How to Write an SEO-Focused Material Brief

As an SEO Supervisor, you're responsible for growing your business's organic search traffic. You're working with your dev group on some technical improvements, however you observe a huge slice of the opportunity lies with material. Your company has a content group, but you notice they're not utilizing keyword research to notify their posts. You've attempted to send them keyword concepts, but so far, they haven't been receptive to your ideas.

Or how about this circumstance?

You're a marketing director at a start-up. You know that you need content, however do not have the know-how or time to do it yourself, so you ask your network for recommendations and discover yourself a freelance writer. The only problem is, you're not constantly sure what to assign them. With little direction to work off of, they produce material that misses the mark.

The service in both of these situations is a content quick Not all content briefs are produced equal.

As somebody who copes with one foot in material and the other in SEO, I can shed some light on how to make your material briefs both detailed and precious by your content team.

Let's begin by settling on some terminology.

What's a content quick?

A content short is a set of directions to assist a writer on how to prepare a piece of content. That piece of material can be a blog post, a landing page, a white paper, or any number of other efforts that require content.

Without a content quick, you run the risk of getting back content that doesn't fulfill your expectations. This will not just annoy your writer, but it'll also need more modifications, taking more of your time and money.

Usually, content briefs are composed by someone in an adjacent field-- like need generation, item marketing, or SEO-- when they require something specific. Content teams usually don't just work off of briefs. They'll likely have their own calendar and efforts they're driving (content is among those weird functions that requires to support practically every other department while also developing and carrying out on their own work).

What makes a content brief "SEO-focused"?

An SEO-focused content short is one among numerous types of material briefs. It's unique in that the goal is to instruct the writer on developing content to target a particular search inquiry for the purpose of earning traffic from the natural search channel.

What to include in your material quick.

Now that we understand SEO-focused content briefs in theory, let's get into the nitty gritty. What details should we consist of in them?

1. Primary query target and intent

It isn't an SEO-focused content quick without a question target!

Using a keyword research tool like Moz Keyword Explorer, you can get countless keyword concepts that might be appropriate to your company.

In my present job, I'm focused on developing content for retail store owners and others in the brick and mortar retail market. After listening to some sales and support gets in touch with Gong (many teams use this to record consumer and possibility calls), I may find out that "retailing" is a big subject of focus.

I type "retailing" into Keyword Explorer, include a couple more valuable filters, and boom! Lots of keyword ideas.

Pick a keyword (examine your existing material to make certain your group hasn't currently composed on the topic yet) and utilize that as the "north star" inquiry for your content short.

I believe it's likewise valuable to include some intent details here. In other words, what might the searcher who's typing this query into Google desire? It's a great concept to browse the query in Google yourself to see how Google is interpreting the intent.

If my keyword is "types of visual merchandising," I can see from the SERP that Google assumes an informative intent, based on the truth that the URLs ranking are mainly educational short articles.

2. Format

Dovetailing nicely off of intent is format. To put it simply, how should we structure the gold coast local seo content to provide it the very best chance of ranking for our target query?

To utilize the same keyword example, if I Google "kinds of visual retailing," the top-ranking short articles consist of lists.

You may see that your target inquiry returns results with a lot of images (common with queries consisting of "motivation" or "examples").

This much better helps the writer understand what content format is most likely to work best.

3. Topics to cover and associated questions to address

Picking the target question assists the author comprehend the "big idea" of the piece, however stopping there indicates you risk writing something that does not adequately respond to the query intent.

That's why I like to include a "topics to cover/ associated concerns to address" area in my briefs. This is where I note out all the subtopics I've discovered that someone browsing that inquiry would probably would like to know.

To discover these, I like to use techniques like:

Using a keyword research tool to reveal you queries associated with your main keyword that are questions.

Looking at the People Also Ask box, if one exists, on the SERP your target query activates

Discovering sites that rank in the leading areas for your target question, running them through a keyword research study tool, and seeing what other keywords they likewise rank for

And while this isn't specifically search-related, in some cases I like to utilize a tool called Frequently Asked Question Fox to scour online forums for threads that discuss my target query

You can likewise create the outline yourself using your research study with all the H2s/H3s currently composed. While this can work well with freelance writers, I have actually discovered some writers (especially in-house content online marketers) feel this is too authoritative. Every author and content team is different, so all I can say is just utilize your finest judgment.

4. Funnel phase

This is relatively comparable to intent, but I believe it's valuable to consist of as a different line item. To fill out this part of the content short, ask yourself: "Is somebody browsing this term simply looking for info?

And here's how you can identify your answer:

Top-of-funnel (TOFU or "problem mindful") is a suitable label if the question intent is informational/educational/inspirational.

Middle-of-funnel (MOFU or "option conscious") is a proper label if the inquiry intent is to compare, evaluate choices, or otherwise indicates that the searcher is currently aware of your service.

Bottom-of-funnel (BOFU or "solution all set") is a proper label if the question intent is to buy or otherwise transform.

5. Audience sector

Who are you composing this for?

It seems like such a fundamental question to respond to, however in my experience, it's simple to forget!

When it comes to SEO-focused content briefs, it's easy to assume the answer to this question is "for whoever is searching this keyword!" however what that fails to answer is who those searchers are and how they fit into your business's personalities/ ideal client profile (ICP).

If you do not understand what those personas are, ask your marketing team! They ought to have target audience sections readily offered to send you.

This will not only assist your writers better comprehend what they should be composing, but it likewise helps align you with the rest of the marketing department and help them comprehend SEO's connection to their objectives (this is also an important part of getting buy-in, which we'll talk about a little later).

6. The objective action you want your readers to take

SEO is a means to an end. It's not only adequate 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 developing your content brief, you not just require to think of how readers will get to it, however what you desire them to do after.

This is an excellent opportunity to work with your material marketing and bigger 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. complimentary templates, whitepapers, and ebooks).

Case research studies.

Free trials.

Demand demonstration.

Item listings.

In general, it's best to utilize a CTA that's a natural next step based on the intent of the article. For instance, if the piece is top-of-funnel, attempt a CTA that'll move them to the mid-funnel, like a case study.

7. Ballpark length.

I'm a firm believer that the length of any post should be dictated by the subject, not approximate word counts. It can be handy to offer a ballpark to avoid bringing a 500-word blog post to a 2,000-word fight.

One tool that can make coming up with a ballpark word count simpler is Frase, which among other things, will show you the typical word count of pages ranking for your target query.

8. Internal and external link chances.

Because you're reading the Moz blog site, you're most likely currently intimately familiar with the importance of links. Nevertheless, this information is commonly neglected of content briefs.

It's as basic as consisting