SEO content briefs are comprehensive documents outlining every detail for writers, publishers, graphic designers, subject matter experts, and other collaborators involved in producing content assets. They typically include the title, outlines, brand information, keywords, sources, and many other elements needed to complete the content.
A well-written SEO content brief ensures high-quality content with excellent ranking potential. It provides details that help writers create well-researched and comprehensive pieces.
3 Reasons to Embrace SEO Content Briefs
Content briefs establish a repeatable and scalable process for producing SEO content in a team environment. Consistent briefs across all your content maintain your company’s voice, brand, opinion, and positioning, even when different people contribute.
- Consistent Excellence with a Repeatable Process: Scale your content production, offer better writing guidance, and develop a robust content strategy using content briefs.
- Streamlined Workflows and Collaborative Success: Easily share briefs through Google Docs, PDFs, or simple links. Create client- and website-specific templates for significant automation savings.
- Data-Driven Guidance for Top Page Rankings: Guide the writing process with cutting-edge content scoring algorithms, data, and analysis to ensure your content ranks well and delivers a high ROI.
Who Benefits from Content Briefs?
If you want to create quality content, everyone involved in your content production process needs to utilize content briefs as a key component of your overall SEO content strategy. This includes everyone from marketing strategists to copywriters to editors.
Content briefs help reduce costly back-and-forth between clients and writers, and among content teams in general. They also ensure everyone involved in the content pipeline works harmoniously, eliminating disjointed output and unclear expectations.
You can also use content briefs as milestones for review, as they provide an effective way to gather feedback from clients or reviewers, ensuring all stakeholders are satisfied with the final product.
In Summary, Content Briefs Are Typically Used/Created by:
Content strategists
Content managers
Writers
Editors
Graphic/media designers
SEO managers
Components of an SEO Content Brief
- Primary Keyword: Your content only ranks as well as its primary keyword. Input your chosen primary keyword into your chosen tool and it builds the analysis for you.
- Location and Language: For your content to reach the right audience, set your location and language before performing the keyword analysis.
- Comprehensive SERP Analysis: You can’t beat the competition if you don’t know what they’re doing. Tools can automate the SERP analysis process to give you all the details on ranking pages and help you craft a strategy to outrank them.
- Due Date or Deadline:Digital marketing strategists should specify when they need the content completed. This ensures content is never late for a trend and always posted when it’ll attract the most attention. Pro tip: Include wiggle room for editing before uploading or sending it back to your client.
- SEO Title: A captivating title grabs readers’ attention and aligns with the keyword intent. Analyze top-ranking pages for a particular topic and use similar words to increase your chances of ranking higher. A good content brief starts with an appealing title that resonates with search engines and readers.
- SEO Meta Description: While not always included, a meta description plays a crucial role in whether people click on your page. Like your title, it must align with common keywords among ranking pages and, for a boost, include related terms your competitors are targeting. Tools can ease this process by suggesting a summarized description with keywords you can easily polish.
- Format: A brief’s format specifies the content’s structure and serves as a blueprint for your team on how to best organize the content. When searching online, readers expect pages with similar structures or types. Tools can analyze top-ranking pages and suggest the formatting best suited for your content.
- SEO Outline: Talk to readers about things that matter to them. Outlines are crucial in keeping readers engaged. Understanding the topics, questions, insights, and depth present in other ranking pages is vital for crafting outlines for your content brief. A well-structured and comprehensive outline benefits writers, search engines, and users.
- People Also Ask (PAA) Questions: Engage readers and build relationships by answering the People Also Ask (PAA) questions from search engines. Use the PAA questions, related keywords, and popular questions to guide you on how to improve reader experience. Gain more exposure by ranking in PAA or featured snippets. Tools can provide you with a list of questions from PAA, along with keywords and questions from competing web pages, allowing you to select the best ones for your brief