How to Create The Perfect Content Brief When Outsourcing

Do you have your agency depend on using writing briefs to direct authors? Do you frequently find it difficult to offer instructions needed to produce content of good quality based on your customer’s requirements?

Instead of fighting an endless struggle, businesses who form precise content summaries for their authors will acquire better standard material and won’t need to waste time revising articles which never quite hit the mark. We will demonstrate how to devise a content brief outline that can speed up your company’s content composition procedure, making it simpler to hire freelancers to supply consistent quality material for your customers.

What Is a Content Brief?

A document that outlines what should be included in a piece of content is known as a content brief. It is used to provide a writer with the necessary guidance to create the content. The content written for a brief may be distinctive for different pieces, for example blog entries, white papers, webinar scripts, etc. All the same, the essential components of a content brief are consistent.

Crafting a successful content brief is a skill in itself. The writer may become overwhelmed if an excessive amount of data is offered. They may also think that they are not blessed with creativity and versatility, which can lessen their motivation and the standard of their work.

Why Are Content Briefs Important?

Writers are not SEO experts. Writers who have been in the field for some time shall possess some understanding about SEO, nevertheless it is important for you to specify how you wish for the article to be optimized in the brief.

Everybody has their own technique for generating a content outline, and there are numerous stages involved in creating a high-quality brief.

Even with a template in place, content briefs vary from one project to the next based on details such as:

The type of content (blog post, article, whitepaper, etc.)
For whom is the content being created? Is it for internal purposes or for a customer, and who is the intended audience?
The aim of the material is to inform, motivate the reader to act, and disseminate news.

What You Should Include in Your Content Brief

Content Length

It is essential to be clear about the desired length of the material.

What is the most appropriate size for your article?

This is a frequent inquiry posed by people who have responsibilities related to content promotion.

Many studies show that the relevance and value of the material are more significant factors in how high a page ranks than the amount of text on the page.

Research done by SEMrush’s 2018 study has demonstrated that the normal length of material for what you discover on the initial page of Google is approximately 810 words. A research paper proposes that 1137 words is the length that should be aimed for when creating content to rank higher.

In other words, the length of your content is not the only thing that matters; the quality is just as important. The content should be comprehensive and it should directly address the keyword you are trying to be ranked for.

It needs to be pertinent in order to respond to a user’s search inquiry. To guarantee this, you should look into your intended crowd to figure out who will be utilizing your substance.

It is suggested by the SEMrush Ranking Factors Study 2.0 that the length of your content should be relative to how broad the subject matter is. The narrower the topic, the longer the read. If the subject matter you are composing about is expansive, it is not necessary to provide intricate information or a lengthy article.

Topic Suggestions

If you are unsure what topic to focus on, there are multiple methods to help you choose.

You can investigate your target audience to identify the largest difficulties faced by customers by looking at Quora, reviews and the most frequently asked queries on Google connected to your patchy topic.
Look into conducting an inquiry on your social media platforms to find out what kind of content your followers are interested in.
Check out your competitors’ content. Conduct a keyword comparison to identify any keywords that your competitors are ranked for that are not appearing in your results. By doing that, you will be able to locate topics that have not been discussed on your website.
Take the content from your competitors and put it to a new use, making your own version of the content more useful and helpful.
Utilize content generation programs to locate the most popular topics which should also have a strong search engine ranking.

Keyword Suggestions

Keywords are an absolute must in your content brief. What keywords do you want your writing to be ranked for?

It is beneficial to do some keyword investigation before providing your author with the specific words you want to rank highly for.

Start by preparing a list of keywords, with your seed keyword at the top followed by long-tail keywords. When searching for long-tail keywords, pay attention to high search volume and CPC, and low SEO difficulty.
The optimal number of keywords to include in articles is 15, according to the SEMrush study. This gives your article an opportunity to appear in searches for more than just one query.
Be sure to include keyword search volume so that the writer knows which keywords should be used in headings, text body, URL, and meta description.
Remember to give instructions to use the highest-volume keywords in the titles, keywords with average volume in your headings, and those with the lowest volume in your paragraphs. The volume of keywords in your article’s title, headings, and paragraphs should descend accordingly.

Request the writer to make a web address for the upcoming work. Bear in mind that a URL which has been optimized for search engine optimization needs to contain the keyword you are targeting and provide a clear explanation of its content. Ensure that your website address correlates with the page title, but also keep it concise; roughly 3 to 5 words long.

Tone of Voice

Think about your blog and your brand voice. Which linguistic style(s) do you wish to employ, and what is your desired general tone?

Does it involve complex ideas and specialised knowledge intended to appeal to experts in your area? Do you want the material to be engaging, easy to comprehend, and humorous? Would you like the tone to be conversational, humorous, or strictly professional?

If you’ve created a blog, make sure to consider who it’s meant for and how you can use your content to form the identity of your blog. Your primary consideration should be the people to whom you are presenting, and bear in mind that you can customize your message for specific groups. An institution of learning, for example, would likely have distinct wordings if they were crafting messages for professors instead of learners, and a third style if they were addressing parents.

It is crucial to be mindful of your tone, so it’s important to make sure you do it correctly. Authors generally require you to present a written piece already published on your website, or a writing style found in other webpages, as an indication of your skills.

Be sure to give your author details regarding the place the content will be put up–the website address–if it is your blog or an external site. This allows the author to make sure that the new work corresponds with the same level of tone and style.

How to Write an Effective Content Brief in 5 Steps

1. The Details (Overview)

View this section as a summary of the material presented. After reading it, the author should comprehend what the article should include and the plan they must pursue.

These five points should always be part of this section:

Title (or several title ideas)
The writer should focus on creating an engaging piece that highlights the key points and main ideas of their topic. They should also consider how to draw the reader in and make their work stand out.
Outline, including headings and subheadings
Word count
Target audience
Create a persona for your audience
Style guide

2. Competition

In an ideal situation, there would be no rivalry around the given subject. In the real world, however, it is rare to find this to be true.

Even if you’re getting into a corner of the market that is not widely known, you will still be competing with others. All in all, there is an immense number of indexed pages on the internet – more than 2.98 billion of them.

It is thus necessary to include a comparison portion in the content outline you prepare. Here’s what you should include:

Look for the terms you’re aiming for by doing a search, or get a rank tracking program to do it for you.
Write down the top 10 to 20 results that appear in the search.
Seek out comparable material already put out on the most significant rival websites.

3. Research

Despite assuming the writer will do a lot of work on their own, you should still provide assistance. Instead of only supplying direction on what the writer should produce, researching the topic allows you to have better control over the content, increasing the chances that it will fit what you need.

This section can include, but is not limited to:

Competitor links
Resources to find content ideas
Recent studies
Recent statistics
Related blog posts

It is especially significant if your material was based on a current industry pattern, research paper, or outside study. Give the writer information about what sparked the idea.

It’s not necessary to include all relevant research in the brief, but giving the writer some material to work with at the outset won’t do any harm. You can also use this area to declare your organization’s guidelines for citations. As an illustration, it should be mentioned here that any sources published more than two years ago should not be referenced or quoted.

4. SEO

When putting together a blog entry or other written material, the SEO component of a material brief is essential, as you need to optimize its probability of coming in first in the search engine results.

The relevance of search engine optimization will be determined based on the goals of your content marketing strategy. But if it makes sense, you’ll want to share as much information with the writer as possible, such as:

Topic focus
Primary and secondary keywords
Content structure, including the use of subheadings
Internal links
External links

No matter the specifics of each brief, there will still be some set rules to abide by.

For example, you might have definite regulations concerning the sort of external links to include, the amount of internal links, as well as how frequently the primary and secondary key terms arise.

Identify Keywords and Intent

Begin by focusing on keywords-it is common knowledge among those who specialize in SEO that keywords are incredibly important.

Figuring out the keywords you are aiming for regarding search engine results and the aim of the content is the initial step for each piece of writing.

If the objective is to make a sale, the post should contain information about the features and advantages of the product. The information being provided should be beneficial and educational with a limited amount of product promotion if the search terms/phrases imply a desire for information.

You must make clear the particular keywords and the purpose of them straight away if you want your commissioned author to generate a piece of writing that accurately encapsulates what you want to get across.

Add Topics and Subtopics to Be Covered

Included in your instructions, list several subtopic or section headings that should appear in the post.

Subheadings do more than only offer structure to an article; they also:

Help readers locate what they are looking for by scanning your post.
It gives Google a clearer understanding of your content
Split the long block of text into shorter chunks to make it more readable.
You are able to score higher for more key phrases inside those subheadings.
Supplies search engines with pieces of information to display in highlighted spots.

If you’re not sure of any subordinate topics to include, look up your term on the search engine results page (SERPs) on Google to see what is recommended.

Internal or External Links You to Add

It is significantly essential for both SEO and the authority of the article to have both outward and inward connections in a piece.

Adding links comprises two steps.

It is essential to let your author know that any indications of measurements, facts, or figures used in the writing should be connected.
The next move is to provide a compilation of both internal and external links that should be placed in the article.

Including a collection of general links from the get-go is extremely useful for the writer, though it is natural for certain relevant links to present themselves as the writing progresses. The students can look into the content from the articles you recommended to them, gaining a more thorough understanding of the matter.

5. Visuals

Who wants to read a giant block of text?

The answer is simple: no one!

Attractive visuals are an ideal way to create high-caliber backlinks.

So it is necessary to add a section to the content brief that will cover visuals.

It should be taken into consideration that this requirement is only relevant if the author is supposed to include visual content. If you think you can handle this task in-house after you have evaluated the material, it might not be necessary to include this in the instructions – however keeping it in might not be a bad idea.

It is useful to have references to some source graphics that the authors can link to in their article, or that your team can recreate, even if they don’t give you finished visuals.

Final Thoughts

It would be a mistake to not require a content brief from a writer. The best strategies need to be provided with an outline to ensure they fulfill all SEO objectives and are suitable for the demands of the customer.

It may take a bit of work and effort, but following the suggestions listed above should help you and your company be better prepared to design trustworthy material briefs for authors.