Build a content brief for an article targeting {{target keyword}}.
What I am giving you:
- The top-ranking pages for the keyword: {{paste the titles, URLs, and headings of the top 5-8 results, or the full text if you have it}}
- Who we are and who reads us: {{site or product, and the audience this article serves}}
- What we can say that competitors cannot: {{data, experience, product angle, or "nothing special yet"}}
- Pages on our site worth linking from this article: {{list, or "none yet"}}
Work through it in this order:
1. Read the intent off the results, not the keyword. What is the searcher trying to do, and what format do the ranking pages converge on (guide, listicle, comparison, tool page)? If the results are mixed, say which intent dominates and which format we should commit to.
2. Map the shared skeleton. Which sections appear in most of the ranking pages? Those are table stakes; the brief must include them.
3. Find the gap. What question does the searcher plausibly have that none of the ranking pages answer well? That gap is the reason our article deserves to exist. If you cannot find one, say so plainly; that is a reason to pick a different keyword, and I want to know it before writing 2,000 words.
4. Write the brief: working title, one-line angle, a target word-count range based on what actually ranks, an H2/H3 outline with a sentence per section on what it must cover, the searcher questions to answer verbatim, and where the internal links fit naturally.
5. List what to leave out: the adjacent subtopics that would dilute the intent match if the article wandered into them.
Flag any claim in the outline that needs a primary source or first-hand verification with [VERIFY]. A brief that quietly inherits competitors' unverified claims reproduces their errors under our name.seocontent-briefmarketing