This Prompt Turns One Keyword Into a Complete SEO Content Brief
Why this prompt matters
Content teams that skip structured briefs and hand writers just a keyword see far more revision rounds, and articles that miss search intent waste days of editorial time and delay rankings by a full content refresh cycle before anyone notices the mismatch.
What we use it for
You're briefing a freelance writer for a new blog post tomorrow morning and need a complete, ready-to-hand-off content brief before you leave the office today, but you don't have time to manually research the SERP and outline it yourself.
Prompt
Act as a senior SEO content strategist who has built page-1-ranking content briefs for [INDUSTRY] websites. Context: My target keyword is [TARGET KEYWORD]. My site covers [YOUR NICHE/SITE DESCRIPTION]. The top-ranking pages I'm aware of are [LIST 2-3 COMPETING URLS OR TITLES, OR WRITE "UNKNOWN — RESEARCH TYPICAL TOP RESULTS"]. My target audience is [DESCRIBE READER — e.g. beginner, practitioner, buyer-intent]. Task: Produce a complete content brief for a new article targeting this keyword, structured as: 1. Search intent classification (informational / commercial / transactional / navigational) with a one-sentence justification 2. A recommended H2/H3 outline (8-12 headers) that fully covers the topic 3. Target word count range, based on typical depth needed to rank for this type of keyword 4. 8-10 key entities, subtopics, or related terms that should appear naturally in the article 5. A competitor gap analysis: 3-5 specific things that typical top-ranking content on this topic likely misses or under-explains, which this article should cover to differentiate 6. 3 internal linking opportunities (topics/pages this article should link to or from) Constraints: - Do not write the actual article — only the brief - Every recommendation must be specific to the target keyword, not generic SEO advice - Flag if the keyword has ambiguous search intent (multiple plausible interpretations) rather than guessing silently - Keep the outline scannable — no header longer than 10 words Output Format: Use the 6 numbered sections above as H2-style headers, with concise bullet points under each.
Result
1. Search Intent Classification
Commercial investigation. The searcher is comparing options before buying, not yet ready to purchase a specific product — they want a shortlist backed by criteria, not a single recommendation.
2. Recommended Outline
- What Makes a CRM "Good" for Small Business (not enterprise)
- Top 7 CRMs Compared at a Glance (table)
- Best Overall — Why It Wins
- Best for Solo Founders and Freelancers
- Best Free Tier
- Best for Sales-Heavy Teams
- Best for Service Businesses
- Pricing Breakdown by Tier
- Migration Difficulty: Switching From a Spreadsheet
- Common Mistakes When Choosing a CRM Too Early
- FAQ: CRM vs. Spreadsheet, When to Upgrade
3. Target Word Count
1,800–2,400 words. Comparison content in this category typically needs a comparison table plus 6-8 individually justified picks to satisfy "best X" intent without feeling like a listicle.
4. Key Entities/Subtopics
HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, contact management, sales pipeline, lead scoring, email integration, free CRM tier, CRM migration, customer segmentation.
5. Competitor Gap Analysis
- Most top-ranking pages don't address migration friction — they assume the reader is starting fresh, not moving off a spreadsheet.
- Pricing comparisons are often outdated by 2-3 tiers; readers increasingly want per-seat cost at typical small-business team sizes (3-5 users).
- Few articles address "when NOT to get a CRM yet" — a credibility-building angle competitors skip entirely.
- Almost none mention data export/lock-in risk, a real decision factor for cautious small-business buyers.
6. Internal Linking Opportunities
Link to a "CRM migration checklist" guide, a "sales pipeline template" resource, and a "small business software stack" roundup piece.
Most content teams hand a writer a keyword and a word count, then wonder why the first draft misses search intent entirely. A proper content brief fixes that before a single sentence gets written — and the prompt below builds one automatically from a single keyword.
The design follows the same Role + Context + Task + Constraints + Output Format structure we use for every prompt on IRCNF, but the interesting part is what's inside the Task section: six specific deliverables, not one open-ended "write a brief" instruction.
Why search intent comes first
Section 1 forces the model to classify intent — informational, commercial, transactional, or navigational — before it does anything else. This matters because the single most common brief failure isn't a missing subtopic, it's writing a "how it works" article for a "which one should I buy" keyword. Getting intent wrong wastes the entire draft, not just a paragraph of it.
Why the outline comes before the word count
Word count targets are useless without structure — "1,800 words" tells a writer nothing about whether that's a deep single-topic explainer or a wide comparison piece. The prompt generates the H2/H3 outline first, so the word count in Section 3 is a consequence of the outline's scope, not an arbitrary number pulled from a competitor's article length.
The competitor gap analysis is the actual differentiator
Section 5 is where this prompt earns its keep. Most AI-generated briefs stop at "cover these subtopics," which just produces a article that reads like every other page ranking for that keyword. Asking explicitly for gaps — what the top-ranking content is missing or under-explaining — is what turns a competent article into one with a reason to outrank the incumbents.
Why it refuses to write the article itself
The Constraints section explicitly blocks the model from drafting content, on purpose. Briefs and drafts require different thinking: a brief needs breadth and strategic judgment about what to include, while a draft needs voice and pacing. Asking one prompt to do both usually produces a mediocre version of each. Keep them separate, and both get better.
Adapting it
Swap in your actual competing URLs when you have them — the model can reason about specific gaps far better than when working from "typical top results" in the abstract. If you're briefing a niche B2B keyword with thin competition, the outline section will naturally shrink; that's a signal the keyword may not support 2,000 words, not a bug in the prompt.