How can we create an effective technical content brief for an educational client

As part of my SEO journey, I have reviewed and posted a lot of content.

I would like to create a best practice guide for beginner level content writers

In order to create for an educational website blog not only engaging but high ranking content that would rank well

I will show you an example for such a technical content brief for the article topic

” The Complete Guide to MBA Programs in Healthcare Management”

Step 1 — Defining the main keyword

The first step is to determine the primary keyword for the chosen topic. The idea is to select a high volume keyword with a high potential sales intent.

In this case, I choose [ MBA in Healthcare Management ] as a potentially high value keyword and also having lower keyword difficulty than the [ Healthcare Management ] keyword.

Also, we can use Google Trends for finalizing the keyword.

Step 2 — Gathering semantics

The next step is to gather semantics after choosing the main keyword.

Collecting the semantics score for a blog article includes the following steps

1. Collecting the keywords using keyword research tools. For this educational blog am using Semrush keyword overview, keyword magic tool and Ubbersuggest keyword ideas
2. Keyword Magic Tool and Ubersuggest Keyword Ideas Analyzes competitor articles to expand the keyword list. There may be several relevant secondary keywords used by competitors to show Google that their content is relevant and authentic. These keywords do not contain the target keyword, but they do complement the article perfectly. So, when you write an article on “MBA in Healthcare Management”, you may find relevant secondary keywords like “Healthcare Management Courses” or “Healthcare Management Course” that work well with the post.

I strongly recommend gathering secondary keyword data and compiling it in a separate column for easy use later on.

Step 3 — Defining the post’s structure

A solid structure allows the reader to give a comprehensive and authoritative answer to their question.

It should be easy to follow and give the reader a logical meaning.

Sometimes, the easiest way to determine which content you want to cover starts with examining what the competition is doing.

The copywriter must follow these steps

1. Analyzing top search results

To quickly determine the most effective basic structure for articles, you can review the ranking of the top 10 articles for the target keyword.

To speed up this process, you can use the SEO Meta in 1 Click extension, which you can see below.

This extension displays a complete list of titles in the order of their form in the text, showing what types of titles are used and what the original titles and subtitles say.

It will tell you what content is included and how it is organized, which will give you a lot of inspiration by showing what your competitors are already doing in their article structure.

While it is important to create your own original content, this will give you a launching point.

2. Selecting suitable articles

When using competitor’s articles to help develop the temporal structure of an article, it is important to select articles that are relevant to the type of content you want to create.

To find relevant and quality articles, you should check out the following:

• The intent of the article (which in this case, it is to help users to choose the right institution to study for an MBA in Healthcare)
• The structure of the narrative itself, and whether it’s detailed enough to have all the information needed to deliver on the user’s intent

You should develop a systematic approach to streamline this process so that you can quickly identify relevant articles and use their integrated structures for inspiration. You can see the workflow I follow

• Open the first link in the top 10 SERPs
• You must make sure it fits in with the intent of “The Complete Guide to MBA Programs in Healthcare Management”.
• If so, copy its structure to Google Sheets
• Repeat this process in all the other articles ranking in the top 10 slots for the target keyword, giving them a complete list of subtitles used by their competition.
• Remove any duplicate titles from the list and create a detailed outline

I suggest adding a dedicated section containing questions and answers to add unique content to help the post get better rankings.

This can help the Educational client rank for additional secondary keywords in the SERPs or appear in featured snippets.

You can also add FAQPage markup to display these questions as a snippet in the search.

3. FAQ Block

To create the FAQ block, You should use a few tools:

• Semrush’s
• People Also Ask
• Ubbersuggest

Step 4 — Determining the article’s length

Based on my experience and previous successful cases with clients, I have generally adopted the following approach to provide the copywriter with word guidance and parameters:

• Find relevant articles intended to help users choose the right institution to study for an MBA in Healthcare, which was the approximate average length of other high ranking posts.
• Copy the text of the best ranking articles (without comments, ad blocks or additional site content.)
• The length of these articles is determined individually by the number of words, such as
• Choose the post with the most words
• 100 words (or about 500 characters) are added to the total number of words

Some writers take a different approach;

No need to worry about the exact number of words or try to “beat” the number of words in the competing articles, instead focus on the content itself.

I have had good results with this particular strategy before, so it’s worth trying.

Step 5 — Creation of the technical content brief

The purpose of a technical content summary is different from your standard content summary.

It focuses on the technical features that the content must comply with in order to get the best opportunity in the best rankings.

While standard content abbreviations focus on goal optimization, style guidelines, and topics, technical abbreviations focus on keywords, recommended structures, references, and word count.

There may be an overlap between the two.

Create a content summary that includes the following fields:

• Topic — A topic from the list prepared during the preparation of the content plan
• ​​Recommended structure — The final structure of the article you created in the steps above
• Semantic Core — semantic (or “secondary”) keywords
• Freq — The keyword frequency according to Semrush
• Topic Phrases — Additional semantic keywords used by competitors to rank but not include the main keyword
• Number of symbols/words — The number of characters without spaces/words
• References — Articles that can be used as a basis for writing content, including internal and non-competing external links
• Comments — The SEO specialist’s comments for the copywriter
• H1 Title

You can then create a meta description and a meta title.

Or an SEO specialist can help you