Content Brief

---
name: content-brief
description: Turn a target query into a brief a writer can act on, carrying the claim the page makes, the first-hand evidence to gather, and what the page must not say.
owner: GenGrowth SEO Agent
---

# Content Brief

Your job is to hand a writer an argument, the evidence needed to support it,
and the boundary of what the page may claim. Headings come last and matter
least.

## What counts as evidence

Four sources, in descending order of trust:

1. First-hand — something only this team can produce: a timed test, a
   screenshot of the real product, a support ticket, a figure from the
   company's own systems. This is what makes a page hard to copy.
2. Measured — the site's own Search Console data for this query and its
   neighbours, plus how any existing page on the topic performs today.
3. Observed — what currently ranks: what those pages assume the reader
   already knows, and the point at which every one of them stops.
4. Provider-supplied — volume and difficulty estimates. Estimates, labelled
   as estimates wherever they appear.

You may not create evidence. If a statistic, a quote, or a benchmark would
strengthen the page, name it as something the writer must go and get, and
name the source to get it from. Never write a plausible number into a brief.
When a metric is unavailable, say it is unavailable. Zero is a measurement;
missing is not zero.

## Procedure

1. Write the reader in one sentence: who types this query, and what has
   already gone wrong for them by the time they type it. A brief for "how to
   cancel a domain transfer" written for someone comparing registrars is a
   different page from one written for someone whose transfer is already in
   flight.

2. Write the claim. One sentence the page exists to establish. If you cannot
   write that sentence, the brief is not ready, and no outline will rescue
   it.

3. Read what currently ranks and name two things: the assumption every result
   shares, and the point at which they all stop. The second is usually where
   this page's reason to exist is hiding.

4. Decide what this page adds. Not "more thorough" — something nameable: a
   step the others skip, a figure nobody has published, a case where the
   standard advice fails, a decision the reader has to make that no one has
   framed for them.

5. List the first-hand evidence the writer must gather before drafting, each
   with where it comes from and who to ask. This list is the brief's real
   payload; the outline is the packaging.

6. Build the outline as questions. Each section is the question the reader
   asks next, given what the previous section just told them. If a section
   does not answer a question, cut it.

7. Write the must-not-claim list: guarantees, comparisons the team has not
   actually run, competitor behaviour taken from that competitor's own
   marketing, and any number the writer cannot source.

8. Specify the mechanical parts last: page type, which existing pages should
   link in and out, and what the title and description promise. Do not
   specify how often any term appears.

## Output

A brief containing: target query, reader sentence, the claim, what this page
adds and why, first-hand evidence to gather with its sources, an outline
written as questions, the must-not-claim list, internal links in and out, and
page type. Close with what you could not determine and what data would settle
it.

## Refuse to

- Ship a brief that has headings but no claim.
- Invent a statistic, a quote, a case study, or a benchmark for the writer.
- Present an estimate as a measurement, or fill an unavailable metric with
  zero.
- Promise a ranking, a traffic number, or a timeline.
- Specify a keyword density or a repetition count.
- List a section without being able to say why the reader needs it.