Any line cook can make a cheeseburger, but before they start, they read the ticket to see who it’s for. If the ticket says “no onions,” they send out a plain burger, and if the person at table six has an allergy, they change how they make the whole thing, from a clean pan to a check on every ingredient.
A content brief is that ticket for your writer. Your writer already knows how to write an article, just as the cook knows how to make a burger, but they can’t know who your article is for, what your team knows that the top results don’t, or which facts have changed since you planned it. When the brief leaves those out, the writer has to guess, and you usually get back a draft that reads like everything already ranking.
Below, I’ll share the content brief template I use for my own articles and a real brief I wrote, shown next to the article it became four days later. You can copy both from a free Google Doc.
What is a content brief?
A content brief is a short document that tells a writer what one article needs to do. It covers who the article is for, the angle it takes, the searches it targets, what goes in each section, and the sources and first-hand input the writer should use. You write it before anyone starts the draft, so the writer and the person approving the piece agree on the plan from the start.
Since Google mixes the two on page one, you might also come across creative briefs when you search for this. A creative brief sets up a campaign, an ad or a design, while a content brief sets up a single article, so if you’re planning a campaign, a creative brief template will suit you better.
Content brief template
Since mid-October, I’ve written 30 content briefs, including the one for this article. The template below pulls together what all of them have in common, and I’ve listed the fields in the order I fill them in.
The basics
The first few fields tell the writer what the piece is and where it fits on your site.
- URL and working H1. Start with the slug and the headline the draft will begin with. You can always change the SEO title later.
- Keywords to target. List the primary and secondary searches, with volume and difficulty from one tool and one country, so the numbers are comparable.
- Keywords to leave alone. These are searches another page on your site already covers. When the topic comes up, the writer links to that page instead of covering it again.
- Category and length. Base the length on what the ranking pages cover and what your piece adds, rather than on a word count from a tool.
- Deadline and approver. Write down who signs off on the brief and the draft, and when they need to do it.
The reader and the angle
I fill in these three fields before anything else and get them approved first, because they shape how the whole piece gets written.
- Reader line. Describe who searches for this, what they’re trying to decide, what they already know, and how aware they are of the problem, the possible fixes or your product. This field is the allergy at table six, since it changes everything about the piece, from the opening line to the examples you choose.
- Slant. Write one sentence that names the angle your piece takes.
- The opinion the piece defends. Pick one claim a reader could disagree with, and note the proof behind it.
What goes in the piece
Once the reader and the angle are settled, these fields tell the writer what to build the piece from.
- What we have that the top results don’t. This might be your own data, a customer result, screenshots, an expert or a test you ran. If you can’t name anything yet, find something before you approve the brief.
- Intro approach. Describe how the piece should open, along with any image or comparison it carries through.
- Structure. List each H2 in order, with a line on what it covers.
- For AI answers. Write a 40–60-word answer to the main question, then list the questions the piece has to answer and the sources it should cite.
Checks before writing
The last few fields are the ones the writer checks right before drafting.
- Facts to recheck on writing day. List the prices, vendor names and owners, statistics and live examples, because a brief can sit for weeks before anyone writes from it.
- Questions for the expert. Ask for what only the expert can give you, like a real moment, a number or an opinion. For my own articles, the expert is usually me, so these are the details I need to dig up before I start writing.
- Internal links. List the pages the piece should link to, and the pages that should link back to it once it’s live.
- Not doing. Write down what the piece leaves out on purpose.
If you’d like to fill it in as you go, make a copy of the free content brief template. It’s a Google Doc with a short prompt under every field, and the filled-in example from the next section sits right below the blank template.
Content brief example: a real brief next to the article it became
On November 2, I wrote a brief for a guide to writing B2B case studies, and the article went live four days later, on November 6. You’ll find that brief in the Doc exactly as I wrote it, except that I trimmed a few internal notes about clients and swapped my name for the role it stands for, which means “Questions for Nathan” now reads “Questions for the expert.”
To show what the brief did, the table below puts each field next to what ended up in the article.
| Field | What the brief said (Nov 2) | What the article did (Nov 6) |
| Reader line | A product marketer or content lead who’s been told to “get more case studies” and is stuck on getting a yes, the numbers and legal approval | The second paragraph names that problem, with customers who renew and expand but leave a request for a 20-minute call in their inbox for weeks |
| Slant | Getting from “happy customer” to a case study sales uses, through the ask, the interview, the numbers, the approval and where it goes | The H2s follow that same order |
| Keywords to target | how to write a case study, case study template | Both appear in the intro and the first H2, and the SEO title became “How to Write a Case Study: Free B2B Template + Interview Script” |
| Keywords to leave alone | case study writer and buy case study (the cost post), case study examples | The article links to the cost post instead of repeating its rates, and it has no list of famous examples |
| Intro approach | Asking a customer is like asking a friend to help you move, carried through the piece | The article opens on the move and comes back to it in the ask, the approval section and the close |
| Opinion | Your biggest logo isn’t always the best story | It became the first line of the section on picking a customer |
| First-hand input | Three published case studies as worked examples | All three made it in, plus a SimpleTexting customer story the brief didn’t mention |
| Facts to recheck | StoryVoice found that 10.7% of stories on 1,000 B2B software sites state no figure, and find a buyer study | The 10.7% stayed, with the base corrected to 335 companies, and no buyer study was used |
| Questions for the expert | Four questions, on the category, interview experience, approval and the CTA | The answers changed the category, pointed the CTA to comparison and alternatives pages, and left the approval section to walk through the process |
| Not doing | No student advice, famous-brand list, invented stories or rate tables | All four stayed out |
| Length | 2,600–3,000 words | About 3,500 words |
| Internal links | Nine out and four in | Six of the nine out, and three of the four in |
What changed between the brief and the article
The article didn’t follow the brief line for line, and looking back, each change came from one of the fields doing the job it was there to do.
- The answers to my questions changed the plan. The category I’d planned didn’t exist on the site, so the post went under B2B Marketing instead. My answer about the call to action pointed it to comparison and alternatives pages rather than case study writing. And since I didn’t have a first-hand story that fit the sections on asking for a case study and getting approval, those two sections walk through the process instead.
- Rechecking the facts caught a wrong base. The brief said StoryVoice had found that 10.7% of stories on 1,000 B2B software sites state no figure. When I reread StoryVoice’s Customer Proof Index before drafting, I saw that the 10.7% was a share of the 335 companies with a readable customer story, so the article uses that base instead.
- An example came in late. After the outline was approved, I added a customer story I’d written for SimpleTexting from a transcript their team collected, and it became the worked example in the section on writing the case study.
- The community quotes didn’t make it in. The brief planned to quote people from r/ProductMarketing and LinkedIn, but in the end, the article describes the reader’s problem in plain words instead.
- The article ran long. The brief planned 2,600–3,000 words, and the finished article came in at about 3,500.
That’s why I think of a brief as a plan with open questions, where the answers are supposed to change the plan. In my experience, when a brief comes through the draft without a single change, it usually didn’t ask hard enough questions in the first place.
Fields most content brief templates leave out
The templates that rank for this search do a good job with the keywords, the audience, the outline and the word count. Where they tend to fall short is in the fields that change a draft the most, and none of the ones I read on page one had a field for rechecking facts on writing day. These are the fields I’d add to any template you use, along with what each one changed in my own drafts.
What we have that the top results don’t
If you build a brief only from the top 10 results, you’ll usually get an 11th version of them back. When I compared 22 ranking articles on three B2B SaaS topics, 13 of them followed the same skeleton, with a definition, a section on benefits, and a list of steps or best practices. That kind of overlap is a big part of why B2B SaaS content sounds the same, and the easiest place to fix it is in the brief. Before you approve one, ask what your team knows that the top 10 don’t, and wait until someone has an answer.
That answer can be a customer quote, your own data, a screenshot from a test or an opinion your team holds. In the case study brief, it was the three case studies I’d already published, and the article ended up using all three as worked examples.
Facts to recheck on writing day
In a kitchen, “86” is the word for a dish on the menu that has run out. Briefs run into the same problem, because a vendor, price or statistic that was right when you planned the piece can change before anyone sits down to write it.
I saw this when I rewrote a guide to native advertising platforms for Taboola. The brief came with a suggested list of platforms, so before drafting, I checked each one, and two of them had changed. Outbrain had completed its purchase of Teads in February 2025 and then changed its name to Teads in June 2025. Nativo had a new owner too, after Life360 completed its purchase in January 2026. If I’d built the list straight from the plan, it would have been out of date on the day it went live, and instead, the corrected page went on to rank #1 on Google for “native advertising platforms.”
So in this field, list the facts most likely to change, like prices, plan limits, vendor names and owners, statistics, and examples that might have moved or gone offline. Then recheck them on the day the writing starts, not on the day you wrote the brief.
Keywords to leave alone
This field keeps two of your own pages from going after the same search. In the case study brief, I left “case study writer” and “buy case study” to my post on what a B2B case study costs, so the guide links to that post instead of repeating its rates. Without that note, a thorough writer would probably have added a pricing section, and Google would then have two of my pages to choose between for the same search.
A not-doing list
A not-doing list is your “hold the onions.” It tells the writer what to leave off, which is usually the part they can’t guess on their own. The case study brief ruled out student advice, a list of famous-brand examples, invented customer stories and rate tables. Any of those would have been easy to add, but each one would have pulled the piece away from the content lead it was written for.
The one opinion the piece defends
The opinion in the case study brief was “your biggest logo isn’t always the best story,” and it became the first line of the section on picking a customer. An opinion like that gives the draft something the top results don’t already say, and writing it into the brief makes it harder to soften away during review. My same-skeleton study came to the same conclusion, which is why its list of fixes asks you to protect one clear opinion in every piece, as long as it’s accurate and you can defend it.
How to write a content brief
The template gives you the fields to fill in, and the steps below show the order I fill them in, starting with one that happens before you open the template.
- Pick the article. If you haven’t decided what to publish yet, a content strategy sheet that ranks what to publish first can help you settle that before you start the brief.
- Read what the people searching say. Forums, sales calls and support tickets give you the reader’s own words, which you’ll use for the reader line.
- Search the topic in the country you sell in. Note what page one covers, what it misses, what the AI Overview says and which pages it cites. I check US results by setting the location in the search URL, because searching from where I live shows different pages.
- Find your first-hand input. Look for the data, story or test that only your team has.
- Write the reader line, the slant and the opinion. Get these approved before you write the rest of the brief.
- Outline the H2s. Give each one a line on what the section should cover.
- List the facts to recheck and the questions for the expert. Send the questions early, since answers can take a while, and if you’re running an interview, use them to prepare for the expert interview.
- Check the draft against the brief. In a kitchen, the head cook checks every plate against its ticket before it goes out to the table. Do the same with your draft, going through it one field at a time before it goes to review.
SEO content brief: what to add for search
An SEO content brief is the same document with the search research written in, so the writer doesn’t have to do it again. In the template, these items go in the basics and the structure.
- Keyword set. Include the target and leave-alone lists, with numbers from one tool and one country.
- SERP notes. Write down what page one covers and what it misses in the country you sell in.
- People Also Ask. Add the questions that can become the FAQ when search data backs them up.
- The AI Overview. Note what it says and which pages it cites.
- Internal links. List the pages to link to and the pages that should link back after publishing.
- Title and meta limits. I keep titles under 600 pixels and meta descriptions under 160 characters, so Google is less likely to cut them off.
While you’re adding all this, leave out anything the writer can’t use. If you hand over a list of 40 related keywords, you’ll often get back a draft that tries to rank for every one of them and never settles on a main point.
Briefing an AI draft
An AI tool follows a brief closely, but it doesn’t stop to ask questions the way a writer might. In my experience, when the brief leaves a gap, the tool fills it with the most common version of the topic. That’s why the reader line, the first-hand input and the not-doing list carry even more weight in a brief for an AI draft than in a brief for a person.
Content brief generators run into a similar problem. Because they build the brief from the top results, they tend to hand you the standard burger again. You can still use one for the SERP notes if it saves time, as long as you then fill in the fields only your team can fill, like the reader line, the first-hand input, the opinion and the facts to recheck. And when the draft comes back, check it against the brief the same way you’d check a writer’s draft, taking extra care with every number and quote.
FAQs
What should a content brief include?
A content brief should include the URL and working headline, the keywords to target and leave alone, a reader line, the slant and the opinion the piece defends. It should also cover what you have that the top results don’t, the structure, the facts to recheck, questions for the expert, internal links and a not-doing list. The free template has all of these, with a prompt under each one.
How long should a content brief be?
A content brief should be long enough that the writer doesn’t have to guess. For example, the case study brief ran about 1,600 words for an article of about 3,500. A writer who already knows your site and your reader may only need one page, while a new writer or a long piece usually needs more.
What’s the difference between a content brief and a creative brief?
A content brief plans one article, including its reader, angle, searches, structure and sources. Creative briefs, on the other hand, plan a campaign, an ad or a design, so they cover the goal, the audience, the message and the deliverables instead.
Can AI write a content brief?
AI can draft the research parts of a brief, like the keyword list, the SERP notes and the questions people ask. The reader line, the first-hand input and the opinion still need to come from your team, because a tool can only draw on what’s already been published.
Who should write the content brief?
Ideally, the brief comes from whoever will approve the draft, or from the strategist who planned the piece, so the brief and the review hold the draft to the same standard. If your briefs are piling up faster than anyone can write from them, there are four ways to get help when briefs outnumber writers.
Start with the reader line
Like the cook, your writer already knows how to make the burger, and what they need from you is the ticket that says who they’re making it for. So make a copy of the template, open the brief for your next article, and fill in the reader line before anything else. Then, when the draft comes back, check it against the brief the same way a head cook checks each plate against its ticket.
If you send writers detailed briefs and still end up rewriting most of the drafts that come back, we should talk.
