–5 pillars you can credibly own
- Give every pillar a page that is the definitive resource for it
- Check each pillar maps to something you actually sell
- Kill any pillar you cannot write ten useful pieces about
03Balance
Cover every funnel stage, deliberately
Most plans are 90% awareness content, which is why they produce traffic and no pipeline. The template tallies pieces by stage so the gap is visible before you commission anything: if you have thirty awareness posts and no decision-stage page, you have built a very expensive way to send strangers to a competitor.
- Tag every piece Awareness, Consideration, Decision, or Retention
- Check the mix on the Calendar tab before you sign anything off
- Ensure every pillar has at least one decision-stage page
- Plan the internal links that move a reader down a stage
04Where plans die
Assign one owner and two dates
Every row needs a named owner, a draft due date, and a publish date. Content plans fail on ownership far more often than on ideas, and a plan where everything is owned by "the team" is a plan where nothing is owned. The template flags anything overdue and unpublished the moment you open it.
- One named human per piece — not a team, not a placeholder
- A draft-due date that is earlier than the publish date
- Status kept current from the dropdown
- Review the overdue flags at the top of every planning meeting
05Distribution
Plan the promotion with the piece
Publishing is the middle of the job, not the end. Decide before you write where a piece will be distributed and what it links to, because content planned without distribution reliably becomes content nobody reads — and the second-cheapest traffic on any site is the piece you already published and never promoted twice.
- Name the channel each piece will be distributed through
- Decide the internal links in and out before writing
- Schedule a second promotion 60–90 days after publishing
- Note which existing pages should link to the new piece
06The loop
Measure the plan, not just the posts
Track what each piece actually produced and feed it back into the next quarter. The Performance tab keeps traffic and conversions next to the pillar and funnel stage, which turns a year of publishing into an argument about what to do more of — the only version of a content plan that survives a budget review.
- Log traffic and conversions per published piece
- Compare performance by pillar, not just by post
- Retire or rewrite anything that underperforms two quarters running
- Let the numbers pick next quarter's pillars
How to use it
From one goal to a year of content
Budget an afternoon for the first pass. The thinking in steps one and two is the work; the rest is data entry.
Make a copy and name the goal
Open the workbook, make a copy, and fill in the Start Here tab. One measurable business goal for the next twelve months, the audience whose behaviour has to change, and what a win actually looks like. Everything after this is an argument against that goal.
Choose three to five pillars
Pick the topics you intend to be genuinely known for, and check each one maps to something you sell. Fewer than three and you are a one-note site; more than five and nothing accumulates enough authority to rank. Drop any pillar you cannot write ten useful pieces about.
Fill the plan and use the dropdowns
One row per piece. Pillar, target keyword, funnel stage, format, owner, and two dates. Use the dropdowns rather than typing — the balance counts read those exact values, and a stray "awareness" in lower case quietly breaks the tally.
Read the balance before you commission anything
Open the Balance & Calendar tab. If more than 60% of the plan sits in one funnel stage the sheet tells you, and if a pillar has no decision-stage page the Pillar Map calls it traffic with nothing to buy. Fix the mix on paper — it costs nothing here and a quarter of wasted budget later.
Work the Health column weekly
Anything overdue and unpublished turns red, as does anything marked published without a live URL. Five minutes at the top of a weekly meeting on that column keeps a plan alive far more reliably than a new tool.
Log performance and let it pick next quarter
Record sessions and conversions per published piece on the Performance tab. Compare by pillar rather than by post, retire anything flat for two quarters running, and let the numbers choose where next quarter goes.
Download the Content Planning Template
One file, yours to copy and reuse on every site you touch. Tell us who you are and it unlocks immediately.
- Format: Google Sheets + Excel
- Columns: 12 tracked fields
- Capacity: 200 pieces
- Time to complete: 2–3 hours
Get the Template
Instant access — plus a copy sent to your inbox.
Who it's for
Built for whoever owns the calendar
This template is for the person who has to decide what gets written next quarter, and then explain to someone holding a budget why that was the right call.
It will earn its keep if you are:
- An in-house content or marketing manager who is being asked for a content marketing plan and does not want to hand over a list of blog titles
- A founder writing it yourself who has limited hours and needs each one spent on the piece most likely to produce a customer
- An agency or freelancer who wants a client-ready plan that shows the funnel-stage gap on page one rather than defending a list of ideas
- A team that keeps missing dates who needs ownership and deadlines visible in the same place as the ideas, because that is where plans actually fail
You do not need a content tool or a project management subscription. The workbook does ownership, dates, status and balance in one file, which is more than most teams are getting out of the tool they already pay for.
If you already run a mature content operation, the tab worth stealing is the Pillar Map — the verdict column that calls out a pillar with no decision-stage page has started more useful arguments than any dashboard we have built.
Questions
Before you download
What is a content planning template?
A content planning template is a structured document for deciding what content to create, who owns it, when it publishes, and what business goal it serves — rather than just listing titles on a calendar. This one adds funnel-stage and pillar tallies so you can see the gaps in a plan before you commission any of it.
What should a content marketing plan actually include?
One measurable business goal, the audience whose behaviour has to change, three to five pillars you intend to be known for, and then per piece: a target keyword, a funnel stage, a named owner, a draft date, a publish date, and a distribution channel. If any of those are missing the plan tends to quietly become a wish list. The template requires all of them.
Is the content planning template really free?
Yes. Enter your name and email and the download unlocks immediately, with a copy sent to your inbox as a backup. No trial, no card, no drip sequence.
How far ahead should I plan content?
A quarter in detail and a year in outline. Anything more granular than a quarter tends to be rewritten before it ships, and anything shorter makes it impossible to see whether your pillars are actually being built out. The calendar tab is set up for twelve months for exactly that reason.
How does it stop the plan being all top-of-funnel?
The Balance tab counts every piece by funnel stage and flags any stage holding more than 60% of the plan, and the Pillar Map warns when a pillar has no decision-stage page at all. That combination is the single most useful thing in the file — thirty awareness posts and nothing anyone can buy from is the most common and most expensive content mistake.
Does it track whether the content worked?
Yes. The Performance tab takes sessions and conversions per published piece and pulls the pillar and funnel stage across automatically, so you can compare performance by pillar rather than post by post. That is the view that decides next quarter.
Does it work in Google Sheets?
Yes. It is an Excel workbook that opens natively in Google Sheets, Excel and Numbers, and every formula was deliberately written to work in all three — no dynamic arrays, no Excel-only functions. The dropdowns and the overdue highlighting carry across too.
Can I use it for client work?
Yes. Use it with clients, rebrand it, and charge for the planning if you like. We only ask that you do not resell the template itself as your own product.
Want the plan built with you?
The template exists because content planning is genuinely doable in-house. If you would rather build the plan alongside people who do this every week — and have someone accountable for whether it ships — that is the work we do.