Content marketing is an essential component of any marketing strategy and, when executed well, is a powerful tool for growing your business.
Many companies with modest marketing teams are now outsourcing their content creation to freelancers. To get the best on-brand content outcome, however, you’ll need to provide these writers with clear guidelines in the form of a content marketing brief.
As the backbone of any content marketing strategy, a content brief ensures that articles keep in line with the ideas in your head. A content brief is a document, usually created by a content strategist, that includes all of the information a writer needs to create a piece of SEO content.
To rank well in search engines and stand out, you need to show potential customers what makes you unique. Whether you want to raise awareness of your brand or generate more leads, producing quality pieces adds major value to the reader’s experience.
We recommend using the pillar cluster model during your content planning, which will help you organize and interlink major focus topics (topic pillars) and more specific subtopics (clusters). Creating focused clusters around a specific topic allows you to stay focused on creating relevant pieces and spend less time producing repetitive content.
Pillar-cluster interlinking sends signals to search engines, informing them that a pillar page is authoritative on a certain topic. Over time, the page may continue to rank higher for that specific topic.
A clear writing brief saves time and eliminates the need for multiple edits and revisions. If you provide writers with clear direction and context right off the bat, you’ll receive more well-rounded, on-topic articles that speak directly to your target audience.
In a content brief, you should include:
Writers can create a much better piece of content if they know who the reader is. Make sure you don’t leave your writers guessing.Include enough relevant information on your target buyer persona, including their goals/pain points, where they stand in the see-think-do-care framework, demographic data, and behavioral insights.
Does your brand have a serious, commercial, or playful voice online? How should the piece read?While this might seem obvious (once you’ve defined the target personas), it’s crucial to reiterate these specifics to the writer. This is particularly important when you start working with a new writer who might not be familiar with your business.Writing style should also be addressed in your content brief to offer some direction as to how your brand voice translates into the written word. Consider whether the language should be accessible/more technical if the piece can be written in first-person voice and whether writers should use/omit exclamation points.
Include any relevant, top-performing pages on your own website (continuing with the pillar-cluster technique), as well as at least 5 top-ranking content pieces for the specific topic. Doing so ensures that you’ll end up with relevant internal links.Whenever possible, add external links to any research, statistics, or other non-competitive sources to secure quality external links and save your writer some time.Remember: linking to credible sources is essential for SEO-friendly content and high rankings.
The page title – as well as the H1 header – sets the article’s tone and direction. In the brief, include at least one suggested title/header that captures the essence of what you’d like to see.
The meta description typically appears under your page’s URL in the search results. While it doesn’t directly affect your search engine rankings, the description is often the first impression of your business.
The more relevant and attractive the description, the more likely users will want to click through on your content. It’s always a good idea to add a focus topic/keyword or to suggest a meta description in the brief.
Each page on your website should have a unique title tag and meta description. This is essential in order to let Google, as well as other search engines, know how a page is different from the others on your site.When writing page titles:
When crafting meta descriptions:
Avoid:
When they get to the end of the piece, what do you want the reader to do? Look at your products? Read your blog? Follow you on social media?Create your call-to-actions (CTAs) and map them based on where your readers land in the see-think-do-care framework. Don’t forget to include a clear directive that encourages immediate action.
To write a great call-to-action, start your sentence with a strong action verb such as “buy”, “fill out our form”, or “subscribe”. If you’re running an e-commerce website, for instance, start your CTA with “order” or “buy.”
Similarly, if you want to promote a guide or white paper, creating a CTA such as “download our latest guide now” would be much more informative and effective than “our latest guide is available”.
Compelling articles go way beyond the written word. To ensure that search engines are ranking your content, it’s crucial that all of your pieces – including the writing, title, subheads, images, and links – are well-structured and optimized.Most people don’t read a post from end to end. Instead, they scan through the content to find the precise information they’re looking for, making sub-headers incredibly important.While the H1 tag indicates the most important topic, the H2 tags (section headers) outline how the article is organized. These sub-headers are also a great way to include your focus keywords and match the searcher’s query. Only do this if it feels natural!Additionally, including subheaders in the content brief can give the writer a better understanding of how the article should be structured. Stick to including only H1s and H2s. If you have more specific content requirements, however, add keywords and questions to be answered.
Keywords are absolutely crucial for content marketing and allow the search engines (as well as readers) to understand what your content is all about.Optimizing your content for top-performing keywords is a great tactic to increase site traffic. In order to convince them to come back, subscribe, or buy your products, however, you’ll need to match your content to the searcher’s intent.Search intent can be defined as the reason behind specific keyword searches. Understanding why a person is searching allows you to develop a more strategic list of keywords, create content that answers searchers’ queries, and help search engines recognize your content as ‘valuable’.
When hunting for keywords, remember to pay attention to the following aspects:
How many people are searching for this keyword every month? If the keyword search volume is high, the competition will likely be high as well. To determine your chances of ranking for a specific keyword, consider using tools like Google Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Difficulty, and Ubersuggest.
Focus on keywords that are relevant to your business. For your content to attract users and appear higher in organic rankings, you need to understand the user’s language and the kind of content they’re looking for. When creating the content brief, use keyword tools to compile a list of all semantically-related keywords and terms.
It’s also worth noting that your main targeted keyword should be included in the title, introduction, and in some of the sub-headings. In the briefing document, highlight the focus keyword to ensure that your writers stay on topic.
Whether you have a rigid or more flexible workflow, ensure that everyone involved in the content creation process knows how to communicate their progress. Inform the writers about the project management tools you use and how they’re expected to update you on their progress.At Hop Online, for instance, we make sure that our content campaigns go through the following workflow stages:
While it may seem like a lot of legwork, these briefs are crucial to your content creation process. Just like any other skill, it takes practice to create better writer briefs. As you grow more skilled, your briefs will ensure that each piece of content is optimized and follows your content/SEO strategy.
Read more on how to do keyword research using Ubersuggest.
I lead the Content team and make sure the content you create is worth the effort. I help you grow and nourish your audience, and make users convert.
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