Creating content isn’t just about writing words; but it is about creating a proper flow. Sometimes, you may have experienced that your content doesn’t turn out the way you wanted. This is where content briefs come in and work as a turning point for your content’s success.
At Writing Hives, some of our writers were facing similar issues, and they were unable to create engaging content. As a result, we decided to create content briefs for every writer to show them what they need to do.
In turn, our content success ratio gets a hike, and most of our clients started getting clicks and conversions. This is the reason why we have written this blog about content brief to help all freelance writers and agency owners.
Let us share some of the examples of content briefs, their importance, and how you can create one for your content projects.
What is a Content Brief?
Overall, a content brief is a set of instructions regarding the content you need. It is a document that will describe the purpose of writing, what you need in your content, and for whom you are writing.
You can say that it is a summary of what your writers have to follow while writing for your project. A freelance B2B writer, Komal Ahuja, has summed it up nicely, as you can read in the following image.
With the help of an SEO content brief, you can easily make it possible for your writers to follow a specific structure and layout. It will help them stick to the purpose and write content for the target audience.
It has been seen that a content brief has helped hundreds of marketers around the globe in making their projects successful. This is the reason why more than 80% content teams prefer creating briefs before starting their work.
Why You Should Create a Content Brief?
A common question that comes to mind for every marketer or a content team lead is why they should create a content brief. With the help of this document, you can get multiple benefits ranging from time-saving to quality writing.
It is right to say that a content brief will work as a blueprint for your writers that will help them structure the content properly. Without this document, it would be like asking a hiker to move to the top without hiking shoes and a rope.
For example, if you are hiring someone for SEO writing and sharing a content brief with them, you will be guiding them on what they need to write, how they follow the structure, and what you are expecting at the end.
Despite having a general discussion, let us share some points to tell you the importance of content briefs.
- It will help you prevent rewrites and revisions.
- Writers will have a clear perspective on audience requirements.
- It will share a proper structure with the writers.
- It indicates how deeply the content needs to be written.
- A professional will know what information needs to be focused on.
- It will give a clear direction to reach the destination.
When Should You Focus on Creating Content Briefs?
Undoubtedly, you can create a content brief for any project regardless of its duration, category, or field. However, it becomes more important when multiple people are working on the same project.
The reason is that everyone will have a different viewpoint on the topic, which will make it hard to compile it at the end and achieve the goals. When you have shared the content brief with all your writers, everyone will know how they need to structure their content.
In turn, it will be easy for you to manage deliverables and use them to submit the project. Along with this, you can encourage your writers to work in a specific way to get your content written with generative engine optimization.
Here, you can read about some general points which will indicate that you need to create content briefs.
- Producing a lot of standardized written content.
- Starting to work with new writers and agencies.
- Spending a lot of time on revisions or editing.
- Struggling with mass production and management of your content.
- Looking for predictable results from your content.
What You Should Add in a Content Brief?
The simplest answer to this question is that you need to add everything in your content brief that a writer needs to proceed. It is better to add some additional data to let the writers feel comfortable while writing.
However, there are some particular sections that can’t be missed in a content brief. We have summed it up in this section to let our readers know what needs to be added in their briefs.
Summary & Objectives
The most important thing about a content brief is the summary and objectives. Without clearly defining your objectives, you can’t be able to state what you need. It is important to clearly tell your writers what you expect and what your purpose of writing.
Content Style Guidelines
Another important part of your content brief is the style guidelines. Keep in mind that every type of writing needs a unique style. For example, copywriting services will follow a blend of commercial and transactional tone, while a guide will have a conversational tone.
The same goes for other types of writing, which makes it essential for you to add content style guidelines in the content brief.
Target Audience Overview
Instead of sharing your purpose in the summary, you must also share details about your target audience. It will help your writers research according to their perspective and follow a specific approach while writing.
With this, they will be able to create the content with proper pitching and let it get the expected outcomes.
Reference Articles/Videos/Papers
Normally, writers perform research on their own and collect data from top-ranked pages, articles, and videos. However, it is good if you provide them with some sources, like your direct competitors, to let them have a better idea about your content.
If you are hiring writers for academic writing services or assistance, it will be a good approach to share some reference papers or journals with them. The reason is that such papers may not be accessible to them for free, which may limit their research.
Related Technical Details
Instead of the above sections, you must ensure that you are sharing enough data with your writers through the content brief. It doesn’t only include simple information all the time, but you must also focus on sharing technical details for your project.
For example, if your aim is to get optimized e-commerce product content for GEO, you must mention the specific properties your product has. It may include its dimensions, materials, and other related details.
It will help your writers be aware of what they can add to the content and how they will come up with the expected outcomes.
Examples of Content Briefs
So far, we have discussed briefly what a content brief is and what you must add to it. Now, it is time to check some examples to have a clear idea of what a content brief will look like.
With this, you will be able to create briefs for your project regardless of whether your aim is to rank on SearchGPT or in AI answers. Let’s have a look at some brief examples that we have picked carefully.
Blog Post Brief Example
Here is an example of a blog post content brief in which you will get a clear look at what should be included in this type of brief. In this Google Document, you will see tables for different sections where everything is defined properly.
Along with this, you can also check some reference documents related to the main topic for which this brief has been created. By looking at this brief, you can easily understand the outlook of a content brief for a general blog post.
SEO-Focused Content Brief Example
If your aim is to get SEO optimized content from your writer, you must focus on creating a content brief that has a touch of this intent. In such a case, you can’t just rely on the ordinary content brief shared earlier.
You can check out a general look of this kind of brief from the following image. In such a brief, you must focus on adding SEO-related things like SEO title, description, H2s, H3s, primary keywords, secondary keywords, optimal word count, number of required links, and visual data requirements.
How to Create an Effective Content Brief?
From the above sections, you must have gotten an idea that a content brief is necessary regardless of whether you are choosing AI writing services or manual writing services. However, you may not be able to understand how you can go ahead with this procedure and create a brief.
If you don’t know the steps, we have got you covered by sharing the steps here. You only have to follow them for effective content brief creation.
Decide Your Content Intent
First things first, you should start with content intent understanding. It means that you should carefully analyze the topic/keyword and ensure whether you should go with informational intent, commercial one, or mixed.
With this approach, you will be able to write a clear summary of your brief and its purpose. You will be able to tell your writers what kind of tone they need to follow while working on your project.
Choose Keywords Carefully
After that, you must consider choosing the right set of keywords. Keep in mind that you don’t only need to rely on the primary keyword and ask your writers to stuff it with it. You must focus on choosing related keywords to let them add to the content.
You can use a variety of keyword research tools according to your familiarity with this regard. For example, if you have the main keyword “Content Brief”, you must choose some related terms like content brief example, content brief template, content brief seo, seo content brief, and seo content brief template.
All such keywords will help the writers naturally use them in different sections. With this approach, you won’t only fulfill the requirements of traditional SEO but also give a touch to Semantic SEO.
Organize Data & Create Outline
Once you have collected the required data for your brief, it is time to organize it and create the required outline for your content. You can also use AI tools for assistance, just like you may be using AI for business success.
Keep in mind that you must consider creating a proper flow throughout your outline. It doesn’t matter if you are using AI or not; you must ensure that your readers will never get bored or feel alone while strolling through the outline.
FAQs
Is it good to add a table in my content brief?
Yes, it is a good approach to add tables in your content briefs for every section. It will help your concerned writers find it easy to go through the brief and follow it.
What does a content brief look like?
Every type of content brief will have a different look. However, the major proportion will remain the same, like the summary, purpose statement, keyword requirements, and deadline.
How do you structure a brief?
While creating a brief, it should have a proper structure to let the writers follow it easily. You can’t just organize some headings and put them in a document, as it won’t help you get the expected results.
How long should a brief be?
It purely depends on your content length, industry, and the type of content brief you are creating. For example, a content brief for an SEO blog will be shorter than the content brief for an eBook.
Final Wrapping
From this blog, you must have got an idea about the content brief, its importance, and the steps of creating it. We have briefly discussed this topic from different perspectives. You must follow the guidelines that we have shared while creating an SEO content brief.
Along with this, it is good to check the shared content brief examples for a better idea about what to write, how to structure, and understand the pattern of the content brief.