How to Write An Optimized Content Brief + Free Template

Writing great content requires great planning; especially if the content you’re producing will be written by someone else as important information and expectations need to be communicated effectively.

Over the past decade, I’ve learned that the difference between content that ranks and content that doesn’t often comes down to one thing: the quality of the brief.

Before we dive in, I want to give you something that will save you hours of work. Our free content brief template. You can download it here.

It’s the exact template we use internally at Keyword Insights to create content that consistently drives organic traffic like this:

Now, I’ll be honest with you. We don’t just use content briefs when we’re contracting writing out. We use them even when we’re producing content internally to guarantee we’ve outlined a piece of content that’s comprehensive and better than our competitors before we start writing.

It actually makes the content-writing process easier and faster too (a point I’ll make a few times in this post for fear of sounding like a broken record).

In this guide, I’ll walk you through exactly how to use the template above to create briefs that get results.

We’ll cover everything I’ve perfected over a decade of experience in creating content briefs and using them to effectively turbocharge your content strategy.

By the end, you’ll know exactly what to include in your briefs and how to fill out each section to set your writers (or yourself) up for success.

What is a Content Brief?

A content brief is a document that gets sent to writers outlining the key information, goals, and objectives for the piece of content they will be writing. It helps content creators understand what is expected of them and how to produce content that meets the desired goals and objectives.

A content brief usually includes details such as the target audience, tone and style of the content, main points to be covered, and any specific requirements or constraints.

It may also include information about the format and length of the content, as well as any relevant branding or marketing considerations. Content briefs can be applied to produce all forms of content including blogs, white papers, eBooks, scripts, and web copy.

 According to recent research, a majority of content marketers, 82.7% to be precise, utilize content briefs. And for good reason.

What is an SEO-Focused Content Brief?

Technically there should be no difference between an “SEO-focused content brief” and a regular “content brief”; both should aim to help the writer produce helpful and comprehensive content.

However, an “SEO-focused” content brief may distinguish itself by having more of a focus on optimizing the content for search engines by including additional information and guidance to help the writer optimize for specific keywords.

A great “SEO content brief” should also provide direction on other “on-page SEO factors” such as the use of headings and subheadings (to align with specific keywords and phrases) as well as internal and external linking suggestions.

In short, the purpose of an SEO-focused content brief is to provide clear guidance and direction to content creators, helping them to produce effective and engaging content that is optimized for search engines and meets the needs of the audience and the goals of the project.

As a tool that helps digital marketers and SEOs with their content strategy, we’ll be using the term “content briefs” for the rest of this guide, but we’re really talking about “SEO Content Briefs”.

Tip

The term “content briefs” is a little misleading. A content brief shouldn’t just be used to “brief” other writers. Creating a brief for yourself is a valuable way to ensure you’ve thoroughly researched a topic and will likely make the writing process much easier too. Of course, you won’t include things like “tone of voice” and the branding in your own brief, but you should use the brief methodology listed in a few sections below to outline the skeleton of the piece you’ll be writing.

Why Is a Content Brief Your Most Important Content Tool?

Having read the above, hopefully, the importance and usefulness of content briefs are apparent.

To be clear though, content briefs are important because they:

Provide clear direction and guidance to content creators around branding, tone of voice, headings and subheadings that align with keywords and phrases, internal and external links, and word count estimations.

Help content creators understand what is expected of them and how to produce content that meets desired goals and objectives.

Ensure content is produced efficiently and effectively. A detailed content brief covers aspects such as the time for first drafts, edits, and publishing dates. This eases the tracking process and adherence to set deadlines.

Save time, resources and money by avoiding the need for multiple revisions and edits. This is especially important if you’re trying to scale your content production and are struggling to churn out high-quality content, consistently.

Help to ensure content is produced consistently and meets specific requirements or constraints. This is especially important if your business works with multiple writers and needs to ensure a degree of homogeneity between their outputs.

Help to boost the writer’s creativity. A well-developed content brief provides writers with direction and inspiration on the focus areas. These factors help spark creativity.

Ensure key points aren’t missed and that the content produced is comprehensive. Writers may become too engrossed or distracted, and this can lead to some key points being missed. However, during the planning process, a content brief covers the target topics needed to attain the desired goals.

How to Use Your Free Content Brief Template

Now that you understand what a content brief is and why it’s essential, let me walk you through exactly how to fill out the template I shared at the beginning of this article.

I’ll break this down into the key sections you need to complete to create a brief that sets your content up for success.

Defining Your Objective & Target Audience

The first thing you need to establish in your brief is what you’re trying to achieve with this piece of content and who you’re writing it for.

The goal of the article. Give the writer as much information as to what you’d like the goal of the piece to be. Is it simply informational? Or would you like the reader to take some form of action (whether it be reading another article from this one or buying a product/service from the company in question)? Would you like them to mention the client business at all?

The target audience. Who is this content for? What is their experience level? What challenges are they facing? Understanding your audience is crucial because it informs everything from the tone of voice to the depth of technical detail you’ll include.

The tone of voice. Is the article intended to be formal? Informal? Something else? This should align with both your brand and your audience’s expectations.

Identifying Your Primary Keyword & SERP Analysis

The purpose of this section isn’t to explain how to do keyword research or put together a content calendar.

There is already plenty out there on these subjects and we’ll soon be publishing our own guides here.

With that in mind, I’ll assume you already have a topic in mind. For this example, let’s say a business wants to write content around “keyword research“.

Identify the primary keyword you’re targeting. Assuming, therefore, a business wants to write content around “keyword research”, what is the primary keyword here? There actually could be many primary keywords. For example:

• What is keyword research?

• How to do keyword research?

• How to do keyword research for Amazon?

• How to do keyword research for YouTube?

• Is keyword research important?

Plus many, many others. At this point, you may not be sure if you need, or can, create one guide covering all of these or whether each needs its own, detailed article. A great content strategy will ensure you cover all of these topic clusters to establish yourself as an authority on the subject, so you’ll need to map out which of these keywords trigger different SERP (Search Engine Result Page) results.

You can manually do this by typing in each one and recording the results in Excel or Google Sheets, or using a free plugin like SEO Minion which will automatically download the SERP results into a CSV for you.

If a given keyword/phrase has a SERP result which is at least 60% different from another keyword (that is, shares less than 4 URLs with another keyword), then we’d recommend splitting those keywords into 2 different articles.

Keyword Insights has a free SERP similarity tool that also allows you to quickly check the similarity between 2 keywords you may want to check out.

For example, if I wanted to know if I need to create a separate article for “how to do keyword research” and “how to do keyword research for YouTube“, I’d check to see how different the SERPs are. Using Keyword Insights’ free SERP similarity tool we can see the results have 0 URLs in common, meaning these trigger 2 very different types of intent and so should have 2 very different and optimized articles targeting the “primary keyword”.

Once you’ve done this, and once you now actually know your primary keyword, we can begin. For this guide, I’ll use the example of creating a content brief for “how to do keyword research”.

Research the competition. To create content that ranks, we need to ensure the topic we’re covering is unique, but more comprehensive and answers a given question better than all of the top-ranking pieces of content.

To do this, we need to Google our keyword. In this example “how to do keyword research” and open up the first 10-15 organic search results in separate tabs in your browser.

You’ll then want to go into each tab and start noting what headings are used. Again, you can do this manually, or use a Chrome plugin like SEO Minion to quickly grab all of these for you.

Record these on pen and paper, or in a spreadsheet; whatever is easiest. What we want to get is a list of similar headings that appear frequently across the various articles (and so a sign we should definitely include them) and any interesting headings or points that may only exist on one or two sites.

We’re looking to exploit the fact that different sites generally answer the same question in slightly different ways; each with its own unique headings and information. Our goal is to then make a “principal” version which combines the best bits of all.

The website ranking in position 1 is, usually, the most informative and helpful but doesn’t necessarily cover some of the points mentioned in the article ranking in position 2.

Likewise, there could be an article ranking in position 5 which brings up a very salient point that the articles in positions 1, 2, 3 and 4 hadn’t covered.

We want to pick the best bits of all and make a “supreme” version, so to speak.

Find additional headings and add a unique perspective. At this point, your brief will contain a mix and match of all the best headings (reworded where possible) of the top-ranking pieces of content.

To ensure we stand an even better chance of ranking, we should aim to add our own unique insights. Ideally, you (or someone you know) have your own experience and expertise in the subject matter (even more important now Google has added another “E” to its E-E-A-T search rater guidelines) and can maybe add some personal insights here.

However, we can also turn to forums or social media to find additional questions people have about a topic. Often, though not always, people turn to forums like Reddit or Quora if they couldn’t find an answer to their question online.

This presents a great opportunity for us to answer some related questions that our competitors perhaps haven’t covered.

An easy way to find these is to Google the overarching term you’re looking for and then search specific forum sites:

“keyword research” site:Reddit.com

Of course, you’d swap “Reddit.com” out for Quora and any other sites you think are applicable.

You’d then scan down and add any interesting questions to your brief you think should be covered.

Tip

You need to be careful not to cover (or at least not to cover in depth) some questions that should be complete posts on their own. For example, if one of the questions is “how to do keyword research for YouTube”, you either wouldn’t include that in this post or you’d only briefly mention it and then link out to another, more thorough guide on the topic. This is because, as shown earlier in this guide, it has a separate intent and needs its own guide.

You should also review the People Also Ask Questions and related questions on the SERP results.

It may be easier to do this using a tool like AlsoAsked which allows you to pull these easily for free, or at least very inexpensively.

Outlining Your Headings and Structure

You should now have a great list of “headings” and questions you want the article to cover (although remember to reword them where possible so they aren’t carbon copies of the originals).

Because you’ve read like 10 blogs, you’ll also have a great idea about the order in which you’ll use them.

Start mapping these out in a Word document, ensuring you’re marking up what type of heading is being used (H1, H2, H3 etc.) to help the writer and whoever will be uploading this content to the website.

Optimize the structure. This actually is a skill in itself and another opportunity to beat our competitors. I often read guides which don’t have, what I call, a “logical flow of progression“.

What I mean is the narrative is sometimes thrown off by a heading or question which should have been made earlier or later depending on the content before and after it.

There aren’t any tips here I can give other than it takes practice; as you’re scanning the “skeleton” of your brief, does each heading and question build on from the last? Is there a “logical flow of progression“?

Tip: Sometimes you’ll have a few questions and headings you know you want to include but don’t fit into the natural “flow” of the brief. I tend to just stick these in at the bottom under an H2 called “Other FAQs”. Don’t try and force them in somewhere else. A common problem I see with content in general is miscellaneous questions breaking the logical narrative.

Specifying Keywords, Links & Technical Details

Your brief should include the following technical elements:

Suggested word count (based on the average word count of ranking articles). Please note, your writers need to understand that the word count is purely there to give the writer an indication of how comprehensive the piece needs to be. Word counts are not a ranking factor and never will be.

It’s literally to help them understand “hey look, this piece I want you to write on the Golden Ratio should be around 3,000 words so if you’ve done it in 400 words, we aren’t writing enough.

Feel free to go over or under providing you aren’t waffling on and/or have covered the topic comprehensively”.

Tip: Keyword insights brief generator can automatically suggest the optimal word count by analyzing SERP competitors.

Page title recommendation. Remember, a page title is a direct ranking factor so be sure to follow SEO best practices here:

• Keep it concise: Aim for around 60-ish characters, as this is typically the maximum length displayed in search results and we don’t want it to truncate.

• Include relevant keywords that accurately describe the content on your page. This will help search engines understand the topic of your page and increase the chances of it ranking for those keywords.

• Make it descriptive: Clearly and accurately describe the content of your page. Avoid using vague or misleading titles.

• Use proper capitalization: Use Title Case, rather than all caps or all lowercase, and avoid using special characters or punctuation.

Tip: I recommend you use a tool like Mangools SERP Simulator to test your page title and meta description to ensure you’re staying within the character limit.

Meta description recommendation. Follow SEO best practice recommendations around writing a great meta description:

• Keep it concise: Aim for around 155 characters, as this is typically the maximum length displayed in search results.

• Include relevant keywords that accurately describe the content on your page. They aren’t a ranking factor, but they may bold on the search results and encourage click-throughs.

• Make it compelling: Use language that entices people to click on your page. Ask a question, provide a solution to a problem, or use strong verbs to convey a sense of action.

• Include a call to action: Encourage visitors to take a specific action, such as “Learn more”.

Internal linking recommendations with optimized anchor text. Internal links are links that point to other pages within the same website. They are important for SEO for a few reasons:

• Internal links help search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your website. By linking to other pages on your site, you are effectively telling search engines which pages are most important and how they are related to each other.

• Internal links help search engines discover new pages on your website. If a page on your site is not linked to any other page, it may be more difficult for search engines to discover and crawl it.

• Internal links help distribute link equity throughout your website. Link equity is the value that is passed from one webpage to another through a link. By linking to other pages on your site, you are effectively passing some of the link equity from the linking page to the linked page. This can help improve the ranking of the linked page in search results.

• Internal links can help improve the user experience by making it easier for visitors to navigate your website and find related content.

External linking recommendations. If you believe the writer should reference a statistic, quote someone or something, or use someone else’s research, let them know and ensure they also link to the original source. This will improve the legitimacy and credibility of the content.

Multimedia recommendations. Could the piece of content benefit from a diagram, table or image at certain points within the text? Great briefs help content creators understand when certain multimedia enhancements would be beneficial.

Adding Context for Your Writers (Optional)

If you’re sending this to another writer, or if you’re going to be using your own brief, it may be useful to add a few notes and/or bullet points under each heading. You may include:

• Bullet point summarizations of the content that will sit under each heading. If the brief is going to another writer, this will give the heading more context but also save them time (and you money) researching the topic.

• Internal linking recommendations to other blogs on the site.

• External linking recommendations. Especially useful if you want them to cite any case studies or data points.

• Other instructions (image recommendations, whether the information should be formatted in a table etc.).

• Anything else you think is relevant.

Content Brief Example: A Look Inside a Completed Brief

To help you visualize what a completed brief looks like, here’s an example of a brief we created for an article on “keyword research tools”:

Primary Keyword: keyword research tools

Goal: Informational article to rank for “keyword research tools” and related terms. Secondary goal is to subtly mention Keyword Insights as one option among many.

Target Audience: Digital marketers and SEO professionals (beginner to intermediate level) looking for tools to improve their keyword research process.

Tone of Voice: Professional but conversational. Helpful and educational, not salesy.

Suggested Word Count: 2,500-3,000 words (based on competitor analysis)

Page Title: Best Keyword Research Tools: 15 Options for SEO in 2025

Meta Description: Discover the best keyword research tools for SEO in 2025. Compare free and paid options to find the perfect tool for your content strategy.

Heading Structure:

•H1: Best Keyword Research Tools: 15 Options for SEO in 2025

•H2: What Is a Keyword Research Tool?

•H2: Why You Need a Keyword Research Tool

•H2: The 15 Best Keyword Research Tools

•H3: 1. Google Keyword Planner (Free)

•H3: 2. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer (Paid)

•H3: 3. Semrush Keyword Magic Tool (Paid)

•H3: 4. Keyword Insights (Paid)

•[etc.]

•H2: How to Choose the Right Keyword Research Tool

•H2: Other FAQs

•H3: What is the best free keyword research tool?

•H3: Are paid keyword research tools worth it?

Internal Links:

•Link to “How to Do Keyword Research” guide

•Link to “Keyword Clustering” article

•Link to “SERP Analysis” guide

External Links:

•Link to Google Keyword Planner

•Link to each tool’s official website

•Cite any statistics about keyword research

Multimedia:

•Screenshot of each tool’s interface

•Comparison table of features and pricing

•Infographic showing keyword research process

Additional Notes:

•For each tool, include: brief description, key features, pricing, pros/cons

•Keep Keyword Insights mention brief and balanced with other tools

•Focus on helping readers choose the right tool for their needs, not pushing any specific option

This brief gives the writer everything they need to create a comprehensive, well-structured article that has a strong chance of ranking.

The Secret to a Better Brief: Cluster-Based Scoping

Here’s something most content briefs miss: proper scope definition. One of the biggest mistakes I see is creating multiple articles that compete with each other for the same keywords.

This is called content cannibalization, and it’s a ranking killer.

The solution?

Before you even create a brief, use keyword clustering to map out your entire content strategy. This ensures that each brief has a clear, unique scope.

What is keyword clustering?

Keyword clustering is the process of grouping keywords that share the same search intent. Instead of targeting one keyword per article, you identify all the related keywords that can be targeted on the same page.

For example, if you’re writing about “keyword research”, you might discover that these keywords can all be targeted in the same article:

• keyword research

• what is keyword research

• keyword research definition

• why is keyword research important

But these keywords need their own separate articles:

• how to do keyword research for YouTube

• keyword research tools

• keyword research for Amazon

By clustering your keywords first, you ensure that each content brief you create has a well-defined scope.

You won’t accidentally create two articles competing for the same keywords, and you won’t miss opportunities to target multiple related keywords on the same page.

This is where a tool like Keyword Insights clustering feature becomes invaluable.

It can analyze thousands of keywords at once and group them by search intent, so you know exactly which keywords belong in the same brief.

You can read more about the importance of using keyword clusters for your content strategy here.

By starting with clustering, your briefs become more focused, your content strategy becomes more efficient, and your chances of ranking improve dramatically.

Pro-Tip: Create a Data-Driven Brief in 10 Minutes

Here’s the reality: the manual process I just described can take 1-2 hours per brief. When you’re creating dozens of briefs a month, that adds up fast.

The method of producing a brief outlined above will ensure any content produced is well-researched, comprehensive and stands the best chance of ranking. But it is quite time-consuming. What if I told you there was a quicker way?

That’s why we built the Keyword Insights Content Brief Generator. It automates the SERP analysis, pulls in competitor headings, surfaces questions from Reddit and Quora, and even suggests additional topics to cover, all in about 10 minutes.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Add your chosen keyword to the content brief generation module and select the location and language.

Step 2: Keyword Insights will pull all the headings from the top 20 ranking articles of your target keyword for you, and enable you to drag and drop any interesting headings from the top 20 articles into your brief builder.

This allows you to quickly scan for any of the headings that frequently appear (an indication we should also definitely be covering it), as well as any unique titles or points that may only exist on one or two of the sites.

Tip: If you want to save some time you can use AI to automatically do this analysis and find the most common headings and also add your own insights and context.

Here is an example of an auto generated outline based on competitors and my own context.

Step 3: The tool also pulls in questions from Reddit and Quora allowing you to swiftly mine for additional pain points your target audience had that perhaps weren’t covered by your competitors. It also pulls in the “People Also Asked” questions as well as using AI to come up with additional questions you may want to answer to ensure the piece of content that is going to be written will be even more comprehensive.

Step 4: Organize your headings with a simple drag-and-drop interface until you have a logical flow of progression.

Step 5: Add bullet point notes under each heading using AI-generated summaries, or write your own.

If you’re serious about scaling your content production without sacrificing quality, it’s worth checking out. You can start with a $1 trial here.

Frequently Asked Questions 

How long should a content brief be?

A good brief is as long as it needs to be to provide clarity, but no longer. For most blog posts, a one-page brief (300-500 words of instructions plus the heading outline) is sufficient. For complex, long-form content, it might be 2-3 pages. The key is to be specific and actionable, not exhaustive.

Should I create a brief for every piece of content?

Yes, especially if you’re working with external writers or a team. Even if you’re writing the content yourself, a brief helps you organize your thoughts and ensures you don’t miss key points. The only exception might be very short, simple content like social media posts.

Can I use AI to write my content brief?

AI can help with parts of the brief, like generating an outline or summarizing competitor content. However, the strategic elements like defining the objective, understanding the audience, and scoping the content still require human insight. Tools like Keyword Insights can automate the research heavy parts, but you’ll still need to review and refine the output.

How detailed should the heading structure be?

Your heading structure should be detailed enough to give the writer a clear roadmap, but flexible enough to allow for creativity. Include H1, H2, and H3 tags, and provide enough headings to cover the topic comprehensively. However, make it clear that the writer can adjust the structure if they find a better flow while writing.

Parting Thoughts 

Creating a content brief might seem like extra work upfront, but it saves you time, money, and frustration in the long run. It’s the difference between hoping your content turns out well and knowing it will.

To recap, a great content brief includes:

• A clear objective and understanding of your target audience

• A well-researched primary keyword and SERP analysis

• A comprehensive heading structure based on competitor research and unique insights

• Technical details like word count, page title, meta description, and linking recommendations

• Optional context and notes to help your writers succeed

If you haven’t already, grab our free content brief template and start using it today.

It contains all the sections we’ve discussed in this guide and will save you hours of work.

And if you want to speed up the process even more, check out the Keyword Insights Content Brief Generator.

It automates the research-heavy parts of brief creation so you can focus on strategy and creativity.

Here’s to better content and fewer revisions.