You do not have to come up with the topics yourself. An article order can start in one of two ways, and either way the brief is confirmed before anything is written.
Option 1: send your own topics
Send a list of topics or working titles, one per article. This suits you when:
- you already know the questions your customers ask
- you have a keyword list from your own research
- particular products, services or guides must be covered
With each topic, add what you know. Useful extras are the keyword you want the article to target, the page on your website you want linked and the exact anchor text if you have a preference, and anything we must not say. Put these in the brief and we follow them.
Sending topics does not skip the research. Keyword research is done before anything is written, on your topics as on ours.
Option 2: ask us to suggest them
Send a few lines about the business instead:
- what you sell
- who buys it
- what you would like more readers to understand before they buy
We suggest topics from keyword research. This suits a business that knows it should publish and never gets round to choosing topics.
Either way, the brief is confirmed first
Before anything is written, the brief is confirmed. That is the moment to swap a topic, change the emphasis or remove something you do not want covered. Once writing has started, a change that makes the work materially different from the confirmed brief counts as new work under the Terms of Service. See Corrections after delivery.
If you have some topics but not enough
Say so in the brief: list the topics you have, give the number of articles in the order, and ask us to suggest the rest.
Tips for a good topic list
| Tip | Why it helps |
|---|---|
| One question per article | An article that answers one question well is easier to read and to link to |
| Write topics the way customers ask them | "How do I choose an invoicing tool for a small team?" says more than "invoicing" |
| Avoid near-duplicates | Two articles answering the same question repeat each other |
| Mark the priorities | For a larger pack published on a schedule, the order of topics matters |
| Name what to avoid | Competitors, claims you cannot make, subjects that are off limits |
For a pack or a dedicated blog
For a larger pack, a clear topic list, or a clear description of the business, saves the most time, because it steers many articles at once. For a dedicated blog, it also shapes what the blog is about. See How pack delivery and scheduling works.
Topics we will not write about
Some subjects are outside what we produce, whatever the order: see What we will not write.