5 Best Content Planning Tools to Supercharge Your Strategy in 2024

Now that we’ve discussed your blog content strategy, it’s time to take a look at some of the best content planning tools to take you from random posts to a writing machine. If you’ve ever felt like you’ve been drowning in a sea of ideas, deadlines, social media posts, and advice on how to boost your blog, this is the post for you.

Let’s take the swirling mess of thoughts and ideas careening through your brain and get them organized into a strong editorial calendar and throw in some social media marketing strategy to boot!

Remember, you need to find a sustainable posting schedule – we recommend 2-3 times a week, especially if you haven’t quit your day job yet. Once things are rolling, you can consider expansion and doing daily posts (or multiple posts in a day). The trick (as with everything) is to be consistent.

Ready? Let’s get into it.

Why You Need a Content Planning Tool (Like, Yesterday!)

I have ADHD. The real kind, diagnosed by a doctor and all. So I know a thing or two about what a mess a mind can be. For me, it’s always been about thoughts swirling around – thoughts that don’t fit together. I might be thinking about my next blog post, when suddenly my mind turns to whether or not I have enough clean socks for the week, then over to laughing at a funny scene I saw in a movie the day before, only to circle back around and decide that I need to write 10 more posts today.

It can get really frustrating (especially when I want to sleep).

The good news is that they make medications that do wonders for that feeling of inescapable noise and intrusive thoughts.

If you’re a blogger, the best fix is getting organized and creating a blog content strategy, then executing it with the help of content planning tools. From editorial calendars and content planning software to social media automation tools and even AI, getting an organized system set up will boost your marketing efforts and keep you from getting pulled in too many directions at once.

And if you’re at the point where you’re working with a team of content creators and editors, these same tools can help you collaborate, schedule content, and not step on each other’s toes.

Top 5 All-in-One Content Planning Powerhouses

Let’s take a look at 5 of the top all-in-one content planning tools and see how they stack up.

Trello

I would say I’m most familiar with Trello, having used it for some things in the world of real estate as well as planning a blog, although I hadn’t used it for awhile until recently and I’m starting to get back into it (I may even use it for this blog – I’ll keep you posted).

Trello has been around since 2011, so it’s had plenty of time to age and age well. Broken down into three main components, Trello uses boards, lists, and cards to keep you on track and help you plan your blog content (and it can be used to manage all sorts of things in your life – not just your blog).

Boards are the main dashboard screen for Trello. You can have multiple boards, but for our purposes, we’d start with just one – an editorial calendar and content management system for our blog. The board is where all of your work lives – think of it as the container for everything else.

Lists are just what they sound like. You use these to build task management lists – to do, pending, scheduled, ideas or keywords, etc. The uses are endless and really only limited by your imagination – and your needs. Try and keep it simple to start, get used to using a content planning tool, and then expand from there.

Cards are the actual tasks, but can be used for a lot of different things. Sometimes, I’ve used them to just jot notes or ideas for new content down. I am also experimenting with throwing lists of keywords into a card so that I always have some ready and I know what I want to focus on at any given moment.

A little advance planning will make the search engines happy.

Cards are designed to hold all of the information to get the job done and as you progress through your content creation process, you move the cards from list to list. I like to think of a card as a blog post – and move it from idea stage, to drafted, to scheduled, to published…and you can build as many steps in between or after publishing (posting to social media, talking about it in your newsletter, checking back for linking opportunities, monetizing the post – see it really can be anything you want it to be).

Additional Features

Trello has tons of templates available for just about any use case and offers integrations with a lot of useful platforms to help you get more done. If this blog ever gets to the point where I’m working with a staff and multiple writers, I would most likely move to Trello for creating content and managing workflows for myself and my staff.

Butler automations are one of the cool features that I haven’t really gotten into yet. In a world where AI is taking on more and more of the simple tasks, this feature is geared toward automating repetitive tasks and creating if-this-then-that style rules to help you get more done.

Pricing

Pricing is straight forward and won’t break the bank. In fact, they have a fully free version that will get you started (and you may even be able to use it longer than you might expect for a free tool).

Overall, I love Trello for its simplicity and free plan (not a trial plan – fully free). It has a lot of more advanced features, but doesn’t make it all so overwhelming that you can’t focus on what’s important – content creation. If you’re ready to move past sticky notes and spreadsheets, give Trello a spin.

CoSchedule

I first came across and experimented with CoSchedule for social media posts, but it does have blog content capabilities (and connects to WordPress). CoSchedule is more calendar focused than Trello and definitely leans heavily into handling your social media strategy.

Where Trello uses cards moving across lists in order to show progress, CoSchedule utilizes calendar items and workflow stages (think in progress, scheduled, posted, reposted, etc.) to visually show you where things are with each piece of content. This is probably an oversimplification of all that CoSchedule can do, but it is the main focus.

CoSchedule is highly customizable, which I find to be both a blessing and a curse. While I love that I can color, rename, and create workflows, I know that sometimes that can lead to paralysis by analysis (or the dreaded “planning to plan” loop). This is one that you want to have time to play with, adapt, refine, and implement – which can be very difficult when you’re just starting out, because you don’t know what you don’t know and you need to focus on creating content and building traffic to your site, not color coding calendar events and developing workflows.

CoSchedule does have an incredible wealth of knowledge in their help section, including videos, so it gets a gold star for that.

Pricing

While there is a free plan, it is limited to two social profiles and 15 scheduled social messages, so you don’t have a ton of wiggle room if you’re really looking to dive in. It does come with an AI assistant with their free plan, so that’s a plus.

My biggest fear with CoSchedule is getting bogged down in the details and set up. I also feel it’s geared a bit too much toward social media to really be one of the best content planning tools, but it is powerful, good looking, and will take your social media to the next level – which you’ll want, eventually.

Monday.com

I feel like Monday.com existed before the internet (I know this is not possible, but it does feel like it’s been around forever). Monday.com is designed as a project and task management system that can be configured to meet the users needs. When we say full featured, we’re talking about Monday.com.

Monday.com benefits from its customization potential – from how you view your tasks and projects to color of labels, you decide how you want to visualize your content creation process. Monday.com can be used in a lot of different industries, so you’re going to need to build what you want, but don’t fear, there are a ton of templates available for your use (I like the Content Planning Template for a good starting point).

Like many tools, this one can easily bog you down in the learning curve and you’ll find you’re spending more time building your setup than you will writing posts. Try to build a big picture methodology and refine as you go along – this way you don’t spend hours and hours working on Monday.com and then wind up abandoning it because it’s too much for you.

Pricing

There are a variety of plans and price levels and Monday.com does offer a free plan that has plenty of features to make use of and get a good feel for the system before deciding you need some more capabilities and upgrading your account.

Miro

If you’re highly visual, then Miro might be the solution for you. Imagine a big online whiteboard just waiting for you to unleash your creativity on it. It’s also great for collaboration, but since I’m flying solo on this site, I haven’t really had an opportunity to work on any kind of shared content calendar with Miro.

What I love about Miro? It looks cool. If you have a bit of an artistic flair, you can really make your content ideas shine – but once again, you have a choice of whether you want to spend time creating cool whiteboards or writing more quality content .

I kind of like to think of Miro as sticky notes on steroids because of the visual aspect of it all. If you’re the creative type, then Miro might be right up your alley. Give it a try and let me know if you put together a cool whiteboard for your content creation process – I’d love to check it out.

Pricing

You can start for free and create up to three whiteboards – and invite unlimited users for team collaboration. Prices for the upgraded accounts aren’t terribly expensive, so this could be a good low price option for you as you expand.

Smartsheet

I admit, I didn’t know of Smartsheet until I was writing this post. I was actually looking for some sample spreadsheet templates and stumbled upon it. And the crazy thing is…I like it.

Even though I haven’t “used” Smartsheet (I’ve played with a demo account), I think it looks great, has great features, and is something worth exploring. In fact, out of this list of blog content planners, I’m starting to move Smartsheet to the top and I’ve only dabbled in it.

Projects open and look like spreadsheets, so this might be a good one to try if you’re used to a more old school content planning tool. The true magic in Smartsheet is how you can then manipulate that data (you can do this with spreadsheets too, but it takes a lot more knowledge and work on your part).

Like the other top content planning tools, Smartsheet is designed as a task management system that is customizable to fit the need of your particular industry or scope of work. Many of the examples they show are for project management for teams, but you could definitely use it as part of your content planning process and get great results.

Pricing

This one might be something to invest in later as you grow your site, as there is no free plan, but you can get a free 30 day trial on their site.

Budget-Friendly Options

When I first started blogging, I was a mess when it came to content planning. I thought I could just wing it, and boy, was I wrong. After a few months of inconsistent posting and writer’s block, I knew I needed to get my act together. But here’s the thing – I was on a shoestring budget.

But when you’re on a shoestring budget, free works wonders – and as I’ve mentioned before, spreadsheets can be very useful when your pockets are full of lint.

First up, let’s talk about Google Sheets. I know it’s not exactly sexy, but hear me out. This free tool is seriously underrated for content planning. I’ve created a simple template with columns for post ideas, target keywords, content publish dates, and status. It’s not fancy, but it gets the job done. Plus, you can access it from anywhere, which can be very useful when inspiration strikes and you’re not near your main computer.

Of course, you can also go with Excel (and swap between it and Google Sheets), it just depends on if you’re more of an “in the cloud” kind of person or prefer old fashioned software (I grew up in the early days of computing, so I still like software downloaded to my local drive and saved there as well).

Oh, and let’s not forget about Evernote. The free version is plenty for most bloggers. I admit, I haven’t used Evernote in years, but I used to use it a lot to jot down notes and ideas – I used it to replace scrap pieces of paper that used to liter my desk. Evernote syncs across devices and you can use it on mobile devices so you can make quick notes whenever they pop into your head.

Whatever you do, don’t try to use every tool, all at once. Look for tools that integrate with the tools you use (or plan to use).

How to Choose the Best Content Planning Tool for You

Try a few different options and see what clicks with you. Everyone’s creative process is different, so I might love one tool for creating and planning content, but you might hate it and wind up never using it. You have to remember, at the end of the day, the best content planning tool is the one you use regularly. You don’t need the most expensive or fully-featured product, you just need one that keeps you going.

You still need to provide the creative content – so don’t get burnt out by creating the most elaborate system for content planning, start small and grow. Your long term content strategy is more important than how you track it – so focus on what works and what gets you typing.

I highly recommend setting aside some time that you dedicate to content planning. Much like I had to set up time to prospect as a real estate agent or practice my guitar as a musician, if you don’t set aside the time, you won’t use your content planning tools, no matter how awesome they are.

Find some time to sit with a coffee or maybe a glass of wine and focus on planning out a week at first. Start small. As you complete your tasks, remind yourself that you need to set aside some more time to plan out your blog a little more. Each time you successfully complete a week, try stretching out the timeline a bit – plan two weeks, plan a month, plan a quarter.

And remember, no plan has to be set in stone. As a blogger you should be flexible and ready to adapt based on how things are going.

Your New Life with Content Planning

So there you have it – my Top 5 Content planning tools and some thoughts about how to make the most of them. Trust me, I used to be against planning when it came to blogging, but the more I write, the more I realize that having a plan is critical and will make you publish more content.

If you want your blog to get from “meh” to “awesome” in 2024, start today. Find one that fits your needs, don’t get bogged down in all of the fancy details (you can add on more later), and make sure you use in consistently. Focus on your target audience and publish on a regular schedule. Before you know it, you’ll start seeing results. And who knows, maybe you’ll be fast tracked for adding content writers and building a team so you can really start using those advanced features of your favorite content planning tool and cranking out website content like there’s no tomorrow.