How to Write an SEO-Focused Content Brief
As an SEO Supervisor, you're responsible for growing your company's organic search traffic. You're working with your dev group on some technical enhancements, but you notice a big piece of the opportunity lies with material. Your company has a content team, but you see they're not utilizing keyword research to notify their articles. You have actually attempted to send them keyword ideas, but up until now, they have not been responsive to your tips.
Or how about this scenario?
You're a marketing director at a startup. You understand that you need content, however do not have the expertise or time to do it yourself, so you ask your network for suggestions and find yourself a freelance author. The only issue is, you're not constantly sure what to appoint them. With little guideline to work off of, they produce content that fizzles.
The service in both of these situations is a content brief Not all content briefs are created equivalent.
As somebody who copes with one foot in content and the other in SEO, I can shed some light on how to make your material briefs both thorough and precious by your content team.
Let's start by agreeing on some terms.
What's a content quick?
A content quick is a set of guidelines to assist a writer on how to draft a piece of content. That piece of content can be a post, a landing page, a white paper, or any number of other initiatives that need content.
Without a content brief, you risk getting back content that does not meet your expectations. This will not only irritate your writer, however it'll likewise require more modifications, taking more of your money and time.
Normally, content briefs are composed by someone in a surrounding field-- like demand generation, product marketing, or SEO-- when they require something particular. Nevertheless, content teams usually don't just work off of briefs. They'll likely have their own calendar and initiatives they're driving (material is one of those unusual roles that requires to support practically every other department while also producing and carrying out on their own work).
What makes a content quick "SEO-focused"?
An SEO-focused content brief is one among lots of kinds of content briefs. It's unique because the objective is to instruct the writer on developing content to target a specific search query for the function of making traffic from the organic search channel.
What to include in your content brief.
Now that we comprehend SEO-focused content briefs in theory, let's enter the nitty gritty. What details should we consist of in them?
1. Main question target and intent
It isn't an SEO-focused material short without a question target!
Using a keyword research study tool like Moz Keyword Explorer, you can get countless keyword concepts that could be appropriate to your business.
In my current job, I'm focused on creating material for retail store owners and others in the brick and mortar retail industry. After listening to some sales and support gets in touch with Gong (lots of groups utilize this to tape-record customer and possibility calls), I might find out that "retailing" is a huge topic of focus.
So I type "merchandising" into Keyword Explorer, include a couple more valuable filters, and boom! Lots of keyword tips.
Pick a keyword (check your existing content to make sure your group hasn't already composed on the topic yet) and utilize that as the "north star" question for your content short.
I believe it's also helpful to consist of some intent info here. In other words, what might the searcher who's typing this question into Google want? It's a good idea to search the question in Google yourself to see how Google is interpreting the intent.
For example, if my keyword is "types of visual merchandising," I can see from the SERP that Google assumes an educational intent, based on the fact that the URLs ranking are largely educational posts.
2. Format
To utilize the very same keyword example, if I Google "kinds of visual merchandising," the top-level articles consist of lists.
You may observe that your target query returns results with a lot of images (typical with questions consisting of "motivation" or "examples").
This better helps the author comprehend what content format is most likely to work best.
3. Subjects to cover and associated questions to respond to
Selecting the target inquiry assists the writer understand the "concept" of the piece, however stopping there suggests you risk composing something that does not thoroughly answer the inquiry intent.
That's why I like to consist of a "subjects to cover/ related concerns to respond to" section in my briefs. This is where I list out all the subtopics I've found that someone searching that query would most likely would like to know.
To discover these, I like to utilize methods like:
Utilizing a keyword research study tool to reveal you questions connected to your primary keyword that are questions.
Looking at the People Also Ask box, if one exists, on the SERP your target question sets off
Discovering sites that rank in the leading spots for your target question, running them through a keyword research study tool, and seeing what other keywords they also rank for
And while this isn't particularly search-related, in some cases I like to utilize a tool called Frequently Asked Question Fox to search online forums for threads that discuss my target inquiry
You can also produce the overview yourself utilizing your research with all the H2s/H3s currently written. While this can work well with freelance writers, I have actually discovered some writers (particularly internal content online marketers) feel this is too authoritative. Every writer and content team is various, so all I can say is simply utilize your best judgment.
4. Funnel stage
This is relatively similar to intent, but I think it's handy to include as a different line product. To fill out this portion of the content short, ask yourself: "Is someone browsing this term just looking for information?
And here's how you can identify your response:
Top-of-funnel (TOFU or "issue conscious") is a suitable label if the inquiry intent is informational/educational/inspirational.
Middle-of-funnel (MOFU or "solution aware") is a suitable label if the question intent is to compare, assess options, or otherwise suggests that the searcher is already aware of your service.Bottom-of-funnel (BOFU or "solution prepared") is a proper label if the question intent is to purchase or otherwise convert.
5. Audience sector
Who are you composing this for?
It appears like such a basic question to answer, however in my experience, it's easy to forget!
When it pertains to SEO-focused material briefs, it's easy to presume the response to this concern is "for whoever is browsing this keyword!" What that stops working to respond to is who those searchers are and how they fit into your company's personas/ perfect client profile (ICP).
If you don't know what those personalities are, ask your marketing group! They should have target market sectors readily available to send you.
This will not just help your authors better comprehend what they need to be composing, but it likewise helps align you with the remainder of the marketing department and assist them understand SEO's connection to their objectives (this is likewise a vital component of getting buy-in, which we'll discuss a little later).
6. The objective action you want your readers to take
SEO is a method to an end. It's not just sufficient to get your material ranking or perhaps to get it making clicks/traffic. For it to make an gold coast seo services impact for your company, you'll desire it to contribute to your bottom line.
That's why, when developing your material brief, you not just need to think about how readers will get to it, but what you desire them to do after.
This is a fantastic chance to deal with your content marketing and larger marketing team to comprehend what actions they're trying to drive visitors to take.
Here are some examples of call-to-actions (CTAs) you can include in your briefs:
Newsletter sign-ups
Gated asset downloads (e.g. complimentary design templates, whitepapers, and ebooks).
Case studies.Free trials.
Demand demo.Item listings.
In general, it's finest to use a CTA that's a natural next step based on the intent of the short article. For example, if the piece is top-of-funnel, try a CTA that'll move them to the mid-funnel, like a case research study.
7. Ballpark length.
I'm a firm follower that the length of any short article should be determined by the subject, not approximate word counts. Nevertheless, it can be useful to offer a ballpark to avoid bringing a 500-word article to a 2,000-word battle.
One tool that can make coming up with a ballpark word count easier is Frase, which among other things, will show you the average word count of pages ranking for your target query.
8. Internal and external link chances.
Because you're reading the Moz blog, you're most likely currently thoroughly familiar with the value of links. However, this info is frequently left out of content briefs.
It's as easy as including these two line items:.
Appropriate content we must connect out to. Note out any URLs, especially on your own website, that could be natural fits to connect out to in this post.
Existing content that could connect to this new piece. List out any URLs on your website that discuss your subject so that, after your brand-new piece is live, you can return and include links in them to your brand-new piece.The 2nd item is specifically important, because adding links to your brand-new post can assist it get indexed and start ranking quicker. A quick method to find internal link chances is to use the "site:" operator in Google.
For example, the following search would reveal me all posts on the Moz blog site that point out "content brief." These could be terrific sources of links to this article.
9. Competitor material.
Search your target inquiry and pull the top three-or-so ranking URLs for this section of your material brief. These are the pages you need to beat.
At danger of creating copycat content (content that's essentially a re-spun variation of the top-ranking posts), it's an excellent idea to instruct your writer on how best to utilize these.
I like to include questions like:.
What's our special point-of-view on this subject?
Do we have any special data we can pull on this subject?What experts (internal or external) can we request for quotes to include on this topic?
What graphics would make this more aesthetically engaging than what our rivals have?You understand!
10. On-page SEO cheat sheet.
One thing I always like to consist of in my briefs is some form of an "SEO cheat sheet"-- pointers and resources for assisting your writers with important on-page SEO components.
Here's an example of one I've used in the past:.
Some content teams are very bullish on SEO (companies like G2 and HubSpot come to mind), so the authors may not require much help in this area. For others, SEO is fairly new to them.
What to prevent when composing content briefs.
Unfortunately, "SEO" has become a filthy word to many writers. Understanding why will assist us avoid the major risks that can lead to disregarded briefs and interdepartmental stress.Don't supply tips after that asset has actually been written.
When composing for search, we're producing the output. The keyword is the input. Simply put, target queries are concerns to be responded to, not something to be stuffed into copy that's currently been composed.
Google wishes to rank content that answers the inquiry, not just repeats it on the page.
For this factor, I would prevent having an optimization step after your composing action. If you don't, you risk the content not matching the intent of the query, which indicates it has little-to-no probability of ranking, and you'll likewise likely upset your writers, who don't wish to cheapen their editorially outstanding material by packing keywords into it.
Don't prefer keywords with high volume over high intent match.
I when saw a quick where the SEO Manager requested that the author utilize a specific expression rather of another expression because it had search volume while the other didn't.The problem? While relatively comparable, the keywords in fact had totally various intents.
Do not do this.
At best, targeting keywords purely for volume's sake can result in vanity traffic that never converts. At worst, you'll be attempting to fit a square peg in a round hole and likely missing out on intent-match totally.
Don't blindly follow keyword tools.
Keyword tools are helpful, but they're not perfect reflections of search need. For instance, since they're not constantly upgraded extremely often, you might wrongly think an inquiry has no demand when in fact it has a load.
A good example of this is COVID-19 related keywords. As a newly trending subject earlier this year, lots of keyword research tools didn't register that they had any search volume, when in reality they did. If you would have blindly followed the tool, you may have lost out on the chance.
To fix for this, you can use tools like Google Trends or even Google Search Console (if you have material on a trending topic or comparable topic on your site already, you ought to have the ability to see impressions/interest spiking within a few days).
Don't instruct writers to "include these keywords" (specifically a particular number of times).
When noting out the target inquiry (or questions) in your content quick, it is very important that we instruct our authors that this is the main question to answer instead of this the word I require you to sprinkle throughout the content.There's no magic number of times you can stick a keyword in your copy so that it ranks for that term. Instead, advise your authors to focus on addressing the intent of the searcher's question thoroughly.
Do not try to jam keywords into posts that weren't planned for search discovery.
Organic search is not the only channel for content discovery. As somebody coming from an SEO background, this took me a while to learn.
That indicates including search content to your content calendar, not trying to cram keywords into whatever on the calendar.
While it is necessary to get the on-page SEO essentials right (title tag, heading tags, links, and so on) for each piece, not every piece provides itself well to organic search discovery.
If we just created content based on keywords that a tool told us gets browsed a certain number of times per month, we 'd never ever compose about new ideas. It takes a great deal of idea management off the table, along with things like case research studies and interview/feature story pieces.
Organic search is effective, however it's not whatever.
Tips for getting your material group bought in.
Even the very best content briefs won't make an effect if your content team refuses to utilize them-- and I have actually become aware of a lot of situations where that takes place.As an SEO, it can be overwhelming that your material team doesn't want to use this: "Don't you want traffic?!" However as somebody who leads a content team, I comprehend why they're often declined.
Luckily, in a lot of cases, this can be prevented by taking the following actions.
Involve them in the planning procedure.
Nobody likes to be micromanaged, and thorough material briefs can sometimes seem like micromanaging. One great way to avoid this is by bringing them along for the procedure. Make material briefs a joint effort in between SEO and Content.
For instance, connect with the Content Lead and see if they 'd want to sit down with you to create the material quick template together. By each of you bringing your special expertise to the table, it can feel less like determining and more like collaboration (plus, you'll most likely end up with a better brief template that method).
Make it clear that not all content has to be search content.
SEO Managers live and breathe the organic search channel, however content groups have a more varied diet. They take a multi-channel method to material, and sometimes are even writing material to support post-conversion teams like client success.When dealing with your material group on this, make certain you stress that this is a new content type that can be added to editorial planning. Not something that'll change or need to change the kinds of content they're already writing.
Respect their expertise.
Writing is hard. Doing it well needs immense skill and practice, however unfortunately, I have actually heard many SEOs discuss writers as if they didn't understand anything, just because they do not know SEO.
As an SEO, you'll get far with your content department simply by appreciating their knowledge. Simply as lots of SEO Supervisors aren't authors, it's unjust of us to expect writers to have the SEO understanding of a full-time SEO professional.
Before you implement a material short procedure, sit down with the Material Lead and members of the material team to gauge their search maturity. What do they really require your assist with? Then trust them with the rest.
Show results.
One of the very best ways to get and maintain buy-in is by revealing results. Show your material team just how much of their traffic is coming from organic search and how, unlike numerous other content discovery channels, that traffic is staying consistent gradually. Give the author a shout-out when you notice their article ranking on page one.