Content Brief Templates: 20 Free Downloads & Examples

Portent's content brief template is well put together, starting off with a 'summary' section that organizes high-level information that's useful for the writer before they get started.

Things like audience insights, primary CTA, and the goal of the article help set the stage and enable the writer to approach the piece with either an educational/informational mindset or a conversion-driven goal.

Lower down the template are the necessary SEO details—target keywords, internal links, title tag, meta description, and more. It's good to see Portent leading with the audience & brand details before diving into the SEO stuff, since it's clear they're optimizing for the reader first.

The PDF file isn't directly editable, but it should be straightforward to download the file and build out your own variation on Google Docs or Notion. And if you're confused by the 'Strategy Goals' section at the top, we believe it's meant to point to the goal of the specific content asset — what action is it trying to encourage?

Dr. Fio's content brief template is a great example of getting outside of the basic competitor data that most briefs start with, and adding more brand-specific information and data:

• Audience → the people you’re creating your content for
• Brand → the company and product behind the piece
• Context → piece-specific instructions (e.g. keywords or internal links)
• Details → useful information for planning and building the piece

Even if you're working on very competitor-focused topic areas where exceeding competitors is critical, I think all briefs need to focus on how their brand can show they're better, not just their content.

Subscribe to Dr. Fio's Substack while you're over there.

Avo’s content brief template leans slightly towards the technical / project management side, but it does its job well overall. The first page includes things like the content type, intended word count, due date, and content summary while lower down the brief are sections for audience details, keywords, and business goals.

Things like recommended internal and external link targets, desired CTAs (what should the content encourage the reader to do next?), visual information, and related questions to be answered are not included in the template, but a skilled strategist should be able to add those without much fuss.

Writing Studio’s content brief template is fairly no frills but includes all the sections your writer needs to produce content. Each row seems small but it’s really up to the strategist to make it as detailed as possible. Things like target audience, objective, and headings deserve a lot of information to make the job easier for your writer and to ensure that the piece of content satisfies both search intent and brand goals.

What we like about Convince & Convert’s content brief template is that it’s one of the rare ones that includes a distribution and promotion section. Content distribution isn’t talked about enough, but it’s an equally important piece of the puzzle so it’s nice to see a template that dives into the publishing channels and promotion strategies.

The target audience, buyer journey, and CTA sections are also important to assist the writer for the tone of the post. Some missing sections include SEO details such as keywords, internal & external links, common questions to answer, and others, but they should be straightforward for a strategist to add directly.

Brafton prefers to refer to its template as a creative brief, but it includes most of the sections needed to pass on a well-crafted SEO content brief to your writer. We like the explainer text inside each section, clearly explaining what it’s trying to achieve and passing on relevant details for the writer.

The distribution recommendations and KPIs are a nice touch, too, which helps in the post-publication process. Things like brand & audience details, buyer stage journey, and recommended CTAs are not included in the template, but a strategist should be able to incorporate those easily.

Not only would that help the writer, it would also determine things like KPIs — success of top of the funnel content should mostly be determined by traffic and SERP rankings, while bottom of the funnel content is judged by conversions, signups, and demo requests.

Content Folks’ content brief template is very detailed with sections around audience, brand, and context. What we like about it is that the template takes you through a live example — it documents how a content manager might build a brief for a post that talks about content calendars.

This live example is great for those who want a bit more context around the sections. As we mentioned earlier, the overall template is incredibly detailed—which helps you understand how deep you might want to go when building one out for your writers.

Both Orbit Media and its founder Andy Crestodina are well-known in the content marketing industry and this content brief template does a great job of covering everything from content planning to publishing and promotion.

Included are clear instructions encouraging writers to keep their posts scannable, with lots of visuals and helpful screenshots thrown in. The nod to social promotions with tracking URLs is also a nice touch.

Zapier says it doesn’t use content briefs for its internal workflow, preferring to rely on its decade of experience to guide content processes instead. It does offer a blog template though—which isn’t bad, but probably only worth it for junior writers. It covers the SEO aspects well, but doesn’t delve into audience & brand considerations, which are essential if you’re going to create world-class content.

Daniel's an expert SEO manager and his content brief template reflects his primary audience. The first page includes detailed instructions for considerations like the target keyword, audience details, search intent, and internal link targets while the second and third page encourages you to pencil in the overall structure.

The template emphasizes user experience over SEO targets, which is refreshing and a nod to Daniel's experience building world-class content.

Smart Blogger's content brief template covers all the details you need to pass on a well-structured brief to your writer. While it lacks explainer instructions inside each section, an experienced content manager should be able to fill those out without any problem. The sections of 'key takeaways' and 'success criteria' are a nice touch, and one that will help your writer as they craft the piece.

Jake's content brief template is ideal for when you're looking to fast-track your content program by publishing rapidly. The template isn't fancy or detailed but gets the job done to communicate essential information to your writers. And if you're working with good writers, they should be able to take the details provided and run with it.

We're recommending Kammie's content brief template based on her excellent article in Moz outlining the steps to build a world-class content brief.

Kammie's guide is a comprehensive resource on how to instruct writers in creating content that balances both audience and search engine requirements. It has a step-by-step process that starts with identifying the right keywords and search intent, then moves on to audience and brand considerations, and ends with link targets, H2s, and meta descriptions.

No Brainer's content brief template reflects their work as an SEO and content agency. The template starts with high-level considerations such as the title, topic, and keywords and goes on to discuss linking requirements, audience & brand considerations, CTA, and things to avoid.