Have you ever tried to work with a blog post author and found yourself going around and around in circles? It can be hard when you’re trying to set expectations.
This is why we’ve provided a free blog post briefing template that you can take, modify and use it for briefing your authors.
Before you begin
You’ll need to decide on or collect a few things that will become the standard for your blog:
- Your blog categories, what they are used for, and any rules around posts being filed under multiple vs single categories.
- The ideal size of image for your main blog post featured image. This will depend on what theme you are using and how you expect to use the blog image, i.e. in RSS feeds etc as well.
- Any specific requirements that relate to your blog or industry.
Once you have these, all you need is the blog post brief template link, which you can get from here:
Blog post brief template fields
When you get the blog post brief, you’ll see that there are two main tables, each colour coded:
- One table for the person writing the brief. This is designed to give the author as much information as needed so they can get on with writing the post.
- The other table is for the post itself, including critical metadata and other important information.
The blue table
This is for the person issuing the brief to the blog author to fill out.
A quick explanatory note on each field:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Subject | The main topic covered by the post |
| Details | Any further details or clarifications needed further |
| Tone | The desired tone of voice to be used |
| Specific target audience | Who is this post targeting – remember, if you’re targeting everyone, you’re really targeting no one! |
| Data insight behind brief | What is the key piece of research, data or insight as to why this is a good post to write |
| Blog cateogry | The category where this post will go |
| Target keyword | Any target keyword to be used for SEO |
| Deadline | Submission deadline |
| Words | Any minimum or maximum word limits |
| Perspective | Is the post to be written from the first, second or third person |
| Other comments | Any other requests or details |
The green table
This is for the author to complete and submit back to the person issuing the brief.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Title options | The main on-page, H1, title. Ideally, 5 versions to be tested. |
| Meta title options | Shorter versions of the titles above if they are likely to exceed the meta title length. |
| Meta description | The meta description. |
| Suggested tags | Any suggested tags to be used. |
| Author | The person whom this post will be credited to. |
| Image(s) or other media | The file location of the image or other asset to be used alongside the post. |
| Image attribution | Any image attribution requirements. |
| Checklist | Any blog-specific checklist that would need to be done, such as being proofread by someone. |
| Blog post content | The actual content of the blog post, including formatting such as headings, tables etc. |
