Why does generating a brief take a while?

Because it is doing real work: fetching the live top results for your keyword, scraping and analysing each competitor page, then drafting from that evidence. It is a research pass, not a template fill.

Is the brief ready to hand to a writer as-is?

Treat it as a strong first draft of the plan, not the finished plan. Its recommendations are based strictly on what the current top-ranking pages do — your judgement about the client, the brand, and what competitors got wrong is the part no analysis supplies.

Do briefs sync to Linear?

No. The Linear integration syncs SEO tasks, not briefs — see SeoSwift & Linear. Copy the brief’s content into a task yourself if your writers work from Linear.

The tool says the AI service is temporarily unavailable. Did I lose anything?

No. Nothing is saved on a failed generation — wait a moment and run it again with the same inputs.

Help / Reporting / Briefs & snippet optimizer

Briefs & snippet optimizer

For SEO leads & content writers · ~6 min read · Last reviewed 22 July 2026

Two writing-side tools live in the sidebar: Content Briefs, which turns a keyword into a structured plan for a page, and the Snippet Optimizer, which compares your page against whatever currently holds the top spot. Both work the same way underneath: gather real competitor evidence first, then let AI draft from that evidence — never from thin air.

Content briefs

Open Content Briefs, pick a client, and enter a target keyword — optionally with the URL of your existing page, plus a country and language for the search market.
SeoKestrel fetches the top-ranking pages for that keyword (ten by default), scrapes them, and analyses each one — word counts, heading structure, FAQ patterns.
AI drafts the brief from that competitive snapshot, in Markdown, with fixed sections: search intent, a recommended H1, a recommended meta description (140–160 characters), a target word count based on the competitor average, a heading-level content structure, key topics, key entities, an FAQ section, the content angle, and internal-linking suggestions.

Every generated brief is saved to the Library tab for the client (the most recent 50 are listed), together with the competitor snapshot and the average competitor word count it was based on.

Snippet optimizer

Open Snippet Optimizer, pick a client, and enter the target keyword and your page’s URL. You can name the winning URL yourself, or let the tool find whatever currently ranks first.
Both pages are scraped and compared: you get the side-by-side word counts and FAQ counts, plus the winner’s position.
AI then writes targeted recommendations: what format the current snippet takes, why the winner holds it, what your page is missing, and what to change.

Snippet analyses are shown on screen and not saved — copy out what you need before leaving the page. Losing a snippet you previously held also raises an automatic alert; see Alerts.

Where AI fits

AI drafting for briefs and snippet recommendations runs on an EU provider listed on the sub-processors page; prompts carry keywords, URLs, and page structure — not personal data — and the Privacy Policy is the authoritative word on data use. AI-generated output is labelled as such in the app.

Good to know

Country and language matter: a brief for the German market analyses the German results page, which usually has different winners than the English one.
Wondering which topics deserve a brief at all? Start from the cluster detail pages — see Keywords & clusters.

FAQ

Why does generating a brief take a while?: Because it is doing real work: fetching the live top results for your keyword, scraping and analysing each competitor page, then drafting from that evidence. It is a research pass, not a template fill.
Is the brief ready to hand to a writer as-is?: Treat it as a strong first draft of the plan, not the finished plan. Its recommendations are based strictly on what the current top-ranking pages do — your judgement about the client, the brand, and what competitors got wrong is the part no analysis supplies.
Do briefs sync to Linear?: No. The Linear integration syncs SEO tasks, not briefs — see SeoSwift & Linear. Copy the brief’s content into a task yourself if your writers work from Linear.
The tool says the AI service is temporarily unavailable. Did I lose anything?: No. Nothing is saved on a failed generation — wait a moment and run it again with the same inputs.