How to Create a Topical Map for Your Blog
Written by Casey Botticello
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Ever since I released my AI case study site, I’ve received a lot of questions about how I create “topical maps” for my blogs. While this process is tailored uniquely to each blog, there are a few consistent steps that I use to ensure that my content is as useful to readers as possible.
This guide will show you an overview of how I create a topical map for my blogs, and how I produce content that is less SEO-focused (and generally seems to better withstand Google algorithm updates).
What is Topical Mapping?
For me, topical mapping is the process through which a blogger plans the content for a large portion or the entirety of their site before they actually begin publishing their first post.
This is a key point, because in my model of topical mapping, you make most of the decisions about the articles that you will write and the topics that you will cover before you start writing.
Many bloggers start writing their first few blog posts with only a vague idea of what niche they will be covering. They then identify low hanging fruit (high traffic, low volume keywords) either through the use of keyword research tools or by checking what they unintentionally rank for in Google search Console after writing a number of posts.
Next, bloggers typically double down on the topics that “resonate with Google” and this tends to dictate what they publish going forward. They then publish lots of articles focused on these topics they never planned on covering.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this strategy. I’ve personally used it and there is still plenty of money to be made methodically mining untapped keywords.
Unfortunately, there a few major limitations of this method:
Lower Topical Authority. When you write articles to satisfy a search algorithm, you tend to deviate from the topics you intended to write about. In the process of chasing this “easy” traffic, most bloggers end up diluting their topical authority.
For example, suppose you start a personal finance blog. Maybe you intended to write about clever ways to save money, beginner investment ideas, househacking and a few other topics you were interested in.
But after seeing that there is immense traffic for a longtail keyword related to your article on “How to Set Up a Wells Fargo Checking Account (Completely Online),” some bloggers will begin writing a series of articles covering how to open checking accounts at dozens of other banks online.
And this may generate traffic in the short run. But you’ve now diluted your topical authority for your overall site since the average reader will see mostly articles explaining this one aspect of online banking. Search engines will also begin to associate your site with these specific sub topics, even if you intended to cover personal finance from a different perspective.
Arbitrarily Limits Topics You Write About. When you write to primarily to answer low volume keywords that are not tightly related in terms of concepts, you tend to write about topics you have little long term interest in. But by the time you realize this, you’re usually too far down this road to self-correct.
In the previous example about a hypothetical personal finance blog, you might enjoy getting quick wins writing about opening new bank accounts.
But what happens after you cover this topic for 10, 50, or 100+ articles?
You’ve definitely pigeonholed yourself in terms of the topic you can cover and rank for in search engines.
When you test writing an article on your unique experience, of say, “buying a home as a Millennial without a typical 9-5 job” you will likely see this article fail to gain traction. This may surprise you since this is a true example of high quality content in your niche.
The reality is search engines are complex systems that are trying to associate disparate pieces of data in a cost efficient manner. If your site is relatively new, Google will only crawl it so often, meaning the topics you start with (and initially the topic clusters you focus on) can greatly affect the trajectory of your site, assuming organic search is your main source of traffic.
Increased Rankings Volatility. When you blog to primarily to rank for low volume keywords that are not tightly related, you tend to experience more search engine ranking volatility.
Because you’ve diluted your topical authority and have now diverted the focus of your entire site, when you return to writing the articles you originally intended, it is much more likely your site will be hit during a future Google algorithm update.
There are several reasons for this, but one of the biggest is Google has now established a base classification for your site. It has some idea of what it covers, and will compare it to other competing sites.
But since you likely never intended to rank for banking specific keywords, you’re now competing in an extremely competitive niche.
You may continue to compare your site to other typical personal finance niche sites that write for a specific audience, when in reality, Google assumes your site is about something entirely different. This means it will be harder to rank for the keywords you should naturally rank for and it makes it more likely you’ll lose your “quick wins” with the online banking articles, since someone else who has more authority in that subject matter which eventually cover it.
Note: If you have high enough domain authority in blogging, you can get away with writing about whatever you want. For example, Forbes can cover both financial products (topics you’d expect), as well as unrelated topics such as “Best Amusement Parks in the United States” or “Tips for Improving Your Confidence When Dating.”
But YOUR site is almost certainly too low in domain authority to just write about whatever you want, across unrelated subjects, with no regard for topical structure.
Topical maps allow blogger to increase their topical authority, improve user experience, and better satisfy search intent.
Steps to Build a Topical Map for Your Blog
1. Pick a Very Specific Niche
All successful blogs that I’ve created begin with a clear idea of what the site is precisely about. This begins with picking a specific and well defined niche.
Note: You should also spend this time thinking of how you plan to drive traffic and monetize your site, but for the purposes of this article, I’ll focus exclusively on building the topical coverage of your site.
The example I like to use (to illustrate the process of niche selection) is the sample niche of Stealth Wealth. I view this niche as the intersection of two larger niches: privacy and personal finance.
For those not familiar with the concept of stealth wealth:
Stealth wealth refers to the practice of maintaining a high net worth or substantial financial success while not displaying overt signs of wealth. Those embracing stealth wealth often avoid conspicuous consumption, flashy displays of affluence, or extravagant lifestyles. Instead, they prioritize financial security, low-key living, and strategic investments, choosing to keep their wealth discreet and private.
So with this in mind, our first few hundred articles should only cover the narrow overlap between these two topics:
So some of the sub topics that I’d consider related to the “Stealth” or privacy portion of the Venn diagram would be:
- Personal Privacy
- Managing Your Online Presence
- Keeping Your Physical Location Private
- Employing Complex Ownership Structure of Property
- Maintaining Your Personal Security
Some of the sub topics that I’d consider related to the “Wealth” or personal finance portion of the Venn diagram would be:
- Personal Finance
- Investments
- Real Estate Assets
- Tax Efficiency
- Retirement
For our hypothetical blog, the goal is not to cover any of these topics specifically. Rather the idea is to stick to topics within our narrowly defined niche, meaning articles that would come from the overlapping section of the Venn diagram.
2. Research Topic
The next step is to research your chosen niche. I spend several weeks on this step, and in my experience consulting with bloggers, even the most experienced bloggers tend to rush through this process.
Exploring your blogging niche thoroughly for content ideas involves various strategies and is somewhat niche-specific.
One effective approach is to immerse yourself in online forums, social media groups, and communities relevant to your niche. By actively participating and observing discussions, you can identify common questions, challenges, and interests within your target audience.
Some overlooked places where you niche might be discussed:
- Private Forums (may require paid access)
- Podcasts (content not transcribed)
- YouTube (not just videos, but search data on the platform and comments on videos)
- In-Person Communities
- Webinars, Masterminds, & Online Networking Events
In addition, conducting comprehensive keyword research using tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush can reveal trending topics and popular search queries related to your niche. This data-driven approach ensures that your content aligns with what people are actively searching for. But it is important that you look for qualitative insights as well. Remember, most top bloggers have access to these same third party keyword research tools.
Staying updated on industry news and advancements is crucial for providing timely and relevant content. This not only demonstrates your expertise but also keeps your audience informed about the latest developments in your niche. Engaging with your audience through comments and social media is a two-way street that allows you to understand their interests, concerns, and preferences.
Collaborating with influencers and experts in your niche can offer a fresh perspective and introduce you to new ideas. This not only adds credibility to your content but also expands your network within the niche. Influencers often have great insights into what may be the next big trend in your niche.
Google Trends is a valuable resource for identifying rising search queries within your niche. This real-time data can guide you in creating content that is not only evergreen but also aligns with current trends.
3. Brainstorm First Set of Topics
Based on your topic research, the next step is to write down all the potential article ideas.
At this point, you shouldn’t worry about search volume, article structure, length, or format. As long as you think you could potentially write at least 500 words on a topic, I’d include it in this list.
Some examples using the Stealth Wealth Example:
4. Eliminate & Condense Articles Covering Same Topics
The next step is to check all your article ideas and see if there are any that would potentially cover large amounts of the same content, pick the “best version” of article, remove any duplicates.
You should still save all your ideas from the previous step, but this generally helps you see how many unique topics you have after your first pass.
5. Organize Article Ideas into Topic Clusters
The next step is to organize these articles into topic clusters by theme. These topic clusters may be what you end up using as your blog categories, but are not necessarily the same.
So based on the article topics in step 3, I might decide that there are a few clear clusters/categories emerging:
- Stealth Wealth Lifestyle (how money affects day-to-day interactions with friends, family, coworker, in dating, where you live, what you wear, etc.)
- Asset Protection (how to have special insurance policies, how to legally separate yourself from your assets, different asset classes, etc.)
- Little Known Services (private vaults, erasing online info, legal services, family office, fixers offering local services, etc.)
Again, this is just an example of 20 topics organized into a few categories. If I did the full brainstorm for a site built around this niche, I’d probably brainstorm hundreds of ideas, and condensing those into 3-7 main categories.
Based on the topics I brainstormed, it would seem like this first category has the most untapped potential (stealth wealth lifestyle). This is because while many people have never heard of the concept of “stealth wealth” almost everyone has some interest in money and how it influences our relationships with others.
By building a site organized tightly around these types of topic clusters, people who had previously never heard of the term stealth wealth will begin to find my content slowly. Ideally, once they realize how targeted the whole website is, they will read several other relevant articles, share the article URL or website brand name, or they will bookmark it.
Sure, this topic will only appeal to a specific subset of the general population, but that’s the point. Your site should be self selective in nature.
The goal is not to get as much traffic as possible, but to get as much traffic that you are able to hold as a relatively low domain authority site.
As your site increases in authority (a process that takes years), you can slowly expand your topical map and still manage to consistently rank, even against UGC content, high DA sites, or parasite posts from site like Outlook India or Forbes.
6. Compare Topics to Existing SERPs
Now that you’ve had a chance to brainstorm without being influenced to much by the SERPs, you can now search for some topics that appear popular in terms of search volume, related to your niche. The goal is to validate traffic and asses the originality of your content.
This step requires a fair amount of niche-specific intuition, and is more of an art than science.
When it comes to validating traffic, you should see some indicators that your core niche and its supporting topics are searched for many times per month.
While keyword research tools are really bad at estimating search volume, you can look at other factors such as:
- The number and size of active Facebook groups
- Data and market trends (if your niche is somewhat cutting edge)
- The number of PAA or Suggested Search questions (again, don’t use these as article titles necessarily, just use them to validate traffic)
- The type of competing sites showing up in SERPs (are these other topic specific sites, industry experts, hobby blogs, etc.). Competition definitely matters, but just because a few big players rank in the space doesn’t mean you’re totally boxed out. Look at the angle from which they are covering topic, the length of their content, the recency of their content.
In this hypothetical niche, it’s easy to see that there is some coverage of this topic from people who self identify as “stealth wealth” adherents (i.e. people from the financial independence and early retirement community, who understand that people who retire early are in an unusual position compared to 99% of Americans, who struggle to get by/manage their money). This naturally lends itself to readers seeking tips to avoid being labeled as wealthy or elite.
This can be validated by income surveys showing rampant inequality and the sheer rise of the amount of UHNW individuals in the country.
The traffic can also be validated by anecdotal threads on Reddit where people ask candid questions about money and relationships, that attract lots of views and are more aspirational or sensational for most readers rather than informational (How Do I Tell My Kids I’m Secretly a “Millionaire Next Door” or How Do I Explain Why I Don’t Have a Job When I Really am Wealthy and Retired Early, When Dating).
Also, as you may have noticed, as I went through this hypothetical niche, it became clear that the audience this content seems to appeal to is primarily a US-based audience.
This is also a good insight because many of the potential readers of this niche’s content will be located in tier 1 display ad countries, meaning you’ll get paid more by focusing on this reader persona.
This is why you have to know your niche.
Many of these insights (such as the economic landscape that is creating these conditions) would not be obvious to every person, or even every personal finance blogger. Many personal finance bloggers are focused on helping people budget, make a little extra money online, or start saving. They will almost certainly never cover a stealth wealth related topic.
7. Craft SEO Optimized Titles
The last step in my process of creating a topical map for my blog content is to take my article ideas, and based on the SERPs and possibly using some keyword research tools, make them slightly more SEO optimized.
You want an SEO optimized title, in part because, you are likely outsourcing this blog content, either to another writer or are using an ai writing tool as I increasingly do. Either way, these less experienced writers or tools ARE basing the content they produce around keywords and what ranks, so you don’t want them to struggle to understand the focus of the article.
Conclusion
Creating a well thought out topical map can take a considerable amount of time, but it is essential to staying focused during the early stages of blogging, and it will ensure that you do not have to go back and excessively prune your content. The narrow focus on topical authority, in many cases, will allow you to outrank sites that have much higher domain authority, giving your site a much needed leg up.
