How to Create a SEO Content Outline (Fast)

Creating SEO content outlines manually eats up hours you don't have.

You're spending 1-2 hours per outline analyzing competitors, figuring out what topics to cover, and piecing together something that doesn't just copy what's already ranking.

But with RankUp, you can get it done in under 5 minutes.

In this guide, I'll show you how you can create SEO outlines that set you up for writing high-performing content in minutes.

P.S. You don't need years of SEO experience or a content strategist on payroll to do this.

What Is an SEO Content Outline?

An SEO content outline is the heading structure created before writing an SEO article. It helps you identify exactly which topics to cover and in what order to present them, so that your content satisfies both search intent and ranking requirements.

Here's what an actual outline looks like (this is the one we used for this article):

H1: How to Create a SEO Content Outline (Fast)

H2: What Is an SEO Content Outline?

H2: Why are Content Outlines Important for SEO?

H2: How to Create an SEO Content Outline Fast with RankUp's SEO AI Agent Lyra

H3: 1. Choose Your Content Topic
H3: 2. Lyra Defines a Unique Angle
H3: 3. Lyra Creates the Outline

H2: Create Content Outlines in Minutes, Not Hours

Even though they are similar, it’s important not to confuse a content outline with a content brief. A content brief is an extension of a content outline and includes additional details such as internal and external link suggestions, search intent, competitor insights, and more.

If you want to learn more about SEO briefs, check out our Beginner’s Guide to SEO Content Briefs.

Why are Content Outlines Important for SEO?

Content outlines help your content rank higher, cut writing time in half, and keep your team aligned without extra meetings.

Here's why:

Your Content Ranks Higher and Drives More Traffic

Every RankUp user has increased their organic traffic, partly because RankUp's outlines help make sure they are covering all the topics Google expects to see, which improves their chances of ranking on page one.

Ranking higher and covering all the necessary topics also increases the chances of LLMs like ChatGPT and Perplexity citing you as a source in their responses.

Writing Time Gets Cut in Half

We’ve seen that using content outlines cuts RankUp users’ writing time by at least 50%, usually even more, since you’re not building structure as you go. With an outline set, you know exactly what to cover and in what order, which means fewer rewrites and faster content production.

Teams Stay Aligned Without Extra Meetings

Outlines keep everyone aligned on what the article should cover, which matters when you're working with freelancers or multiple writers like some of RankUp's users are. They can jump in and start writing without needing a strategy meeting first.

How to Create an SEO Content Outline Fast with RankUp's SEO AI Agent Lyra

All you have to do is just choose the content topic you want to create a content outline for and Lyra handles the rest.

Here's how it works in more detail:

1. Choose Your Content Topic

The first step is deciding what you want to write about.

If you’ve already used RankUp’s SEO strategist agent, Magnus, to do your keyword research, selected your target cluster, identified the next topic to work on, and added it to your content plan, you can skip straight to Step 2.

Now if you haven’t chosen your next topic yet, follow these steps:

1. Run the RankUp keyword research automation workflow.

You can learn more about RankUp's keyword research automation workflow here:

https://www.rankup.so/keyword-research

2. Once the workflow is complete, choose a cluster (a group of related content topics) that is most closely related to your main product or feature. You can do this manually by reviewing the cluster labels and keywords, or you can simply ask Magnus to select one for you, like this:

3. From that cluster, choose the specific content topic you want to target next. Use the priority score and other available metrics to determine what makes the most sense to focus on first. You can learn more about these scores in this video:

Or, if you prefer, you can ask Magnus to select the best topic for you:

Once you’ve chosen your topic, add it to your content plan (if Magnus didn't do it for you already) by clicking the plus (+) button next to the "downvote keyword" icon when you hover over the keyword, and then move on to the next step.

2. Lyra Defines a Unique Angle

Before Lyra builds the outline, she creates a unique angle for your content.

Essentially, she analyzes the perspective that competing SERP results have taken on the topic. Then she identifies a perspective you can take that provides unique value to the reader, or in other words, that gives them a reason to choose your content over your competitors'.

Just to clarify, then the unique angle has less influence on the choice of topics and more on determining the perspective from which the topics will be discussed and influences how the headings should be written.

Here’s how to get Lyra to generate a unique angle for you:

Open your content plan (if it isn’t open already).
Click the pencil icon that appears when you hover over the keyword/content topic you want to create the outline for.

Lyra will then generate a unique angle for you. This typically takes only a few seconds.

Here’s what it looks like:

Once she provides the unique angle, as shown in the video above, she will ask a few clarifying questions to refine it. Based on your answers, she will improve the angle if needed.

If you’d like, you can also edit the text yourself or ask Lyra to make changes by simply telling her what you want updated:

But you don't actually have to do any of that.

If you feel like your unique angle is set, you can also just click “Continue to Outline” and move onto the last step.

3. Lyra Creates the Outline

Like in the previous step, here you don't have to do pretty much anything yourself, Lyra creates the entire SEO content outline for you on your chosen content topic.

During generation, Lyra analyzes the competitors’ outlines on page one to understand which topics are important to include in order to meet search intent and ranking requirements. It also looks for any information gaps in competitors’ content that you can fill and helps position your content to better satisfy search intent than existing results.

In addition, Lyra looks for information related to the topic in your knowledge base.

When assembling the outline, Lyra doesn’t order topics randomly. Instead, it considers what the reader’s next question or concern is likely to be. This makes sure the outline presents the most important information first and flows logically from beginning to end.

Now once Lyra has created your outline, here's what you get:

On the left side is your outline, and on the right side are competitors’ outlines, which you can use to compare against your own.

And just like in the unique angle step, you can edit your outline by simply telling Lyra what to change. If needed, you can also add specific headings as context by using the “Add to Chat” button, like this:

That’s pretty much it. If the outline that Lyra generated is good to go, you don’t actually need to do anything, just continue with the RankUp content writing workflow.

Create Content Outlines in Minutes, Not Hours

To recap, all you really need to do to create an outline with RankUp’s SEO AI agent, Lyra, is:

Pick a content topic
Have Lyra generate a unique angle for it (takes a couple of seconds)
Have Lyra generate an outline in just a few minutes

And you’re done.

If Lyra can handle all the research and analysis and produce a detailed, well-thought-out outline before any human is halfway through competitor analysis, then why waste your time doing it manually?

In SEO, you don’t get rewarded for outlines, you get rewarded for publishing useful, optimized, persuasive content. And the outline is just one part of that process.

If you’re serious about growing your website’s organic traffic and getting more leads and sales from Google and ChatGPT through SEO content, book a demo and I’ll show you exactly how RankUp can help you achieve that.