How to Use Frase to Build an SEO Content Brief

April 28, 2026 · Editorial Team · 6 min read · frase ai-writing seo

A content brief without SERP research is really just an opinion document. It tells writers what you think should be in an article, not what the evidence suggests should be there. Frase bases its briefs on what's actually ranking for a keyword right now, which makes the resulting brief a much more defensible starting point.

The brief workflow in Frase is not complicated, but most people use about half of it. They generate an outline, skip the topic score analysis, and hand off a brief that's structurally incomplete. This guide covers the full process.

Creating a Research Document

Start by creating a new document in Frase and entering your target keyword in the research field. Click Optimize or Research (the label varies by interface version) and Frase will pull in the top 20 Google results for that keyword.

The research sidebar shows you:

Each competitor URL with title and word count
An average word count across top results (useful for setting length targets)
A list of top-ranked headings pulled from across all competing articles
Topic coverage data showing which concepts appear frequently across results

This initial pull takes 15 to 30 seconds. The quality of what you get depends significantly on the keyword: competitive informational queries in English with strong organic results produce better data than obscure or local queries.

One setting to check before you analyze anything: make sure the search is pulling from your target country. Frase defaults to US results, but if your audience is in another market, switch the location before building the brief or you'll be optimizing against the wrong competition.

Reading the SERP Analysis

Before building the outline, spend 10 minutes actually reading the SERP analysis. Most people skim it and miss what it's telling them.

Look at the distribution of word counts. If the top 5 results are all 2000 to 3000 words and you're planning a 700-word article, you're probably not going to out-rank them unless your content is dramatically more useful in a specific way. The word count data is a signal about the depth of content Google rewards for that query.

Look at which headings appear in multiple competitor articles. These are the topics where there's strong consensus that covering them is necessary for the query. They belong in your brief.

Look for gaps: topics that appear in some top results but not others. These are opportunities. If 3 of the top 10 articles cover a specific subtopic that the other 7 ignore, and that subtopic is directly relevant to your angle, covering it well could give you a differentiation advantage.

The competitor URL list is also useful for understanding the type of sites ranking. If position 1 through 5 are all major established publishers with enormous domain authority, the brief for that keyword needs to account for the fact that a new article from a smaller site will need exceptional quality to compete. If the competition is mixed and includes smaller niche sites, the opportunity is more open.

Building the Outline From Top Results

Frase's outline builder works by letting you drag headings from the competitor research panel into your document. You're not copying their structure directly; you're selecting which topics to address based on what the evidence suggests matters.

The process I use:

Read through the full list of competitor headings in the sidebar without selecting anything first.
Group related headings mentally (or on a scratch note). You'll often see 8 to 10 different phrasings of the same underlying topic.
For each topic cluster, pick the framing that best matches your specific angle and audience.
Drag those headings into the document as your initial outline skeleton.
Reorder them to follow a logical reader journey, not the order in which competitors happened to structure their articles.

The drag-and-drop system is fast but it requires editorial judgment. Frase can show you what others cover; it cannot tell you what order makes sense for the specific reader you're writing for, or which topics to combine, or which to split into separate sections.

A good outline for a 1500-word article typically has 5 to 8 H2 sections. If your drag-and-drop ends up with 12 sections, some of those need to be either combined with adjacent sections or cut. An outline with too many thin sections produces an article that reads like a list of facts rather than a coherent guide.

Topic Scoring: What It Actually Means

The topic score in Frase measures how well your document covers the topics that appear in the top-ranking competitive content. It shows as a percentage, and it updates in real time as you write.

A score of 40% means you're covering 40% of the topics that frequently appear in competing articles. A score of 70% or above is generally a solid target for competitive keywords.

What the score does not measure:

Whether your content is accurate
Whether your content is more in-depth or useful than competitors
Whether your content is well-written
Whether your content addresses the specific reader's real question

The topic score is a coverage proxy, not a quality proxy. Chasing 100% by inserting every topic phrase regardless of whether it fits your article will produce a worse piece. A focused, well-executed article at 65% topic score will often outperform a bloated, disorganized one at 85%.

The score is most useful when it's low (below 40%) because that signals you're probably missing important topics. When it's in the 60 to 75% range for a well-structured article, you're usually in good shape.

Writing the Brief Document

The outline is the structure. The brief is the full document you hand to a writer (human or AI). A thorough Frase-based brief includes:

Target keyword: the primary keyword and 3 to 5 related variants
Search intent: what is the person searching this keyword actually trying to do or learn?
Target word count: based on the competitor average with your own judgment applied
Audience: specific description (not just "marketers" but "growth marketers at B2B SaaS companies with under 50 employees")
Tone and voice notes: formal vs. casual, first vs. second person, any style guide specifics
Outline: H2 and H3 headings with a 1 to 2 sentence note on what each section should cover
Key topics to include: the top 10 to 15 topic phrases from Frase's analysis, listed so the writer knows what to cover
Competitor notes: 1 to 2 observations about what the top-ranking articles do well and where they fall short
Facts, stats, or examples to include: anything you already know should be in the article (specific data points, case studies, named tools)

This brief template produces significantly better writer output than sending someone just a title and a keyword. The 30 minutes it takes to build the brief saves multiple revision rounds.

Handing Off to a Writer

Whether the writer is a human freelancer or an AI writing tool, the brief needs to be self-contained. They should not need to ask you clarifying questions about scope, depth, or audience.

For human writers, the key additions beyond the structural outline are the tone notes and the "what to cover" section descriptions. A writer who understands the specific angle you want and the specific audience you're writing for will make better judgment calls throughout the article.

For AI tools (Jasper, Writesonic, Copy.ai, or similar), paste the outline directly into the tool's brief or long-form editor, paste in the target keyword and secondary keywords, and include the audience description. The AI will still need editorial review afterward, but starting from a Frase-built outline produces noticeably better structure than starting from scratch.

After delivery, use Frase's document editor to check the topic score on the final draft. This gives you a quick sense of whether the writer addressed the main topics. It's not a substitute for reading the article, but it's a useful 30-second first check before you invest time in a full review.

A brief built on real SERP data changes the conversation with writers from "here's what I think should be in this article" to "here's what the evidence suggests the reader needs and what competing articles currently provide." That shift leads to better first drafts, fewer revision rounds, and articles that have a more defensible shot at ranking.