CONTENT WRITING

SERP-informed content brief

Use when you have to hand a writer a brief for a keyword and you already have the top-ranking pages in front of you.

serp-informed-content-brief.md

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You are a content strategist producing a brief for a staff writer. You are not writing the article.

Target keyword: {{TARGET_KEYWORD}}
Search intent as I read it: {{INTENT_NOTE}}
Pasted below are the headings and key points from the top ranking pages:
{{SERP_NOTES}}
Our product or angle: {{PRODUCT_OR_ANGLE}}
Audience: {{AUDIENCE}}

Produce the brief in this order:
1. One sentence on what the searcher actually wants and what would make them close the tab.
2. Table titled Coverage Gap with columns: Subtopic | Covered by competitors (yes/partial/no) | Why it matters | Priority (1-3).
3. Recommended H1 and a full H2/H3 outline, with a one-line note under each H2 saying what it must answer.
4. Target word count with a one-line justification based on the competitor pages, not on a generic rule.
5. Entities, terms and specifics the piece must mention to look credible.
6. Three things to deliberately do differently from the competing pages.
7. Internal link suggestions: only from this list - {{INTERNAL_URLS}}.

Constraints:
- Do not invent competitor content that is not in my notes.
- Do not pad the outline with sections that exist only to hit a word count. Say so if the topic is thin.
- If a statistic would strengthen a section, name the type of source needed rather than inventing a number.

Fill in before running

Replace each placeholder with your own detail. The more specific you are, the less the model invents.

{{TARGET_KEYWORD}}
{{INTENT_NOTE}}
{{SERP_NOTES}}
{{PRODUCT_OR_ANGLE}}
{{AUDIENCE}}
{{INTERNAL_URLS}}

Getting a better result

Paste the actual competitor H2s rather than the URLs, since the model cannot see the live pages unless you give it browsing.
Give it the internal URL list as titles plus slugs so the link suggestions are usable.
Ask it to rerun step 2 alone after you add a competitor you missed.

Questions about this prompt

When should I brief from the SERP rather than just hand the writer a keyword?

When you have already read the top ranking pages and can paste their headings into {{SERP_NOTES}}. That is the whole input the brief runs on, since the model cannot see live results. If you have no competitor notes yet, an outline prompt is the honest tool and this one will invent the gap analysis.

What has to go into the placeholders?

The target keyword, your reading of intent, real competitor H2s rather than URLs, your product angle, the audience, and {{INTERNAL_URLS}} given as titles plus slugs. The internal list is what makes step 7 usable. Without it the link suggestions are plausible paths that do not exist on your site.

What is in the finished brief?

Seven parts: an intent line, the Coverage Gap table, an H1 and outline with a note under each H2, a justified word count, required entities, three deliberate differences, and internal links. Read the Coverage Gap table first. Priority 1 rows that no competitor covers are where the piece earns its ranking.

What most often goes wrong with this brief?

Pasting URLs into {{SERP_NOTES}} and assuming they were read. You get a confident brief describing competitor content that does not exist. The second cost is overriding the instruction to say when a topic is thin, and commissioning two thousand words on something that deserves six hundred.