The days of searching for a keyword, writing content and then slapping it on your site are officially over. There are many ranking factors that Google uses to determine whether or not the content on your site is worthy of being included in search (note: this determines whether or not your content is being listed AT ALL, not whether it reaches page one in Google). So, let’s look into topical map SEO today. Why do you need a topical map, what is it exactly, and how will it help you get your content on google.

Overall there are supposedly more than 200 ranking factors that Google uses to determine whether or not your content hits the mark, but there are 3 that are crucial for your content strategy overall and that’s what I want to focus on today.

These 3 factors that impact you’re overall strategy are:

• Relevance: How relevant is your content in relation to what the user is searching for?
• Authority: How likely is your website to provide high-quality content to the user?
• User Experience: Can the user easily navigate to content on your website?

And topical map SEO relates to all three of these factors.

A trip down memory lane: What SEO used to be like

In the past, what we would have done is research a specific keyword or phrase that someone may type into search. Then we would have whipped up an article and made sure that the keyword we’re optimising for is mentioned a lot of times, and whoop your article was on page one in Google. Now things don’t work quite like that anymore.

Now Google is looking at your website as a whole as well as the individual article in question. There are still many on page SEO factors that matter (like the keyword being in the article, and the SEO title, and there being inbound and outbound links etc.).

But what now also matters is your content overall and how it builds a picture of the topics you’re covering on your site.

So your content needs to satisfy the users search intent, it needs to take the user deeper into the subject matter, it needs to add value to the user and it needs to be easy to navigate between content.

Plus at the end of the day we want to lead people to our offers at some point as well.

And that’s where our topical map SEO plan comes in.

What is a topical map SEO plan?

A topical map is simply a map of all of the content that’s going to go on your website.

You have many options for HOW you want to design this map. You could simply use a spreadsheet to indicate all of the content or you can do it in a mindmap format if you’re a more visual person.

I personally love the mindmap because it’s super easy for me to see all of the branches and add to them. My favourite tool for creating these is Miro, because I can also then embed my mindmap straight inside Notion which makes it easy for me to reference my topical map SEO plan at all times.

It’s also very clear to me which posts I’ve already created and which posts are still outstanding.

Why make a Topical Map SEO Plan?

I already mentioned earlier that Google uses Authority, Relevance and User-friendliness as 3 factors to determine the quality of your content. So let’s take a look at all of these factors plus ONE bonus one.

Authority

Because you’re not just covering a narrow topic but also mention other keywords that relate to the topic you’re talking about, Google can see that your site provides breadth and depth when it comes to the content you create.

Also as AI gets more and more integrated into search, your articles and posts contain many keywords in ONE article and that makes it clear that this article isn’t superficial but contains value to the user.

For example if you write an article about starting a business, you don’t just talk about ONE subject, you talk about registering a business, and writing a business plan, designing your offers, getting your first clients, operations and so much more. This makes it clear that you know what you’re talking about, because you’re addressing a lot of related challenges someone may need answers for.

Navigation and User-friendliness

Because you’re writing articles that touch on many different topics, all of those articles get linked to other, more in-depth, articles making it clear that you have more deeper valuable content to offer to your users. The user can then choose which topic to go deeper on. And because all of your content is linked to each other it makes it easy for the user to find your articles, because they’re not buried 10 clicks deep on your website.

All of your content should be no more than 3-4 clicks deep from your homepage.

Search Intent

Search intent is the intent that the person on Google has with the query they’re typing into the search. Because you’re planning your content on your topical map SEO plan, you can make sure that you have different content for different search intents.

Let’s take an example here.

“what makes a good running shoe” – informational

“best running shoes for long-distance runs” – informational but moving towards buying intent

“brand name + model of running shoe” – buying intent

Your content needs to match the intent of the person searching so that Google will show it to the user. There is nothing more frustrating when you have informational intent but you keep landing on pages telling you to buy something or vice versa.

Bonus: Duplicate Content

Back in the day it was part of our SEO strategy to have different articles that target different keywords but have essentially the same content.

So as a relationship coach you may have 2 articles that cover the same topic. One focused on the term “man ghosts me” and one focused around “man doesn’t reply anymore” the only different in the content is really the phrase that the user is entering but the article may essentially be very similar.

A lot of websites that used to rank well with that strategy are now seeing their rankings drop because Google has determined that there is a lot of repetitive and not useful content.

So these articles should be combined into ONE article wherever possible or re-written to address different points entirely.

Why Podcasters need a Topical Map SEO Plan too!

I just want to make a separate point on podcasters that publish their shownotes on the website. As you know I also co-own a podcast production agency, so I like to let you know how this affects you too.

If you publish individual shownotes for episodes on your websites, then your podcast content is directly co-related to your SEO strategy and you need to choose your topics wisely.

Otherwise you will inadvertently create a tonne of standalone posts that can’t be interlinked well, you will create duplicate content without meaning to, or even cannibalise keywords.

Getting Started with your Topical Map SEO Plan

Categorising your Existing Content

The first thing I’d do is grab a list of all of the content on your website, there are plugins for WordPress that you can use to export all URLs or you can make a quick web scraper with Python and pull the data.

Now look at this content and try to break into categories (this may line up with the existing categories on your blog, or these may need updating).

Look at your Offers

I for example have a few different offers. Some of them relate to tech and systems and some of them relate to growing a service-based business. So there is an implementation component and a strategy component. Plus I’m also ND and talk about this on the blog, because I believe that we need different strategies at times.

So I have a pretty wide area of content that I may want to cover to really have that expertise come across. I may end up talking about business strategy (offers, pricing, launches etc.), I may talk about operations (hiring, leadership, systems), I may talk about tech (dos, dont’s, tools etc.), I may talk about marketing (cold outreach, paid ads, content marketing, social, podcasts, YouTube)…

So you see how quickly the areas you’re going to cover grow?

Make a list of all of the categories and which offer they lead to.

Compare your Existing Content and Categories and the Categories you identified from your Offers

Then come up with a new list of categories that you will break your content into going forward.

This may mean you need to add some categories if you have gaps and it may mean that you have to combine a couple of categories into ONE.

Make sure you set up any redirects when you do remove categories so you don’t end up with broken links.

Create a new mindmap and add those categories onto the mindmap as your first branches.

Go over your Existing Content and Identify the Intent

Now look at your list of content and drop each piece into one of three categories.

Exploration / Information (this is your content that is super general informational, it’s what people new to this topic most likely search for)

Information / Comparison (this is content that indicates the person is making decisions around something)

Buying (this is content that someone would only search for if they’re ready to buy)

Take all of your exploration information content and add it as the second level behind your branch.

If your first branch is MARKETING and you have an article called “What is Blogging?” then this is a super general information article that comes next.

Then take your Informational Comparison content and add it as the next level. So “What is blogging?” may have another article behind that called “Blogging vs YouTube”.

Then take your buying intent articles and add them to your topical map SEO plan. So “what is blogging” and “blogging vs youtube” may then have other articles after that called “best seo tool for bloggers” “best SEO tools for youtube” etc. these signify buying intent and if it’s not an offer you have then this is a great option for affiliate income.

Work out the Gaps and Look for Duplicates

Now you will see that most likely you will have gaps in your content. A lot of my clients figure out that they have a lot of general informational content but no content that serves buying intent.

Or that some topic area that is generally a closely related topic does not have any articles at all and are an area that they can stock up on content.

OR they realise they have talked about one topic so much that there are 5 blog posts with the same content that need to be combined into one.

Create your Pillar Content

Each one of the areas that are first coming off of the main circle in the middle of your mind map (eg. “Marketing” or “Business” or “Nutrition) they should have a really solid article that introduces the topic as a whole and links to a lot of first level sub articles.

Eg. an article about Markting for Online Business Owners will introduce what marketing is, what sub-areas there are, why it’s important etc. and then link to sub-articles on cold email outreach, on social media marketing, on content marketing, on podcasting etc. and they will link to other related articles on the relevant subjects so you’re building a web of content that is easy to move around in.

Topical Map SEO Plan – Conclusion

So, now that you know what a topical map SEO plan is, why you need it and how to set one up, it’s time to take what you have identified and create an actionable plan for the future to do the following:

• add new categories to your blog that are missing or combine existing ones (redirect!)
• combine existing articles that contain duplicate information and don’t add value (redirect!)
• make a plan to add new content to your site that fills out your topical map SEO

Of course, if you want to do this work together, then you’re welcome to book one of my breakthrough sessions and we’ll make a fun morning or afternoon out of it together.