What is an SEO Content Brief (And How to Write One) – Topic Blog

What is an SEO Content Brief?

A content brief is a document that helps you and your writer understand what you want from your content and how you want it done.

To create content aimed at ranking for a specific query on Google, you’ll have to write an SEO-focused content brief.

The best content briefs generally include:

What Are The Benefits of SEO Content Briefs?

If the goal is to streamline your content process, why overcomplicate it?
With a content brief you save time, money, and improve content quality.
Still not convinced? Here are four reasons:

Reduce Content Production Costs

Let’s say you send a topic to your freelance writer without a content brief. What if they come back with an underwhelming first draft? That’s more time and money spent on fixing a weak draft. The same way a blueprint saves time while building a house, a content brief reduces needless revisions and ensures your content is in-depth.

Increase Consistency Among Writers

To build trust with your clients and audience, you have to consistently deliver good content. Using a content brief helps less experienced writers create content at a higher level, keep brand voice constant, and set a consistent standard for your brand.

Improve Content’s Search Rankings

SEO content is a long-term investment. A content brief can reduce this risk. With it, you can create content that caters to your audience as well as Google.

Hit Delivery Deadlines

Content briefing can reduce errors and improve your content creation process.
By adding content briefs to your content workflow, your writers will be able to turn around drafts faster. The result: better SEO content at scale.

What Does an SEO Content Brief Include?

An SEO content brief covers more than just the topic, research, and key points.

Primary Keyword

The main goal of SEO content is to rank on search engines and drive organic traffic.
The kicker: pick one primary keyword and a few variants.

Target Audience

Who are you creating content for? Identifying the target audience will help your writer understand their pain points, ensuring they create content that resonates and drives clicks.

Format

What type of content do you want to create? The most common types of content include:

Brand Voice and Writing Style

Link to your brand’s style guide and add any editorial resources to ensure each piece of content matches your brand standards.

Suggested Word Count

Per Hubspot, a ‘Pillar page’ should be ~4000 words. ‘Listicles’ should be ~2300 to 2600 words.

Content Outline

A content outline is essential. With a great outline you can create in-depth content loved by readers and search engines. Ideally, it should include:

Competitor Examples

Include examples of articles that already rank for your target keyword. Identify good competitor examples using tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush.

External Links

Add external links when you mention any statistics or discuss topics your readers may be unfamiliar with. They establish trust and improve reader experience.

Sub-Topics

Ensure writers cover several subtopics in depth to help your content rank high.

3 Tools to Speed Up SEO Content Brief Creation

Here are some content optimization tools that can help you create content at scale:

1. Topic

Topic automates the research required to create high-quality content briefs. It analyzes top results for a given keyword and generates a research document.

2. Marketmuse

Marketmuse offers features to build content briefs, manage your content library, and enforce content scoring.

3. Frase

Frase specializes in answering questions visitors might have and generates content briefs quickly, but you need to curate the subtopics.

Final Thoughts

With the strategies and tools above, you now have the power to manage your writers effectively and create content that resonates with your readers (and Google!).
As promised, here’s a free plug-and-play content brief template you can use to create your own content briefs.