How to Build a Editorial Content Briefing AI Agent from Scratch

Okay, let's dive into creating an editorial content briefing AI agent! Are you tired of spending hours researching and outlining content? Do you want to streamline your content creation process and ensure your content is SEO-optimized?

In this post, we'll guide you through building an AI-powered editorial content briefing agent that can generate robust content briefs, including target keywords, content outlines, and media ideas. This tool will not only save you time but also ensure your content is strategically planned for maximum SEO impact.

This overview is based on a detailed video tutorial (seen below) where we build this agent step-by-step using Langflow, the Tavily Search API, the DataForSEO API, and fine-tuned AI prompts.

This AI agent automates the often tedious task of content briefing. It takes an input topic and generates a comprehensive content brief, including (as shown in the video at [0:00]):

• Target H1 Tag: A keyword-optimized H1 tag.
• Competitive Keyword Targets: Core head keywords to utilize on the page.
• Reoccurring Topics: Topics that appear on competitive pages.
• Content Outline: A full outline with H2 and H3 tags, content suggestions, and media ideas.
• Competitive Page Review: An overview of top-ranking pages, including their core sections, key points, and subsections.
• Consolidated Links: A list of links from competitive pages.

Overview of How It Works

The core of this agent is a series of interconnected components that work together to analyze content and generate a detailed brief. Here's a breakdown of the workflow:

• Input: You provide a topic or keyword.
• SERP Scraping: The agent uses the Tavily Search API to pull in search results.
• Editorial Filtering: The agent filters the results to include only editorial content.
• Keyword Extraction: The agent extracts keywords from the top-ranking pages.
• Content Scraping & Summarization: The agent uses the Firecrawl API to scrape the content of the top-ranking pages. It then summarizes the content, focusing on key themes and topics.
• Link Aggregation: The agent consolidates links from the competitive pages.
• Reoccurring Topic Identification: The agent identifies reoccurring topics across the competitive pages.
• Content Outline Generation: The AI generates a detailed content outline, including H2 and H3 tags, content suggestions, and media ideas.
• H1 Tag Generation: The AI generates a keyword-optimized H1 tag.
• Final Brief: The agent combines all the information into a final content brief.

Key Components and Tools

We'll be using the following tools and components:

• Langflow: A visual platform for building AI workflows. We're using the Datastax version, which is currently free (as discussed in the video at [3:01]).
• Tavily Search API: To pull in search results.
• Firecrawl Scrape API: To scrape the content of web pages.
• DataForSEO API: To extract keywords from web pages.
• OpenAI API: To power the AI models.
• Custom Prompts: Carefully crafted instructions for the AI to perform each task.

What You'll Need

You can build and use this tool at a low cost. Here’s what you’ll need:

1. OpenAI API Key: Get Started
2. Tavily API Key: Sign Up (Includes free credits for testing)
3. Firecrawl API Key: Sign Up (Includes free credits for testing)
4. DataForSEO API Key: Sign Up (Includes free trial)

Quick Start Options

Before diving into the build process, here are a couple of quick ways to get started (as mentioned in the video at [3:42]):

• Download the Ready-Made Flow: If you want to skip the build process, you can download the complete Langflow workflow file and import it directly. You'll just need to add your API keys.
  • Download the Flow File from Github

• Try the Tool Online: Test the tool directly in your browser. Use the SEO Workflows interface to build content briefs (as shown in the video at [4:30]).

  • Try the Online Tool on SEO Workflows

  *While the SEO Workflows tools charge small fees. Every user will be provided with free tokens to test the tools!

Building the Workflow Step-by-Step

If you're ready to build your own, here's a breakdown of the steps:

• Layout: Start by adding the core components to your Langflow canvas: Chat Input, Chat Output, Prompts, Agents, and the Tavily Search API (as seen in the video at [5:01]).
• Configure the Firecrawl API Tool: Add the custom code (provided in the GitHub link below) to enable the Firecrawl API as a tool within Langflow (as shown in the video at [13:24]).
  • Firecrawl Scrape Api Tool Code
• Configure the DataForSEO API Tool: Add the custom code (provided in the GitHub link below) to enable the DataForSEO API as a tool within Langflow (as shown in the video at [10:55]).
  • DataForSEO Api Tool Code
• Create SERP Scraping Agent: Develop a prompt that instructs the agent to use the Tavily Search API to pull in search results and filter them to include only editorial content (as discussed in the video at [8:18]).
  • Editorial SERP Scraping Prompt
• Create Keyword Extraction Agent: Develop a prompt that instructs the agent to use the DataForSEO API to extract keywords from the top-ranking pages (as discussed in the video at [10:55]).
  • Keyword Extraction Prompt
• Create Competitive Page Analysis Agent: Develop a prompt that instructs the agent to use the Firecrawl API to scrape the content of the top-ranking pages and summarize the content (as discussed in the video at [15:25]).
  • Competitive Page Analysis Prompt
• Create Reoccurring Topics and Page Links Models: Develop prompts that instruct the models to extract reoccurring topics and page links from the competitive page analysis (as discussed in the video at [17:12]).
  • Reoccurring Topics Prompt
  • Page Links Prompt
• Create Content Outline Model: Develop a prompt that instructs the model to generate a detailed content outline, including H2 and H3 tags, content suggestions, and media ideas (as discussed in the video at [21:30]).
  • Content Outline Prompt
• Create H1 Tag Model: Develop a prompt that instructs the model to generate a keyword-optimized H1 tag (as discussed in the video at [23:53]).
  • H1 Tag Prompt
• Combine Text: Use a custom component (provided in the GitHub link below) to merge the outputs of the H1 tag model, content outline model, and competitive page review into a single message (as discussed in the video at [24:15]).
  • Combine Text Component Code
• Connect to Output: Connect the final component to the Chat Output node to complete the workflow.

Testing and Running the Workflow

• Input Topic: Provide your topic or keyword in the Chat Input node.
• Add API Keys: Enter your OpenAI, Tavily, Firecrawl, and DataForSEO API keys (as mentioned in the video at [9:09]).
• Choose a Model: Select your preferred OpenAI model (e.g., gpt-4, gpt-4o, or gpt-3.5-turbo).
• Run the Flow: Execute the workflow and review the output, which will include the target H1 tag, competitive keyword targets, reoccurring topics, content outline, competitive page review, and consolidated links (as shown in the video at [26:13]).

Conclusion

This AI-powered editorial content briefing agent can significantly streamline your content creation process. By automating the process of researching and outlining content, you can save time and ensure your content is strategically planned for maximum SEO impact.

Feel free to customize the prompts and components to fit your specific needs. Remember that the prompts used in the video are slightly different from the final, optimized prompts provided in the GitHub links provided.

Happy building, and happy content creating!