What is a Content Brief?: Definition, Tips, and Example

Creating content for a marketing campaign is not an easy thing to do, especially in a fast-paced environment, and it indeed requires hard work. Sometimes, the content you have created fails to meet your and your team’s expectations because the content is off the right track. Despite the difficulties, creating high-quality content writing is still manageable if you and your team know how to use a content brief appropriately. In this article, we will answer the question of what a content brief is and why it is needed for SEO. We will dig deeper into the definition of what a content brief is and what the beneficial effects of using a content brief are in your marketing team. 

What is a content brief in general? 

What is a content brief? A content brief is a recommendation document from a team to ensure that the SEO writer follows the instructions or guidelines. Therefore, the content brief acts as a guide for the writer to follow before writing SEO content. With the content brief, the writer can reduce the potential of being off track and can write based on the advice from the editor, SEO specialist, or content strategist in a digital agency to meet the standard and perform well. 

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), the content brief is mostly related to the on-page SEO. It is about the recommendation of the title or the structure example from the competitors to be implemented in a new article. An SEO content brief can also be used as advice to the writer to adhere to the headers (including H1, H2, or H3) and linking within the internal articles. 

Not only for the SEO writer or general writer, but also for the content brief used to give a guide for content creators or influencers who are involved in marketing. It is also useful for creating other than SEO articles, such as landing pages, case studies, and white papers, and ensuring that the content is as the content manager or the client wishes. 

Why is a content brief important for the marketing team? 

Creating content without a content brief is possible, and sometimes it also has a great result. However, without a content brief, for a writer or content creator, it is similar to groping in the darkness. The existence of a content brief gives a clear guide to the writer and content creator to keep the content on track. 

The content brief is mostly written clearly to make it easy to understand for the writer or content creator. The creators commonly ask directly to the editors or SEO specialists before writing if any confusion is found. Find the importance of the content brief for the marketing campaign below.

• Minimize the revision: With the clear and straightforward guidelines on the content brief, it will reduce the potential for revision or rewriting content. 
• Reduce the misinformation: Content briefs usually contain the important information about the materials and other components to be included in the content. 
• Aligning all team members: With the content brief, marketers, SEO, editor, and writer can align regarding the content and have a consistent brand voice and language style. 
• Enhance the content quality and volume: By creating a clear and easy-to-understand content brief, it will contribute to the productivity enhancement, coinciding with the improvement of content quality. 

What is a creative brief? What makes a creative brief different from a content brief? 

After understanding the content brief, we might need to know what a creative brief is and what the difference is. Creative briefs actually have the same purpose as content briefs. The two types of documents are similar in terms of principle because they are guides for writers or other creative workers to create the content.  

The striking difference between a creative brief and a content brief depends solely on the creative projects. Content brief is specifically aimed to assist the writer to create long-form content, such as SEO content, white papers, case studies, and others. Whereas a creative brief is used for short-form content, such as copywriting, social media, web design, video editing, graphic design, and other creative projects. 

In addition, a creative brief is more visual and shows how the content would look when it is seen by the audience. In contrast, a content brief is solely for long-form writing, which mostly contains the strategy and focus of the content in order to make it better in terms of quality compared to the competitors. 

What is a media brief? What makes a content brief different from a media brief? 

Other than the content brief and the creative brief, have you ever heard of a media brief? Instead of focusing on conceptual looks and feels in a creative brief, a media brief highlights the message to guide the media buyers or planning team. Thus, it aims to guide the media buyers to conduct a campaign in traditional marketing platforms. 

However, a media brief is very distinct from the content or creative brief. This brief underlines the details on the budget allocated to the marketing campaign, target demographics, and specific paid marketing channels. A media brief will help the person involved in paid marketing to spend the money effectively on the target audience. 

What information and components need to be included within the effective content brief? 

When you understand what a content brief is, it is time to understand all of the information and recommendations included. In order to make an effective content brief, you need to write clearly and use language that is easy to understand by all readers to avoid misalignment or misunderstanding. Before creating the content brief, we will give the key information needed to be included in the content brief below. 

1. Summary and objective of the project 

In the opening section of the content brief, you need to provide a short summary of the project. Also, what should be mentioned are the objectives and purpose of the project to make the writers or freelancers know what they are working on in this project, whether it is used for generating organic traffic or to give an insight for the target audience. 

Example: 

This project aims to develop brand awareness of our brand and provide education for the target audience about our services. This blog post will help the brand to the top position of the search engine search results in line with generating organic traffic on our website.

2. SEO requirements

In the content brief for the SEO campaign, it is obviously necessary to add primary and secondary keywords as a main requirement. The content brief creator also needs to add other SEO requirements, including the length of the meta descriptions, meta title, internal links, keyword density, and others. 

Example: 

• Primary keyword: “how to create a content brief.”
• Secondary keywords: “how to write a content brief effectively”, “what is a content brief”, “what are the types of content briefs.”
• Keyword density: 1-2% for primary keyword
• Meta title: Provide a 40-60 character meta title
• Meta description: Provide a 150-160 character description of the blog and include the primary keyword. 

3. Content structure and header 

Content structure can also be included in the content brief. However, most of the content briefs do not include content structure, as the writer mostly finds the format from articles from competitors. Mostly, the content brief just mentions the title, heading, and subheadings. 

Example: 

• Overview
• Table of content
• What is a content brief in general?
• Why is a content brief important for SEO? 
• Who uses a content brief for SEO? 
• Why do people need to use a content brief for marketing campaigns? 
• What is the difference between a content brief, a creative brief, and a media brief?
• How to write an effective content brief? 
• Example of an effective content brief for SEO
• Conclusion
• FAQs
• Heading (H1,H2, H3,…) 

4. Target words

Unlike the news content or trending content, SEO content is also considered the target word count. This is because SEO also underlines the depth of content that satisfies the target audience on specific primary keywords. However, the quality is more important than just reaching the target word count. 

Example: 

“Target words: 1,000-2,000 words. Please optimize the quality of the content rather than the word count.”

5. References and recommendations

The marketing team commonly includes references from the competitors’ content or other materials that need to be included in the article. They also mention the internal linking to be added to the new articles. 

Example: 

Reference: (URL)

Internal linking: (URL)

Suggestion link: (URL)

6. Target audience

When it comes to marketing, it is obviously necessary to comprehend the target audience for each piece of content. The target audience includes target demographics, interests, and the solution for the audience by using your products. 

Example: 

“The target audience is beginner marketing workers who need a reference to write a content brief. Our service can help them to make content easier and become more productive.”

7. CTA or call to action

For most of the marketing campaign, including SEO blog posts, we need to include a call to action (CTA) word. These words are crucial to show and make the reader more enthusiastic about your content as well as your products or services. 

Example: 

“CTA: Discover our service to write an effective content brief quickly (add link to the service page).”

The information and components above need to be included in the content brief. There are some content briefs that are more detailed than that. You can also add a deadline to ensure that the writer or content creator can finish the content right on time. However, a deadline is not mandatory in content briefs, as the marketing team will set the deadline, the weekly content to produce, and when the content will be published. 

The example of a content brief 

We have provided an example of an effective content brief that you can use as a reference. By following this example, you will understand how to write the content brief even if you haven’t created one before. 

Example Content Brief for SEO

Project title: How to Write a Content Brief

Objective: This project aims to develop brand awareness of our brand and provide education for the target audience about our services. This blog post will help the brand to the top position of the search engine search results in line with generating organic traffic on our website.

Target audience: The target audience is beginner marketing workers who need a reference to write a content brief. Our service can help them to make a content brief easier and become more productive

Primary keyword: “how to create a content brief.”

Secondary keywords: “how to write a content brief effectively”, “what is a content brief”, “what are the types of content briefs.”

Structure:

• Overview
• Table of content
• What is a content brief in general?
• Why is a content brief important for SEO? 
• Who uses a content brief for SEO? 
• Why do people need to use a content brief for marketing campaigns? 
• What is the difference between a content brief, a creative brief, and a media brief?
• How to write an effective content brief? 
• Example of an effective content brief for SEO
• Conclusion
• FAQs

Expected word count: 1,000-2,000 words

Reference:

• Sources from competitor: (URL)
• Internal linking: (URL)
• Suggestion external link: (URL)

CTA: Discover our service to write an effective content brief quickly (add link to the service page).”

Instead of writing a content brief similar to the example above, you can also write a content brief using a table. The table can make the format look more organised and easier to read. However, whether you use tables or not, the most important things are using easy-to-comprehend language. 

Tips to write an effective content brief for SEO

Creating a content brief does not have to be a burden; you just need to be specific and effective in order to make writers and content creators understand what the content is that aligns with the company’s guidelines. Here are the tips for an effective content brief for SEO content. 

1. Conducting thorough research to find the target audience

The first thing you need to do before creating a content brief for the team is to do deep research. By doing the research, you will comprehend the organic traffic and what the audience wants. You also need to know the language tone for the target audience that can make them engage with your content. 

2. Connect keywords and search intent 

Keywords and search intent cannot be separated, and they must be connected to each other to satisfy the searchers. Therefore, understanding keywords and search intent needs to be clearly described in the content brief to avoid misleadings. You can give some examples to make the writer understand the search intent from keywords. Generally, you can use search engines’ recommendations for this task. 

3. Giving a reference from competitors

To ensure the writer knows the target audience and content format, you can give examples from competitors. The reference is essential to make the writer understand completely about the article they will create. By knowing the format, they can also imagine the content ideas and avoid writer’s block. 

4. Ensure clarity on the content brief

What is a content brief? As we explain, it is basically a guideline for a writer; therefore, it needs to be clear and easy to grasp. Whether the content uses a simple guide or a table, the core message is to make the writer and content creator grasp what the marketing team wants and to perform well. 

5. Make it as simple as possible

The content brief does not have to be a complicated document; instead, the content brief should be as simple as possible. So, for someone who has never created content before, they should just write it and use the examples and even templates. There are many templates you can use, and also you can use AI tools to generate a content brief. 

Manual and AI-generated content brief

We understand that creating a content brief is not a simple task. Sometimes, it requires some time and more than an hour to create a simple content brief. In fact, marketers or SEO strategists also have a bunch of work. They need to do some research, which also requires effort, to get to the bottom of the search intent, content gaps, and find the new ideas that have the potential to boost website ranking. 

No wonder that marketers also need to use templates for content briefs, whether it is created manually or uses AI-generated content. Using content brief templates will make your work faster and scale up content production without the need to create content briefs one by one per SEO content title. By using an AI-generated content brief, you can deliver the relevant information for each piece of content appropriately without creating it one by one. 

To accelerate the production of content, companies have developed AI content brief tools. If you are hesitant to use AI content briefs or want to know what is the quality of content briefs generated by AI, you can use the free tools instead. Many platforms provide free tools you can use, and you can see the results, then compare them one by one. We have collected five AI-generated content briefs you can try below. 

1. Quillbot 

Quillbot is one of the best options for those of you who want to try creating a content brief. This tool is free, and you can just type the keyword or topic you want to create, and it will automatically generate the content brief. 

2. SEO Review Tools 

Other than Quillbot, SEO Review Tools is also a best option for beginners. By selecting the language, topic, and target audience, this tool will generate a detailed and clear content brief automatically. 

3. Optiwing

Optiwing is an SEO content brief generated tools you can use for free. With the help of the Large Language Model (LLM), this tool will help you generate a comprehensive content brief within a minute.  

4. Outrank

Outrank is another free tool to generate an SEO content brief. This tool has a simple user interface, and you can just type the primary keyword, target audience, and tone of voice. Then, the AI machine will generate the content brief as you expected. 

5. Jasper AI 

Jasper AI is a well-known AI writing assistant in the market. Not only for generating content and assisting with writing content, but Jasper also has a Content Brief Agent, which is available to generate a comprehensive content brief for SEO campaigns. 

Conclusion 

Creating a content brief is recommended for the marketing team and content strategist. Without the content brief, the process of creating content writing will be harder because writers need to define their own understanding without guidance. This will cause a misunderstanding between the content or SEO strategist and the writer. Content brief plays a crucial role in building a bridge between the SEO strategist and writer, and ensuring that the writer can create satisfying content and avoid content that is out of context. In particular, for SEO campaigns that have many requirements, including target keyword, secondary keywords, expected word counts, target audience, internal and external linking words, and others. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about What is a Content Brief

1. How to distinguish between a content brief and a media brief? 

Even though the content brief and media brief are slightly similar, the two briefs are strikingly different. Content brief used specifically for content writers, especially SEO writers, to understand the guidelines. Media brief, on the other hand, is used uniquely for media buyers or a person who conducts paid marketing or traditional marketing channels. 

2. Do marketing teams need to use content briefs? 

Yes, absolutely. A content brief will improve the workflow and ensure that the writer or content creator stays within the guidelines. Content briefs also make the process of creating content quick and reduce the possibility of revision or rewriting due to misunderstanding. 

3. Who writes a content brief for an SEO campaign? 

Content brief for SEO campaigns is usually written by an SEO specialist or marketing manager in a company. However, it also depends on the scale of the marketing team within the company. If the company is a small business, then the manager will directly create content briefs. On the other hand, if you are in a large company with a big team, the SEO specialist will create content briefs. 

4. How long can someone create a manual content brief for SEO? 

Creating a manual content brief actually needs some time because it also needs research to ensure that the brief delivers effectively to the writer or content creator. It depends on how detailed the content brief you want to create. To simplify the process, you can use the templates and just change the components or information. 

5. Can I use templates to create a content brief for SEO campaigns? 

Yes, of course. You can use templates that have been provided on tools, or you can create your own content brief templates. However, with many content brief platforms, it is recommended to use templates from creative tools, such as Content Harmony, Reforge, and Notion. 

6. Are there any AI tools to create a content brief instantly? 

Yes, nowadays, there are many tools to create a content brief by utilizing AI tools. These days, there are many tools provided to create a content brief using AI generated. You can use writing tools, such as Jasper, Quilbot, Gauge, and others, to assist in creating an effective content brief.