When you hire a freelance writer to create content for your website, you face a bit of a Catch-22. The writer needs to know what you want, but you might feel like writing a detailed brief is doing their job for them.
The clue is in the word 'brief'. A good content brief should be short and to the point. Think bullet points and punchy sentences, rather than an instruction for every 5-10 words of content.
By keeping it brief, you save yourself time and effort. But you also allow your content writer to do their job, giving them enough freedom (and enough word count) to produce coherent and flowing text, rather than trying to fit too many instructions into too few words.
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What to Include
This is not set in stone. When you hire a content writer, you need to tell them just as much (or as little) as necessary for them to do the job - even if all you give them is a blank page and a primary SEO keyword to include.
In general though, there are certain instructions that can be useful for your writer. Don't worry if you don't have anything specific in mind for every one of these. Just include those that are relevant.
Items to Include in a Content Brief
- Headline or Page Title (let the writer know if they're allowed to change or modify this)
- Brief description of page content (approx one bullet point per 100 words is a good start)
- Links to any example articles or source material for the writer to use
- SEO keywords (and desired keyword density, if you have one)
- Target word count (and is this a minimum, maximum or a middle-average target?)
If you're able to include all of the above, it's very likely that you'll get good-quality content back from your writer. The less information you provide in the brief, the less likely it is to be spot-on.
How to Structure a Content Brief
Honestly, don't worry too much about structure. Just list the criteria/requests in any order and your writer should be able to handle it.
It's a good idea to clarify what any URLs/hyperlinks are intended for. Links included in a content brief can mean any of the following:
- Source material to use directly
- Reference material to use indirectly
- Rival pages to avoid copying
A good writer will not plagiarise other websites' content - although direct quotes can be useful to include in some circumstances, with the proper attribution - but it's still important to make clear which examples are to be used, and which are to be avoided.
NB When pasting links into a content brief, it's good if you can paste the URL rather than the anchor text.
- https://bobblewriter.blogspot.com/ is good
- Bobblewriter | Bobble Bardsley Copywriting is less good
Both are OK, but pasting the actual URL can be more helpful for the writer, as it's a bit easier to copy out of the brief without pasting unwanted formatting into the working document.
Just send the brief over to your writer in any format you want. That can be directly in the body of an email, as a Word document attachment, or using an online content planning dashboard if you have one. Check with your writer beforehand to find out if they accept your preferred format.
Any Other Tips?
Try to send your content brief in a format that is designed for text and word processing. Generally speaking, a brief in an Excel spreadsheet is harder to work with.
(An exception to this is on large product description orders or long-term content plans, where a spreadsheet can add important structure to large amounts of data including headlines, page URLs, SEO keywords and example links.)
Finally, remember to set a deadline. This can be agreed with the writer in advance, but it's best if you always tell your writer when you want or need to receive the content. That way everyone is on the same page, and you know if and when to chase the writer for delivery.
With these few simple steps, you should be well on your way to writing a comprehensive content brief that takes just a few minutes, doesn't overwhelm your writer with too much source material, and gives them the leeway to deliver their very best work on every page.
