An SEO topical map is the roadmap for your website’s content strategy. Its core function is to organize your website’s content in a clear hierarchy of topics and sub-topics.
It helps you:
- Make it easier for users to navigate your website
- Signal to search engines that your content comprehensively covers a topic
- Become an authority in a given industry or niche
In this guide, you’ll learn how to make a topical map for SEO. Unlike most other processes you’ll find online, this process factors in a topic’s relevance to your brand, business potential, and traffic potential.
This means you won’t risk creating content for topics no one cares about or that won’t help grow your business.
Want a detailed step-by-step process you can share with your team?
Grab the full topical mapping template and SOP, which you can share with your team, below.
This critical SEO SOP is perfect for beginners and walks them through the process step by detailed step so you can save time on training.
SEO topical mapping template, ask yourself these questions to identify your main topic.
- What’s your site’s core focus (as precisely as possible)?
- What do you want to be known for or considered an expert in?
- What specific themes tie all your content together?
- What parameters limit the scope of your products or services?
Then add your topic in the spreadsheet template:
Similar Posts
Search Everywhere Optimization: 5 Places to Optimize Beyond Google
Search everywhere optimization (some call it SEvO) means making sure people can find you no matter where they’re looking online. And here’s the thing: they’re not just looking on Google anymore. People are turning to TikTok for product suggestions, digging through Reddit for brutally honest reviews, and asking ChatGPT for personalized shopping lists and recommendations—often…
Google Seems More Biased Towards Big Brands Than ChatGPT and Perplexity
Article Performance Data from Ahrefs Linking websites The number of websites linking to this post. Get the week’s best marketing content Does being mentioned more on the web lead to more mentions in AI assistants? I’m defining mentions as the number of web pages that mention an entity at least once. I looked at the top…
Google’s Free SEO Tools, Explained
Google provides a solid set of free SEO tools. From simple keyword research to performance tracking, you can stitch together a full workflow without spending a dime. Every SEO—whether beginner or expert—uses Google’s free tools in some capacity. They’re widely accessible, they offer a glimpse into how Google’s search and advertising systems work, and they’re often…
My Favorite Wayback Machine Alternatives
The internet never forgets… unless the page vanishes, the site goes offline, or the content quietly changes overnight. That’s where web archiving tools come in. They allow you to access saved versions of web pages, even if they get taken offline. The Wayback Machine is the best-known option, but it isn’t perfect—it’s slow, sometimes misses…
What Is Domain Renewal?
Renewing your website’s lease on the Internet for another year. Your domain is your castle. It’s the name of your website, and it may be responsible for most of your sales. Domain renewal should be one of the most important tasks on your to-do list, and letting it lapse can cause so much damage. Knowing…
AI Content Marketing 101: Strategies from Someone Who Lives It
According to our upcoming study, 87% of marketers use AI for content. I’m one of them. AI helped me build a career around writing. It’s part of nearly everything I do. Honestly, I can’t even remember how I worked without it—and I don’t want to. It gives me a “second brain” and superhuman speed, and takes care…
- What’s your site’s core focus (as precisely as possible)?
- What do you want to be known for or considered an expert in?
- What specific themes tie all your content together?
- What parameters limit the scope of your products or services?
Then add your topic in the spreadsheet template:
Similar Posts
Search Everywhere Optimization: 5 Places to Optimize Beyond Google
Search everywhere optimization (some call it SEvO) means making sure people can find you no matter where they’re looking online. And here’s the thing: they’re not just looking on Google anymore. People are turning to TikTok for product suggestions, digging through Reddit for brutally honest reviews, and asking ChatGPT for personalized shopping lists and recommendations—often…
Google Seems More Biased Towards Big Brands Than ChatGPT and Perplexity
Article Performance Data from Ahrefs Linking websites The number of websites linking to this post. Get the week’s best marketing content Does being mentioned more on the web lead to more mentions in AI assistants? I’m defining mentions as the number of web pages that mention an entity at least once. I looked at the top…
Google’s Free SEO Tools, Explained
Google provides a solid set of free SEO tools. From simple keyword research to performance tracking, you can stitch together a full workflow without spending a dime. Every SEO—whether beginner or expert—uses Google’s free tools in some capacity. They’re widely accessible, they offer a glimpse into how Google’s search and advertising systems work, and they’re often…
My Favorite Wayback Machine Alternatives
The internet never forgets… unless the page vanishes, the site goes offline, or the content quietly changes overnight. That’s where web archiving tools come in. They allow you to access saved versions of web pages, even if they get taken offline. The Wayback Machine is the best-known option, but it isn’t perfect—it’s slow, sometimes misses…
What Is Domain Renewal?
Renewing your website’s lease on the Internet for another year. Your domain is your castle. It’s the name of your website, and it may be responsible for most of your sales. Domain renewal should be one of the most important tasks on your to-do list, and letting it lapse can cause so much damage. Knowing…
AI Content Marketing 101: Strategies from Someone Who Lives It
According to our upcoming study, 87% of marketers use AI for content. I’m one of them. AI helped me build a career around writing. It’s part of nearly everything I do. Honestly, I can’t even remember how I worked without it—and I don’t want to. It gives me a “second brain” and superhuman speed, and takes care…
