Effective communication with your copywriter is crucial for the success of any project. It's important to establish clear expectations and guidelines from the start to avoid any misunderstandings or miscommunications down the line. Through scheduled meetings, detailed content briefs, and more, we help set our copywriters (and ourselves!) up for success. This helps us create high-quality content that meets and exceeds our clients expectations. Let’s get started!

Chat With Your Copywriter About a New Project 

It's important to set aside time to chat with your copywriter before starting a new project to align on expectations and set everyone up for success. Use this time to educate your copywriter on how the project workflow will function, and share the necessary documents, spreadsheets and project management platform links. Be sure to inform your writer on communication expectations for the project, as well as explaining how/where to submit work for review upon completion. 

We want to lay out all of the steps for an organized and efficient engagement up front to save any unnecessary back and forth as the project progresses. At this time it’s also wise to share any reference materials provided from the client such as branding or tone of voice guidelines, but more on that in a minute. 

Create Detailed Content Briefs

Providing a detailed content brief to your copywriter is an essential step in the writing process. It helps ensure that the content produced meets the expectations of the client and aligns with their desired outcome. A content brief should include all relevant information about the project, such as the target audience, desired tone of voice, brand guidelines, legal guidelines, and language preferences. 

By providing this information up front, you can help your writer produce content that meets expectations and avoids the need for heavy editing or revisions. This saves time and resources, as well as helps ensure a smooth and successful project from start to finish. 

What should be included in a content brief? Let's take a look at one of Uproer’s frameworks: 

• Brand guidelines: Include links to any messaging guides or other materials shared by the client during onboarding.
• Audience and tone of voice: Define the target audience and the desired tone of voice for the content. Be specific!
• Legal guidelines: When applicable, specify any legal guidelines that must be followed when writing the content.
• Language preferences: Provide notes on the types of words to include or avoid when writing for the client.

It's important to remember that a content brief is not a one-time document - it should be updated based on feedback from the client and the writer to ensure that the content produced continues to meet the client's needs. 

Build High Quality Content Outlines 

An SEO-optimized content outline is an essential tool for creating high-quality, search engine friendly content. It should be organized in a way that provides unique value to the reader that cannot be found elsewhere. This includes using headings that are keyword rich and incorporating context within each section to provide the copywriter with structural guidance while still allowing them wiggle room to be creative.

When creating a content outline, it's important to consider the structure of the content as a whole. This includes organizing the sections in a logical order that guides the reader through the topic in a way that is easy to understand and follow. The headings should be keyword rich and reflect the content of each section. This helps search engines understand the content of the article and ensures that it appears in relevant search results.

Besides the structure of the content, it's important to consider the context within each section. This means providing enough detail to guide the writer, but not so much that it stifles their creativity. By providing the writer with a clear understanding of the topic and the direction you'd like them to take, we can help ensure that they produce content that is both informative and engaging. By following these guidelines, you can create content that helps your clients business get leads through organic search.

Outline Content Structure 

Content outlines provide structure by breaking a piece of content into sections and subsections. This  helps to organize the information and make it easier for readers to understand. Each section of the outline should have a clear purpose and should cover a specific topic or aspect of the content.

Content outlines also help to include keywords by providing a place to list the target keywords and phrases that you want to optimize your content for. By including these keywords in the headings and subheadings of your outline, you can ensure that they are prominent in your content.

In our outlines, we provide context for each section by outlining the main points and details to include within each section. This can help the writer to stay focused and on track as they are writing. Outlines ensure that the content flows and covers all the necessary information.

Our outlines also include: 

• Target keyword: When a user searches for your chosen keyword, you want your website to appear as one of the top results. By optimizing your content for a target keyword, you can increase your visibility and attract more qualified traffic. To make sure your target keyword is effective, make sure it's relevant to your products or services and has search volume to justify the cost of creation. 
• Metadata: Helps search engines understand the content of a webpage and determine whether it is relevant to a user's search query. The page title appears in the search results as the main link, and the meta description provides a brief summary of the page's content. Additionally, the page title and meta description  entice users to click on the link, making them important factors in the click-through rate of a webpage.
• URL recommendation: Shorter URLs can be more effective at ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs), as they are easier for search engines to crawl and understand. Descriptive URLs can also help search engines understand what the page is about, which can improve its chances of ranking for relevant keywords.
• Word Count: Search engines tend to favor longer, more in-depth articles as they are more likely to be comprehensive and provide value to the reader. Additionally, a higher word count can indicate to search engines that a webpage is more authoritative and trustworthy on a particular topic, which can also improve its ranking. 
• Top ranking content: Reviewing top ranking content for a keyword before creating an article is important because it allows you to get a better understanding of what information is already out there on the topic, and how you can differentiate your content to make it stand out. By analyzing the content of the top ranking articles, you can identify gaps in the existing information and focus on providing unique insights or a fresh perspective.
• Linking recommendations: Internal links are links that point from one page on a website to another page on the same website. They help users navigate the website and can also help search engines understand the website's hierarchy and organization. External links are links that point from a webpage to a webpage on a different website. They can help to establish credibility and authority by linking to reputable sources.
• Readability resources:  By using readability tools to audit content before publishing, businesses can improve the user experience and increase the likelihood of users staying on their webpage. This can lead to better engagement and conversion rates, as well as improved search engine rankings. 

Solicit Well-Documented Feedback 

At Uproer, we have a process in place for conveying client feedback to our writers to ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals. When we receive feedback from the client, we review and analyze it before passing it along to the writer. 

Constructive feedback is an important part of the writing process, and we make sure to provide our writers with specific and actionable recommendations that they can use to improve their work. By taking this approach, we can help our writers to produce content that meets the expectations of the client and aligns with their brand voice, while still allowing them the creative freedom to produce unique and engaging content.

Conclusion

In summary, it is important to communicate with your copywriter before starting a new project to set clear expectations and establish a successful workflow. Providing a detailed content brief and an SEO-optimized content outline can help to ensure that the content produced meets the needs of the client and is optimized for search engines. By following these guidelines, you can create high-quality content that helps drive organic traffic. If you're interested in improving the quality and effectiveness of your content, consider dropping us a line for a free introductory call to identify ways we can help you take your content to the next level.