Free Editorial Calendar Template Download For Your Blog (2014 Updated)
Indeed, lol. I do too.
Updated 2015 Editorial Calendar Available!
UPDATED TO 2014 Editorial Calendar Template
As part of my goals this year, I wanted to create a calendar to keep my future posts and due dates organized. I searched online for an editorial calendar template (download link) to fill-in-the-blanks and be done. I did find some, but nothing that was really simple, yet creative and fun. I liked the basics of this editorial calendar by Alan Peterson of Internet Marketing Nirvana, but it was for 2010, so I created a new editorial calendar.
Editorial-Calendar-Template 2013 (download link)
2014-Editorial-Calendar-Template
Updated 2015 Editorial Calendar Available!
Editorial Calendar Template Yearly Format
The editorial calendar template is for 2014 and color coded by month. The colors match my tabs in my binder where I keep all my information for my business each month. I also like the way the colors look. It is easy for me to see where each month is and I can look at the year in terms of weeks or months.
Above is a closer view and you can see that I have Post Topic and Month Topic. The Post Topic are my weekly posts. I have a loose system of writing certain types of posts on certain days like this:
- Sunday – Scrapbook Layouts
- Monday – Write about websites, software and/or apps
- Tuesday – Tech Tuesday
- Wednesday – Wordless Wednesday, Quotes
- Thursday – List Day & Book Reviews
- Friday – Friday Fun & Goals updates
- Saturday – Project 365 Updates
Month Topics look like this;
- January – Organization
- February – Relationships
- March – Healthy Lifestyle
- April – Career
- May – Spiritual
- June – Recreation
- July – Finances
- August – Me Time
- September – Education
- October – Hobbies
- November – Family
- December – Balancing It All
If you don’t have weekly or monthly post topics, you can remove those sections.
Editorial Calendar Monthly Format
The 2014 calendar will have a separate file available next week for the monthly format seen below. It will be available as a freebie to newsletter subscribers. The second spreadsheet shows one month per page as seen below. 
I created the second version because I wanted more room to write in my blog posts. The full year on one page is great for me to see what the different topics are each month and as an overview.
My monthly editorial calendar.
Now, you have the editorial calendar template, here are a few posts to help you set it up.
- #SITS31DBBB: What Did a Calendar Ever Do For You?
- How to Develop Your Editorial Calendar by Heidi Cohen
- Timing is Everything: Why You Need an Editorial Calendar by Heidi Cohen
- 5 Ideas for Filling Your Editorial Calendar by Michele McGraw (ME) at BlogWorld Expo Blog
- 5 Benefits of An Editorial Calendar
- Why You Need An Editorial Calendar For Your Blog by Outspoken Media
Editorial Calendar Download
Updated 2015 Editorial Calendar Available! (download link)
Let’s Talk About Your Editorial Calendar!
Do you have an editorial calendar? Do you stick to the calendar or is it just a loose guide?
Is 2016 available yet? : )
Cool! Have one done for 2016 yet? Like the design format.
I am working on one for 2016. I tore my rotator cuff in my right arm, so typing has been tough. If you sign up for the newsletter, you’ll get a notification when the new one is uploaded.
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I will forward this article to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read.
Many thanks for sharing!
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How do I get the monthly download?
Did you sign up for the newsletter? It comes via email after you confirm the newsletter.
You rock!!!!
Why thank you!
I used this same calendar last year and loved it. Just downloaded version 2014. Thanks so much!
You are very welcome.
I love this!!!! I’ve been looking for a great editorial calendar for months since I’ve started my blog. Thank you so much for sharing this colorful delightful tool!
So glad you like it. I’ll be creating one for 2014 & 2015 very soon.
Thanks so much for this! It’s what I’ve been looking for. 😉 Not overly complicated yet still a complete, working calendar to work with.
I needed a solution to visualize the vacation days of my company’s employees in a single sheet and your calendar was the perfect starting point. Many thanks.
Awesome alternate use. I’ll have to add that to the post.
Hiya 🙂 I love this calendar and I know it’s something I would benefit from.
If you don’t mind me saying your social media bar jumps out over your post and I have been unable to get to read your words or see the full benefit of what you offer on your blog. I thought it was just my phone at first but then I found it was the same when on my computer.
Debs
Thanks for letting me know on the social media bar. I just changed to a new bar! Guess that won’t work!!!
thank you for this post! really helpful and i plan to use the calendar for my website to motivate me to generate content more regularly.
AWESOME! So glad it will help you take your website to the next level!
All I wanted was a simple calendar with simplicity, and I’m happy to have now downloaded yours 2 years in a row. Thanks for making it free. It is amazing how many of these “content marketers” (aka people who write for money just like the rest of us) continually outsmart themselves by overcomplicating a calendar, how to download the calendar, how to customize the calendar etc. etc. I just needed a calendar. Thank you.
you are very welcome. Glad it will help.
A good editorial calendar should be able to publish to social media sites. It should work with Twitter and Facebook because that’s where your customers hang out. Even better, it should combine content curation with content creation. Namely, it should be very easy to curate content, but also very easy to integrate with existing blogging platform like WordPress.
has a good social media editorial calendar feature. It integrates with Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and WordPress. You can drag and drop to schedule posts.
The tool also helps you find the most shareable content to publish.
But sometimes you just want a very simple editorial calendar so that you can plan ahead. I like having something on my desk that is printed out and easy for me to see at all times. When the editorial calendar gets too complicated, I don’t look at it. Simple is best for me.
Michele,
Completely agreed, simplicity is definitely the best. The tool is no replacement for a piece of paper that sits on your desk.
But with a software based solution, you can share the editorial calendar with your team and access it anywhere.
This is such a good way of getting organised and seeing where you are what you’ve done and what you need to do. I tell myself time and time again to do something like this but unfortunately it never seems to get to the front of the list of things to do. Which I keep I my head I must add. So I will attack this project why it is right at the front.
So for that thanks lee
I love to explore I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
So glad you like the blog. I love writing and it’s nice to know that others are reading and find the information useful!
Thank you for the template and even more importantly the insight into how you stay organized. It’s very useful as I’m trying to get my act together for 2013!
Plus, who doesn’t love a rainbow? Happy!
LOL! You are so true. The rainbow is icing on the cake. So glad you like it.
We are also hoping to use your 2013 version…this is great!
Thanks for this. I seem to have hit a bit of a snag. I’m not seeing anything in the template. The excel doc is blank.
Fabulous template! Since I just started my blog and it’s November – I sure didn’t want to start from scratch. Have been looking for a template for a couple of days.
Best,
Monica.
http://www.pear-shaped-gal.com/
Thank you for sharing this. I love the colours. Do you have a template for 2013 as well?
Thanks for sharing this!
Thank you so much!!!! This is an excellent template!
I’d love to download this but your download link is broken!
I’m interested in downloading the template also, but keep getting an error message saying that the page does not exist.
I’m glad that I have become one of the fans of your blog . From you which I can learn a lot of meaningful knowledge and helpful information . Not only that, I can also communicate to other readers some valuable experience.
I can’t seem to download the file. It gives me an error message that the page does not exist. Any thoughts?
I’m starting my blog and want to have a good idea of how to organize my posts. I found your format to be easy to follow. I also loved how you listed your “rough” outline of what you post. Extremely helpful. Thanks. Kathleen
So happy the calendar will help you get organized. Good Luck with your new blog.
I am having trouble getting the download. Is it still available? Thanks
Yes, Lori it is still available. Be sure you download it first and then open it up. Let me know if that doesn’t work.
Oooh, this is blissfully geeky. I have an editorial calendar by month, but yours is much prettier. 🙂 I love the idea of a yearly overview by topic, too. Think I may be “borrowing” that idea too.
Thanks for so generously sharing.
LOL! I never sacrifice beauty for functional. 😀
Thank you for sharing! I have been looking for an editorial calender like this to keep me organized and consistent with my posts.
Having an editorial calendar has really helped me be more consistent. It’s also a lot easier to see my schedule when I get another request for a review or campaign.
Hi Michelle- this is great! We have a simple editorial calendar that we have been using but I like your format much better! I’m going to update our calendar with your template- cheers for ‘simple’ organization… gracias!
so glad you like the editorial calendar. I love simple and colorful!
Thanks for an excellent post Michelle, I use my outlook calendar at the moment but this looks great. I also use Evernote as it is great for hoarding facts and details for my future posts.
I use Evernote too. I also use both Outlook and OneNote. Different tools for different projects.
Definitely one of he best calendars, I had started formatting my own but I love the colour coding on this, Thanks!
I LOVE THIS ED CAL!! You just made my morning! thank you for posting this I am going to show it to my team!
You are very welcome!
This was a really great post. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for this awesome template!!! It’s a major time saver.
You are very welcome, Dana!
Thank you for sharing this calendar. Quite comprehensive, and coming from a person who has faced the problem herself and has evolved whit method.
Would be glad to keep in touch.
Regards
Pramodh BN
Co Founder
Business Marketing System
thanks so much! This was exactly what I was looking for. Love the colors 🙂
I just downloaded your calendar. Thanks for sharing this. I am sending others over here to download also!
Nicole – So glad you found it useful.
New to the site but this is so informational! I’ve been meaning to create an editorial calender but never follow through monthly. I really need this as my schedule keeps getting busier and busier. Love that it’s annual so we can look ahead, which is so important for blogs and business. Thanks again for this!
Awesome! So glad it will help you out. I always feel 100 times better when everything is organized!
Hello, I’m Jake Bowers. And I really love to read your blog as well as the examples that you’ve mention. Thank you so much for this helpful contents. I am looking forward to see more example contents like this.
If you have time you can also visit this site that I managed to surf in:
Albury Photography
Michele, I really want to thank you for the information you share from the bottom of my heart. I got up at 4:30 am this morning before getting ready to go to work and I was able to plug in what days I would create content for each of my websites (Crochet site, beauty direct sales, team training site,career/business site) . Since I work full time for 9 hrs a day and have every other Monday off. I was able to use this system to plug in a at least one day for each of these sites and twice per month for the beauty site out of necessity for the company product updates. My strategy is on the day that I have scheduled for a particular site is to create several articles that I can schedule to post at different times of the month to give each of my sites the appearance of being updated every week.
You don’t know what a life saver this calendar is for me. I even redid the dividers to reflect sites I am commited to building content for so when I come across hard copy articles I can place them in the appropriate section to read late and I also will use the Evernote App to capture online articles that fit within each of my niches that I can refer to when creating content.
I don’t feel overwhelmed anymore and when I feel lost and not sure what I should be researching for, I can just pull out my editorial calendar and see what site I have coming up that I need to create content for and make sure I am fitting research into my schedule. So when the time comes to create content all I have to do is start drafting the article with the info I have already been gathering.
I also plan to create a complimentary spreadsheet to track the articles that I have scheduled and when they will post on my sites. That way I know I need to go back and promote those articles once they have posted, based on how I scheduled them out.
Thanks again for all you do. You have also really inspired me to work harder on my passion site as well which is for crocheting. Even though I have been doing a lot of crocheting I have not updated the site in a while. I guess because crocheting is not all I love but I see from your site about your scrapbooking and technology passion you have used that to create a brand for yourself and everyone gets to see the complete you in one place. I am going to try to do the same with my crochet site without making it so broad that it starts to crossover with my other sites.
Dee – So happy that the spreadsheet helped you. I think sometimes when we sit down to write, we don’t know what to write so we get distracted. I’ve found that having the editorial calendar lets me get focused on the writing instead of searching for ideas.
Yes…I had a hard time at first because I have so many interests that seem very disconnected. After blogging for a few years, I realized that just about everything I do has a tech connection. I’m a digital scrapbooker so even my hobbies are techie. 😀 And I’m a runner, but I started running because someone showed me the Nike+ and I thought that was really neat!!
Adding keywords is a great idea. I still have to get more organized in the keyword department. Baby steps I say! LOL!
Yes! it worked that time. i saved it this time before trying to open.
Yay! Glad it worked. Let me know how that works out!
Michele thank you so much! I am going to start working on this tonight. I feel that right now tht the only thing standign between me and a fulltime income with my online efforts is having a tool like this to keep me organized and on task. Right now I generate a steady parttime but like you i have 5 kids and would prefer to be at home running my own household fulltime while scheduling my work around it.
the only minor tweak i may make to my spreadsheet is to make sure I target the keywords that i research. Also I tried to download your spreadsheet but all i got was a blank spreadsheet that said if you like this please send the person to this link……
I could try to copy from your screenshots above but not sure how much i could capture. i have a binder that i can place it in as well as a similiar color code system where I can collect content, mag articles, etc for content ideas.
thanks again for sharing.
Try downloading it again. I just uploaded it again. I’m not sure what you got, but hopefully it was just a bad connection. 😀
Hello Michele,
I came across your blog this morning while looking for a blog content editorial calendar i could download to help bring some sanity back to my life.
I have several blogs(5 blogs) that I am building. SInce I can not bring myself to just commit to working on just one, I figured Id better develop a system that will help me to be more organized to make sure I can be successful at all of them. I thought a editorial calendar would work well for me.
FOr this purpose my question is… should I have just one editorial calendar to manage all 5 blogs or should i create an editorial calendar for each one. My fear is if i create separate calendars i will create scheduling conflicts but if I do it all together it could cause issues as well. what do you recommend.
For example, I have a beauty blog that promotes products as well as shares info on health, fitness, fashion, home etc. and i also have a blog for career/business topics.
any insight you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Dee – My suggestion would be to create 1 editorial calendar. Then choose the days you want to post on each blog. For example if you want to blog on Monday & Thurs on the Health & fitness blog and Tuesday & Friday on the beauty and maybe Wed & Friday on the career, that will make it easier to figure out which blog to post on.
Then if you want to have topics for the week sometimes to help out and to spread across all your blogs.
Let’s say it’s June and you want to spend one week writing about weddings. You can write about planning a wedding and staying sane at your job on your career blog. Then write about beauty products and weddings on your beauty blog and so on and so on. That would also be a great way to cross promote your blogs which have very different niches.
And as you are planning your calendar, you may see other areas where you can cross promote.
Great stuff Michele! This will definitely come in handy. Do you know if it converts to Google Docs correctly? …and I agree with Peggy, the color rocks.
Thank you very much. This was really helpful. Started using it on Tuesday and now I am scheduled through the end of the year with Monday Motivation, Tuesday Thoughts, Wednesday Wellness, Thursday Tour (this site will definitely be included), Friday Fun, Saturday Surprise, and Sunday Scripture.
Now the fun part of taking action with the plan.
Thanks again.
Awesome! Love to hear that it helped you get organized!
Finally an editorial calendar with COLOR!!! Thank you so much for the template. I have been looking around and thought I was going to need to start from scratch to find a functional calendar that matches my personality 🙂 you rock
Michele,
We love your posts over at Digitwirl. Full of awesome tips- our subscribers would love your blog!
Kiersten
– – – –
Digitwirl: Making Tech Work for You
This. Is. Awesome.
Thank you so much for this; not even so much for the actual spreadsheet, but even just for the idea of the spreadsheet. I’ve become more and more “directionally challenged” with the blog I started last November and it never would have occurred to me to do something like this.
Thank you again.
No problem. Love to share my tips for staying on top of everything.
Just downloaded your template and I can already tell it’s going to save my life blogging this year. Thank you!!!
AWESOME! So glad to hear it will be helpful.
Did you read my mind? Literally this week I’ve been thinking that I needed some sort of calendar to keep me on track with my blog and my blog-related facebook postings. Thanks!!
LOL! I heard this voice from afar telling me that someone needed a calendar….
U read my boss’s mind… He just instructed me to make something similar..and google search got me to this perfect post.. Now lets hope he also finds this perfect
LOL! I hope he appreciates the beauty of this editorial calendar. Makes it interesting and useful!! Let me know how he liked it.
Indeed, lol. I do too.