What is an SEO content brief? Why is it important for your website?
Bill Gates famously declared, “Content is king.” This rings true, especially in marketing, where content is the foundation of any successful strategy. When it comes to SEO, content takes on an even more crucial role. As a vital form of copy, SEO content directly affects the reach and effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
With content reigning supreme in marketing, businesses are increasingly focusing on crafting SEO content for their websites. But the question remains: how can businesses create high-ranking SEO content? The answer lies in SEO content briefs, which act as the launchpad for stellar content creation.
So what exactly is an SEO content brief? Let’s dive right into it with Thao & Co.
A content brief is a document that provides all the necessary information for a writer to produce a piece of content, guiding them on what needs to be done and how to do it. Therefore, an SEO Content Brief is a comprehensive summary of the SEO content project that needs to be executed.
This brief serves as a road map for creating content that meets the demands of the project as well as search engine requirements.
A clear and detailed brief lays the groundwork for creating professional and high-quality content. Think of a content brief as a sketch. And from this sketch, the copywriter will create a portrait that perfectly captures the essence of your brand.
Here’s why briefs matter in SEO content creation.
A brief provides detailed guidelines to help copywriters tailor the content to the specific requirements of each search engine. These can entail content format, word count, target keywords, and other elements needed to ensure the content ranks high in search queries. Hence, a brief is an effective tool that helps boost SEO rankings and reach a wider audience.
An SEO project typically involves many writers. Each writer can employ a different writing style, which leads to inconsistency in the writing style and how the brand voice is conveyed.
That’s when a brief comes into play. It will ensure the messages and writing style remain unchanged across your content. Indeed, a brief is the gateway to consistent and high-quality content.
A brief also specifies project goals, such as boosting website traffic or increasing conversion rates. These goals help set out the metrics to evaluate and measure project success.
With these benefits, writing an exhaustive SEO content brief is a must-do in the content creation process. Without an all-inclusive brief, your writer will have a hard time writing a high-quality piece of content.
There are a number of elements called into play when it comes to search-optimized content. Keep in mind the essential factors below when crafting a brief for your copy:
WHO: Identifying your audience is of the utmost importance. By constructing a detailed portrait of your target audience before kick-starting your project, you can tailor your content to perfectly align with their needs and desires. Making use of a Sales Funnel to collect demographic and psychographic data is a great way to build a comprehensive customer profile.
WHAT: What type of content is your target audience searching for? Specialized how-to guides, short copy, or pillar pages providing information about a certain product? Make sure you include every detail about the topic, tone, and type of content in your brief so that the creator can employ the best-suited writing style for your copy.
WHEN: The more specific the project timeline is, the easier it is for the writer to follow. Besides, the search volume for a specific topic can be higher at a certain time of the year than usual. Keep this in mind and specify your expected turnaround time to ensure a timely response to your audience’s needs.
WHERE: Your website is not the only space to share and promote your content. You can also create diverse types of copy for corresponding channels, say, blog posts for social media and forums, or brand marketing articles for news sites. Distributing your content across platforms such as blog content on social media or PR articles on news websites is a perfect way to ensure you reach all demographics.
WHY: Purpose is what provides context for your content. It’s merely impossible to produce a quality piece of copy without defining its purpose. The purpose of your content can be boosting conversion rates or informing and educating your audience.
Those are the essential elements that you should focus on to ensure that the content meets the goals of your business and the needs of your intended audience. Only by including all of these elements into an SEO Content Brief can your content truly add value to your business.
Although no two briefs will be exactly alike, all must cover the fundamentals of the concerned piece of content. Here’s what a good SEO content brief should include:
Without a target audience, your brief is pointless. Who is your target audience? What characteristics define your audience persona?
Understanding who the target audience is, the writer can adapt their writing style and word choice to their preferences. This helps make the content more appealing to the intended demographics.
The topmost priority of every piece of copy is to rank high on SERP. And the keywords it contains can make or break the achievement of this goal.
A thorough keyword research will help identify popular words and phrases your targeted group is typing into the search bar to find information.
The length of a piece of content can vary depending on its type. Content consumers are more inclined towards short-form copy because it is more readable and memorable. Specialized content, on the other hand, is typically longer as it deals with difficult niches that require in-depth analysis and explanation.
A comprehensive outline will help the writer produce a flawless piece of content. An SEO content outline typically includes the following elements:
Make sure you specify the internal links you want to have in your content so your writer can naturally include them while writing the piece. Internal links naturally and effectively woven into the content can enhance user experience, increase engagement with the website, and reduce bounce rate.
It is pivotal to provide SEO directives in your brief so that your writer can employ essential techniques to optimize your content for search engines. For example, a meta description contains 120-160 characters and must include the main keyword. These techniques are explained in detail in our SEO content writing guide, which you can refer to for more useful information about this topic.
Your brand voice is conveyed through the writing style employed to create the content. Therefore, it is crucial to outline your brand voice and preferred writing style in your briefs to make sure your brand voice is consistent across all of your communications. Consistency in brand voice helps your business become more recognizable and establish trust with your audience.
SEO content is a powerful tool for creating effective SEO content marketing strategies.
So what are those goals? To reach potential customers, build a strong brand image, or boost conversion rates? Having well-defined goals enables you to create appropriate metrics to evaluate your project’s success.
While the above list covers common elements of a brief, you might also include more or less, depending on your SEO needs.
A brief is a crucial preliminary step in an SEO-focused content project. Therefore, the process of crafting a brief should be taken as seriously as in any other stage of the project.
Below is the process of creating an effective SEO brief that SEO specialists at Thao & Co. follow.
Step 1: Upon receiving your commission, we will schedule a team briefing. During this meeting, our content specialists will carry out thorough target audience research and brainstorm content ideas.
Step 2: We then go on to define goals and project success metrics to develop an appropriate content strategy. This is a vital preliminary step that helps set a direction for the process of content creation.
Step 3: After gaining an insight into your goals and target audience, our specialists will conduct keyword research. We will do this using the native language of your intended audience. With ingenious tools now available, we are committed to identifying the optimal keywords that are in demand among your potential customers.
Step 4: Finally, having gathered all the information we need, we will get down to writing a detailed brief. The brief will include all the essential details required to produce top-notch content that meets the short-term and long-term goals of your business.
To have an idea of what a good SEO brief should look like, take a look at one of Thao & Co.’s briefs below.
Target audience: Businesses looking for a bilingual MC for their international events.
Main keyword: Bilingual MC
Word count: Below 2,000 words
Outline:
- Title: Professional bilingual MC and script writing services at reasonable prices
- H2 headings:
- What does a bilingual MC do?
- The roles of a bilingual MC in a multinational event?
- Essential skills for a bilingual MC
- What are the key requirements for a bilingual MC script?
- The current cost of hiring a bilingual MC for an intentional event
- Professional bilingual MC and script writing services
- Call To Action: Contact us to book a professional and competent bilingual MC.
Internal links: Links to the homepage, interpreter service page, and multilingual content writing service page
Yoast SEO: The Meta description includes 120-160 characters including the keyword “bilingual MC”.
Brand voice: Professional, authentic and confident
Project success metrics: Organic traffic, keyword rankings, clickthrough rate (CTR), SERP visibility.
A weak brief will inevitably lead to a subpar piece of content. The following are some pitfalls to avoid as you put together your content briefs.
When you don’t understand the purpose of a search query, your content may not meet your target audience’s needs. It could be wordy or may not align with the readers’ preferences.
There is now an abundance of search intent tools you can leverage, such as Ahref and Semrush. These useful tools provide valuable insights into what types of content users hope to find with specific keywords, allowing you to tailor your brief and ultimately your content accordingly.
It’s an effective approach to check out your competitors’ digital assets so you can learn from them and improve your content based on their strengths and weaknesses. But this can be counterproductive, as you might go down the wrong path of simply repeating already existing information and not generating any additional values.
Take your time to dive deeper into the needs and pain points of your prospects to find any unanswered questions and create content to address them. By doing this, you are more likely to stand out from the crowd in the SEO competition.
SEO briefs don’t usually get the attention they deserve no matter how vital they are to SEO website content creation. An elaborate blueprint is essential for the construction of a solid house. Likewise, it requires a detailed brief to create a high-performing piece of content. You can also utilize different SEO tools to collect demographic information quickly and effectively.
Struggling to craft website copy that converts? Thao & Co. takes the stress out of website copywriting. We’re your one-stop shop for creating high-quality website content that gets results, from crafting a clear brief to writing and publishing high-quality content.
Thao & Co. prioritizes creating a seamless user experience for your website visitors, while also keeping a close eye on developing search engine algorithms to ensure your content stays relevant.
Spark deeper connections with your audience. We craft entirely human-written content that resonates with your target demographic, driving higher conversion rates.
In addition, we also provide helpful complimentary services to enhance your experience while partnering with us.
Level up your website and grow your audience with Thao & Co. Get a free consultation and quote for website content creation within 24 hours. Drop your information at our Get a Quote page now!
