How to Write an SEO-Focused Content Brief
As an SEO Supervisor, you are accountable for growing your business's natural search traffic. You're dealing with your dev group on some technical enhancements, however you discover a huge piece of the opportunity lies with material. Your business has a content group, but you see they're not utilizing keyword research study to notify their short articles. You have actually attempted to send them keyword concepts, however up until now, they haven't been responsive to your suggestions.
Or how about this scenario?
You understand that you require content, but don't have the knowledge or time to do it yourself, so you ask your network for suggestions and discover yourself a freelance writer. With little instruction to work off of, seo specialist gold coast they produce material that misses the mark.
The solution in both of these scenarios is a content quick However, not all content briefs are developed equivalent.
As somebody who deals with one foot in content and the other in SEO, I can shed some light on how to make your content briefs both extensive and beloved by your content team.
Let's begin by settling on some terminology.
What's a content brief?
A content quick is a set of guidelines to assist an author on how to draft a piece of content. That piece of material can be a post, a landing page, a white paper, or any number of other efforts that need content.
Without a content short, you risk getting back content that doesn't fulfill your expectations. This will not only frustrate your author, but it'll likewise need more revisions, taking more of your money and time.
Typically, content briefs are composed by somebody in a surrounding field-- like demand generation, item marketing, or SEO-- when they require something specific. Content teams generally do not just work off of briefs. They'll likely have their own calendar and efforts they're driving (content is among those odd roles that needs to support just about every other department while likewise producing and performing on their own work).
What makes a content brief "SEO-focused"?
An SEO-focused content quick is one amongst numerous types of content briefs. It's special in that the objective is to advise the author on creating content to target a particular search query for the function of earning traffic from the natural search channel.
What to consist of in your material short.
Now that we comprehend SEO-focused material briefs in theory, let's get into the nitty gold coast local seo gritty. What details should we include in them?
1. Main inquiry target and intent
It isn't an SEO-focused material brief without a question target!
Utilizing a keyword research study tool like Moz Keyword Explorer, you can get thousands of keyword ideas that might be appropriate to your business.
In my existing task, I'm focused on creating content for retail store owners and others in the brick and mortar retail market. After listening to some sales and support contacts Gong (many groups utilize this to record customer and possibility calls), I might find out that "retailing" is a huge topic of focus.
So I type "retailing" into Keyword Explorer, add a couple more valuable filters, and boom! Tons of keyword suggestions.
Select a keyword (examine your existing material to ensure your team hasn't already composed on the topic yet) and use that as the "north star" inquiry for your material quick.
I think it's likewise valuable to consist of some intent information here. To put it simply, what might the searcher who's typing this query into Google want? It's a good concept to search the inquiry in Google yourself to see how Google is interpreting the intent.
For instance, if my keyword is "kinds of visual merchandising," I can see from the SERP that Google presumes an educational intent, based on the fact that the URLs ranking are mainly informational short articles.
2. Format
Dovetailing well off of intent is format. To put it simply, how should we structure the content to offer it the best chance of ranking for our target question?
To utilize the exact same keyword example, if I Google "types of visual retailing," the top-level articles consist of lists.
You might discover that your target inquiry returns results with a great deal of images (typical with inquiries including "inspiration" or "examples").
This much better assists the writer understand what content format is most likely to work best.
3. Topics to cover and related concerns to respond to
Selecting the target inquiry assists the writer comprehend the "concept" of the piece, but stopping there means you risk writing something that does not adequately answer the query intent.
That's why I like to include a "topics to cover/ associated concerns to answer" area in my briefs. This is where I note out all the subtopics I've discovered that someone searching that inquiry would most likely want to know.
To discover these, I like to utilize approaches like:
Using a keyword research study tool to show you queries connected to your main keyword that are questions.
Taking a look at individuals Also Ask box, if one exists, on the SERP your target inquiry sets off
Finding websites that rank in the top areas for your target question, running them through a keyword research tool, and seeing what other keywords they likewise rank for
And while this isn't specifically search-related, sometimes I like to use a tool called FAQ Fox to search online forums for threads that mention my target inquiry
You can also create the outline yourself utilizing your research with all the H2s/H3s already written. While this can work well with freelance writers, I've discovered some writers (particularly in-house material marketers) feel this is too prescriptive. Every writer and content group is various, so all I can say is just utilize your best judgment.
4. Funnel stage
This is fairly comparable to intent, but I think it's handy to consist of as a separate line item. To fill out this part of the material quick, ask yourself: "Is someone searching this term simply looking for details?
And here's how you can identify your response:
Top-of-funnel (TOFU or "problem conscious") is a proper label if the question intent is informational/educational/inspirational.
Middle-of-funnel (MOFU or "option mindful") is an appropriate label if the inquiry intent is to compare, evaluate choices, or otherwise indicates that the searcher is already familiar with your service.
Bottom-of-funnel (BOFU or "service ready") is an appropriate label if the question intent is to purchase or otherwise convert.
5. Audience sector
Who are you composing this for?
It looks like such a standard concern to address, however in my experience, it's simple to forget!
When it pertains to SEO-focused material briefs, it's simple to assume the answer to this question is "for whoever is browsing this keyword!" however what that stops working to answer is who those searchers are and how they suit your company's personas/ ideal client profile (ICP).
If you do not know what those personas are, ask your marketing group! They need to have target audience segments readily available to send you.
This will not only help your writers much better comprehend what they need to be composing, but it also assists align you with the remainder of the marketing department and help them understand SEO's connection to their objectives (this is also an important element of getting buy-in, which we'll discuss a little later).
6. The objective action you desire your readers to take
SEO is a means to an end. It's not only enough to get your content ranking or perhaps to get it earning clicks/traffic. For it to make an impact for your company, you'll want it to contribute to your bottom line.
That's why, when producing your material quick, you not just require to think about how readers will get to it, but what you want them to do after.
This is an excellent chance to work with your material marketing and larger marketing group to understand what actions they're attempting 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. free design templates, whitepapers, and ebooks).
Case studies.
Free trials.
Demand demonstration.
Product listings.
In general, it's finest to use a CTA that's a natural next step based on the intent of the short article. If the piece is top-of-funnel, try a CTA that'll move them to the mid-funnel, like a case study.
7. Ballpark length.
I'm a company believer that the length of any article should be determined by the topic, not approximate word counts. It can be handy to provide a ballpark to avoid bringing a 500-word blog site post to a 2,000-word battle.
One tool that can make developing a ballpark word count easier is Frase, which to name a few things, will reveal you the typical word count of pages ranking for your target question.
8. Internal and external link opportunities.
Because you're reading the Moz blog site, you're probably already intimately familiar with the significance of links. This info is commonly left out of content briefs.
It's as basic as including these 2 line items:.
Relevant material we should connect out to. List out any URLs, especially by yourself site, that might be natural