Step 2A: Generate an Outline Using Longform AI

In this section, we’ll go over how to get a complete outline generated for you using Longform AI.

To learn how to build your own outline without using AI, you may skip to the next article (See: Build an outline yourself).

On the right panel, you will see that there is a basic outline of subheadings ready for you. You can drag and drop the subheadings to arrange its sequence, edit each subheading, remove and add more topics, or click on the refresh icon to generate more outline ideas.
Once you’re happy, click on Continue.
Next, you can choose your content length (see article: How to set your content length) and what kind of details you want Longform AI to include in your outline for you by checking or unchecking each box. As a refresher, here are the details you can choose to be included and what they mean:

Talking points: Information or details to support the subheading topic
Topics: Topics extracted from the top 10 pages
Questions: Questions found on the top 10 pages and People Also Ask section
Links: Frequently-linked to pages by the top 10
Contextual Terms: High-frequency terms used by the top 10 that can increase your contextual relevancy in the eyes of Google

Once you’re done, click on Generate. In a few seconds, you should see your complete outline on the text editor on the left.

You can also see your Topic Coverage score on the right side. The Topic Coverage score compares your content’s subheading topics with those of the top 10’s.

The more topics covered by the top 10 you include in your outline, the better your Topic Coverage score. Here’s a breakdown of what the score means:

Excellent (66.67 - 100%): You cover most or all topics mentioned by the Top 10 pages
Good (33.34 - 66.66%): You cover some topics mentioned by the Top 10 pages
Weak (0 - 33.33%): You cover only a few topics mentioned by the Top 10 pages

Basically, you want to aim for an excellent score with the Topic Coverage. It means you’re covering all topics covered by the Top 10, leaving no gaps and giving you a better chance of outranking them.

To increase your Topic Coverage score, you can add more subheadings to your outline using the suggested top topics on the right panel.
The generated outline is not set in stone — everything is 100% editable. Review and revise parts of the outline wherever you want — add subheading topics, talking points, questions, links, custom keywords, and Contextual Terms.

Next: Step 3: Customize the AI settings

Tip: If you add a new subheading, click on the three vertical dots on the right of the subheading to get Longform AI to Autofill the section with talking points, questions, links, and contextual terms.

Tip: Click on the collapse icon next to “Outline” to expand or collapse your outline. The expanded view shows the details under each subheading section, while the collapsed view only shows the subheadings.