How to Build a Content Governance Plan

When a team creates a lot of content, things can easily become disorganized. Blog posts get published, emails get sent, sales materials get shared with customers, and website pages stay live for months or even years. After a while, it becomes unclear what is still accurate, what needs to be updated, and who is responsible for each piece of content.

For example, a product page may show information that is no longer valid. A PDF that the sales team sends to customers may include outdated details. A blog post may link to a page that no longer exists. This does not happen because the team does not know how to write or because it is not creative. It happens because there is no clear system for reviewing, approving, updating, and organizing content.

A content governance plan is that system.

In this blog, we will show you how to create one, step by step, so your team knows who does what, how content is reviewed, and when it needs to be updated.

What Is Content Governance and Why Is It Important?

Before we get into the details, we should mention that content governance is not the same as content strategy.

Content strategy answers the questions what and why, what content you create, who you create it for, and what goal it should support.

Content governance answers the question how, who creates the content, who approves it, where it is stored, who updates it, and when it is no longer useful or accurate.

The three pillars of every good content governance plan are:

• People - clear roles and responsibilities
• Processes - a defined workflow from idea to publication
• Standards - rules that help keep all content consistent

Without these three elements, content quickly becomes disorganized. When you have them, even small teams can create more content without losing quality or a consistent style.

Step 1: Review the Current Situation Before You Build the System

There is no point in building a content plan if you do not understand the content you already have. That is why the first step is not writing documents, but doing an audit.

A content audit means going through everything you currently publish, blog posts, website pages, emails, social media posts, PDF materials, and answering three questions for each piece of content:

• Who owns this content?
• When was it last updated?
• Does it still serve its purpose?

You do not need to use any complicated tools. A simple table in Excel or Google Sheets can be enough. If you have a larger website, tools like Screaming Frog can automatically pull a list of all your URLs.

Imagine a B2B software company that regularly publishes new blog posts but already has a large number of existing articles and product pages on its website.

As time goes by, some information becomes outdated. Product prices change, certain features are no longer available, and some links stop working.

That’s why the marketing manager decides to organize a review of the existing content to determine what needs to be updated, what can remain unchanged, and what is no longer relevant.

For each piece of content, the team records the identified problem, the person responsible for resolving it, and the next step.

For example:

This kind of analysis gives the team a clear starting point. Instead of randomly updating articles, the team can first focus on content that contains inaccurate information or requires more significant changes.

During the analysis, it’s also important to check which articles don’t have an assigned responsible person.

Every active article should have someone responsible for reviewing and updating it when the information changes.

Step 2: Decide Who Is Responsible for What

One of the biggest mistakes in content management is assuming that responsibility will somehow be established on its own. It will not.

Every piece of content should have a person who knows that this content is their responsibility and who will be the first person to contact when something needs to be changed.

In practice, it is useful to define four roles:

• Content owner - makes sure the content is accurate and up to date; this does not always have to be the person who writes it
• Creator - writes, records, or designs the content
• Reviewer - checks quality, tone, and alignment with the brand
• Approver - gives final approval before publication (this can be a manager, the legal team, or someone else depending on the topic)

If you work in a team of five or fifteen people, you do not have to assign every role to a different person. Sometimes one person has two or three roles at the same time, the important thing is that everyone clearly knows who does what.

A practical tool that helps here is a RACI matrix. Let’s take the process of creating blog posts in a software company as an example.

Four people are involved in preparing the content: a writer, an editor, a content manager, and a product expert.

Before publishing an article, the team members agree on who will perform each task and who will be responsible for the final result.

Explanation of the labels:

• R - Responsible: The person who performs the task.
• A - Accountable: The person who is ultimately responsible for the result.
• C - Consulted: The person who provides input or expert advice.
• I - Informed: The person who needs to be kept informed about progress or the result.

For example, the writer prepares the article, but the content manager is ultimately responsible for ensuring the article is completed according to the agreed process.

The product expert checks the accuracy of the technical information but does not need to manage the entire publishing process.

With this division of responsibilities, team members know who to turn to when a question or problem arises.

A RACI matrix doesn’t have to be complicated. To start, it’s enough to use it for the types of content and decisions where it’s currently unclear who is responsible for what. Platforms like EasyContent allow you to assign roles and permissions to team members with just a few clicks.

Step 3: Set Content Standards

When you define the responsibilities of all team members, the next step is to set clear standards for content creation.

Focus on three areas:

Brand Tone and Voice: Define how your brand speaks to readers. Should the tone be formal, friendly, or casual? Include concrete examples so writers know what is expected of them.

Style Guide: Establish rules for the use of terms, text formatting, headings, lists, and visual elements. This helps the team ensure that all content is written and presented in a consistent way.

SEO and Metadata Standards: Define guidelines for the use of keywords, meta descriptions, URLs, image names, and internal links. This way, all team members follow the same basic SEO rules.

How to Create Clear Content Writing Standards

A software company wants every blog post to follow the same writing rules and quality standards.

Instead of simply telling writers that “the content should be professional and SEO-optimized,” the marketing manager prepares short and clear guidelines.

Here’s how those standards could look:

These standards can be added to a content template that the team can reuse multiple times.

For example, in EasyContent the team can create a blog post template that you can organize in a way that works for you.

Every time a new article is created using that template, writers can follow the same guidelines instead of searching for them in different documents.

The goal isn’t for all articles to sound exactly the same, but for every writer to follow the same basic quality standards.

Step 4: Map the Workflow, From Idea to Publication

Once you know who's responsible for each task and what standards need to be followed, the next step is to define a clear content workflow.

Every piece of content should follow a structured process, from the initial idea to publication and regular updates.

A typical content workflow might look like this:

Planning → Creation → Review → Approval → Publication → Maintenance → Retirement

Each stage should have a responsible person, a clear deadline, and specific requirements that must be met before the content moves forward.

The workflow should also explain what happens after publication, including when content needs to be reviewed, updated, or removed.

Let's look at how this could work in practice.

Imagine a software company is preparing an article titled “How to Choose Accounting Software for a Small Business.”

The marketing team wants to make sure the article is useful, contains accurate information, and follows the company’s writing standards.

Before publishing, the article goes through the following review and approval steps:

For example, the editor notices that the article claims a certain software feature is available to all users.

The product expert checks that information and explains that the feature is actually only available in certain plans.

The writer corrects the information before the content manager gives final approval.

This way, the team doesn’t depend on a single person to catch every possible mistake.

What happens after the content is published?

Content Governance doesn’t end with the publication of an article.

The same company can define how often different types of content should be reviewed:

• Pricing and product information pages: Review every time there are important changes in product information, with additional periodic checks.
• Educational blog posts: Review every six months, or earlier if important changes occur.
• Evergreen guides (content that stays relevant for a longer time): Review once a year, unless an earlier update is needed.
• Old posts and announcements: Check whether they should remain available, be updated, or be removed.

These timelines serve only as an example and are not rules that must apply to every team.

The most important thing is that every published piece of content has a responsible person and a next review date, so articles don’t remain on the website for years without anyone checking the accuracy and relevance of the information.

Step 5: Document the Plan and Make Sure Everyone Uses It

This is where many teams make a mistake. They write a good document, save it in some folder, but then nobody uses it. In the end, the team continues working the old way.

A good content governance document does not have to be long. In fact, the shorter and clearer it is, the more likely people are to actually use it. Cover the basics:

• Roles and responsibilities
• Content approval workflow
• Standards for tone, style, and SEO
• Where content is stored and how it is named
• How to report a problem or suggest a change

When it comes to where you keep all of this, it can be a tool like EasyContent. It is great for teams because you can define workflows, assign roles and responsibilities to team members, communicate in real time with team members inside the platform, access all content versions, track project statuses through a clear dashboard, and use many other helpful options.

Besides the tool, it is also important to introduce new team members to the plan. Every person who works on content should know the rules before they start writing, editing, or publishing. A short explanation at the beginning can prevent many mistakes and extra work later.

Step 6: Track What Works, What Does Not, and Adjust

A content governance plan is not something you write once and never look at again. The company changes, the team can grow, and the strategy can change. That is why the plan should be reviewed from time to time and adjusted to the new situation.

Review the plan at least once per quarter, and especially when something bigger happens, for example:

• You change the brand look or communication style
• The team grows significantly
• You launch a new product or service
• Rules or laws that affect your content change

Besides regular reviews, it is useful to track a few content governance metrics:

• The percentage of content that has a clear owner
• The average time from idea to publication
• The number of pages that do not have a responsible person or have outdated information
• How often mistakes pass review and get published

These numbers do not only show you how well your content is progressing, but also how well your system is working.

If someone does not follow the process, do not immediately criticize or punish them. It is better to explain how the process works and why it matters. Often the problem is not the person, but the fact that the plan is not clear enough or people cannot easily find it. You can fix that.

Conclusion

You do not have to build a perfect system from day one. Even a partial plan is better than no plan at all.

If you do not know where to start, first decide who is responsible for which content. Create a list of your most important texts, pages, or materials, and next to each one write the name of the person who should take care of it. That is already the first step toward good content management.

After that, add content rules, then a clear work process, and then write everything down in one document. You do not have to build the system all at once. Build it step by step. Over time, you will notice that the content is more consistent, approvals are faster, and there are fewer mistakes.