How to build a topical map for your blog, step by step

To build a topical map, start from what your blog is for, list the core and outer topics around it, group the pages, and plan the order you publish them in. This is part two of our series on topical maps, based on the work of Koray Tugberk Gubur. It turns the idea from part one into six steps, with this blog's own map as the example.

How do I build a topical map? #

Build a topical map in six steps. Name your blog's purpose, list the core topics, list the outer topics, group the pages, pick each group's main page, and decide the order you publish in. Each step takes an afternoon at most for a small blog. Also, a plain spreadsheet is enough.

Six steps to build a topical map #

1. Name your blog's purpose

   First, write one sentence on what your blog sells, does or wants readers to do. Koray calls this the source context, and it decides everything after it.

2. List the core topics

   Next, list the questions a reader asks right before they would use what you offer. Together, these pages form the core section of the map.

3. List the outer topics

   List the wider questions a reader meets on the way to the core: definitions, background and side questions. Likewise, these pages form the outer section.

4. Group the pages

   Then put pages that answer related questions into one group. However, two questions with the same answer share one page, so merge them.

5. Pick each group's main page

   After that, choose the page that answers the group's broadest question. The other pages in the group link to it, and it links back to each of them.

6. Decide the order you publish in

   Plan your publishing order: which group goes first and how fast you publish. The next section explains how Koray orders his.

Which topics belong in the core when you build a topical map? #

The core holds the topics closest to what your blog sells or does: the questions a reader asks just before they act. In contrast, everything else on the subject goes in the outer section. When unsure, ask whether the page would make sense on a blog with a different purpose. If it would, it belongs in the outer section.

This blog's own map, as an example #

When we set out to build a topical map for this blog, we started from its purpose. For example, this blog exists because of SerpDad, a tool that plans a site's pages from the live search results, and Khalid, our blog engine. Therefore, its core is how a blog gets found, and its outer section explains the terms and methods behind that.

Group	Main page	Other pages
AI search	Getting quoted in AI answers	Writing short answers AI tools quote
Topical maps	What a topical map is	This post, and how the pages link
Khalid	Khalid compared with WordPress	Speed tests, writing a post, release news

In what order should I publish? #

Publish one group at a time, starting with the pages that build coverage around a subject before its most searched page. Then keep a steady, rising pace. Koray found that covering the related subtopics first gave his later, bigger pages an easier start, because the site already looked like an authority on the subject.

How Koray orders his pages #

In his topical authority case study, Koray says he held back the most searched topics on purpose. Instead, he wanted coverage in the related subtopics first. In addition, he ties publishing frequency to how often search engines come back to crawl a site, so a steady, rising pace helps more than a burst.

For a small blog, that means planning a few posts a week, not a month of posts in one day. Moreover, it means finishing one group before starting the next.

Next in this series #

Once you build a topical map, part three covers how its pages should link, including the words each link should use. To start from the definition, see what the term means.