How to Create a Topical Map for SEO

Build your SEO topical map in minutes — not hours. Learn how to create a topical map for SEO in 3 simple steps, also learn how Keywordly.ai automates SEO topical maps.

What You’ll Learn in This Guide

If you already understand what a topical map is, this guide takes you one step further — into how to actually build one that drives topical authority and rankings.

By the end, you’ll learn how to:

• How to create a topical map for SEO in three simple steps.
• Structure your content around search intent and hierarchy
  
• Build authority faster with AI-generated topical clusters
  
• Automate your SEO topical map without manual effort
  
• Turn data chaos into a clear, scalable SEO content workflow
  

Read this blog – What Are SEO Topical Maps? A Beginner’s Guide to Building Topical Authority

Step 1 — Define Your Core Topic & Business Goals

Every strong topical map begins with one thing — clarity.
Your core topic should reflect both what your brand offers and what your audience actively searches for. This core will act as the “pillar” around which all your subtopics and clusters are built.

Let’s say you run a SaaS platform for project management.
Your broad theme might be “team productivity.”
From there, your goal is to branch out into supporting areas like remote collaboration tools, task automation, time tracking, and workflow optimization — all connected but distinct enough to form their own clusters.

How It’s Done Manually

Traditionally, defining your topical map foundation requires hours of manual research across multiple tools and platforms.
Here’s how a typical manual process looks:

1. Brainstorm Core Offerings & Audience Problems
   Start with your product or service — list 5–10 main areas that represent what you solve.
   Example: “team productivity,” “project scheduling,” “task management,” “workflow automation,” etc.
   
2. Research Related Topics on Google
   Use Google Autocomplete and “People Also Ask” to explore what users are searching around your core theme.
   For instance, typing team productivity might reveal:
   
   • “Best project management tools for startups”
     
   • “Automation tips for busy teams”
     
3. Check Competitor Blogs & Tools
   Visit top-ranking competitors and analyze how they structure their blog topics and resources. Identify which clusters or pillar pages they focus on.
   
4. Cluster Keywords Manually
   After gathering dozens or hundreds of keywords, use spreadsheets to group them by similarity or intent — often involving tedious sorting, labeling, and cleaning up duplicates.
   
5. Prioritize Based on Search Volume & Relevance
   Manually check keyword volumes in tools like Keywordly, Semrush, or Google Keyword Planner, then decide which clusters deserve pillar status.
   

This process works — but it’s slow, repetitive, and prone to gaps, especially as new trends or queries emerge.

Step 2 — Find Subtopics and Clusters

Once you’ve defined your core topic, the next step is to expand it into keyword clusters and subtopics the building blocks of your topical map.

Each cluster represents a closely related group of search intents that connect back to your main topic. Together, they help you build topical depth and ensure your site covers every angle your audience cares about.

For example, if your core topic is “team productivity”, your goal is to discover all the relevant conversations people are having around it, from project management and workflow tools to motivation and communication methods.

How It’s Done Manually

Traditionally, finding subtopics means digging through multiple research tools and SERPs to uncover what users are actually searching for.
Here’s how marketers usually do it manually:

1. Start with Google Autocomplete
   Type your main keyword (e.g., team productivity) into Google and look at the suggested completions:
   
   • “team productivity tools”
     
   • “how to improve team productivity remotely”
     
   • “tips for managing team productivity”
     
2. These suggestions hint at natural subtopics users are actively exploring.
   
3. Explore “People Also Ask” Boxes
   Scroll through the “People Also Ask” section to capture related questions:
   
   • “What are the best ways to measure team productivity?”
     
   • “How can automation improve team efficiency?”
     
   • “What causes low productivity at work?”
     
4. Each question can be turned into a blog post or supporting article under your main cluster.
   
5. Check Competitor Content and Blog Structures
   Visit top-ranking sites like Asana, ClickUp, or Monday.com, and analyze their content hierarchy.
   Note how they organize topics like:
   
   • Task automation
     
   • Remote work management
     
   • Team collaboration tools
     
   • Productivity metrics and KPIs
     
6. Use Keyword Tools to Expand
   Enter your main keyword into platforms like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Keywordly.ai to find related terms, synonyms, and long-tail variations. Export them all and start grouping them in a spreadsheet.
   
7. Cluster Keywords Manually
   Go line by line through your list — grouping similar phrases and tagging each with an intent label like “informational,” “comparison,” or “commercial.”
   This can take several hours and often results in overlaps or inconsistencies, especially for large datasets.
   

While this method gives you a sense of control, it’s slow, repetitive, and limited by human pattern recognition. You may end up missing hidden semantic relationships or underestimating new keyword trends.

Step 3 — Build Your Pillar and Supporting Content Plan

Now that you’ve identified your core topic and keyword clusters, the next step is to turn them into a structured content hierarchy.
This hierarchy forms the backbone of your topical authority — telling search engines that your website isn’t just publishing random posts, but offering a comprehensive, interconnected knowledge base on your topic.

Understanding the Content Hierarchy

Think of your website’s content like a pyramid:

• Pillar Page (Top): A broad, high-level overview of your main topic — “The Ultimate Guide to Team Productivity.”
  
• Cluster Articles (Middle): In-depth pieces that cover specific subtopics — e.g., “How to Automate Repetitive Project Tasks.”
  
• Sub-Cluster Articles (Bottom): Supporting blogs that go even deeper — “5 Ways to Integrate Time Management with Asana” or “Automating Weekly Reports with Zapier.”
  

Each layer links naturally to the next.
Your pillar links to all relevant clusters, and those clusters link back up — forming a circular web of internal relevance that Google loves.

This structure helps search engines understand:

• Which pages are most authoritative
  
• How your topics interrelate
  
• Why your site deserves to rank for the broader theme
  

In short: a strong internal linking architecture = stronger topical authority.

How It’s Done Manually

Traditionally, building this structure involves several manual steps:

1. Identify Which Articles Serve as Pillars
   You’d review your keyword list and manually decide which broad topics deserve a “pillar” treatment. For example, “team productivity” becomes your main hub.
   
2. Group Supporting Articles Around Each Pillar
   Using spreadsheets or Notion, you’d assign each keyword cluster to its pillar.
   Example:
   
   • Pillar: Team Productivity
     
     • Cluster: Remote Collaboration
       
     • Cluster: Task Automation
       
3. Map Internal Links Manually
   For each article, you’d have to decide where to link internally — from the cluster article to the pillar, and between related posts. This often leads to missed opportunities or inconsistent linking patterns.
   
4. Track Progress
   You might use spreadsheets or Trello boards to keep track of which articles are drafted, linked, or published — a process that quickly becomes overwhelming as your content library grows.
   

While this manual approach gives you full control, it’s time-intensive, difficult to scale, and often lacks visual clarity.

How Keywordly.ai Simplifies This Entire Process

With Keywordly.ai, you can skip the manual research and jump straight into strategy.
Here’s how it transforms the process:

1. Enter Your service or Product Focus
   Simply input your niche (e.g., team productivity, CRM software, customer retention tools).
   
2. AI-Powered Topic Discovery
   Keywordly instantly scans live search data, SERP results, and semantic relationships to uncover hundreds of related topics under keyword clusters — all grouped by topical relevance.

3. Automatic Content Hierarchy Generation
   Once your clusters are built, Keywordly instantly suggests which ones should act as pillars, supporting articles, or sub-clusters — based on keyword breadth, intent, and topical weight.
   
4. Visual Topic Mapping
   Instead of sorting rows in a spreadsheet, you get an interactive map showing how your core topic connects to subtopics, supporting articles, and content gaps.
   
5.  Easy to Assign Topics to Funnel Stages
   • You can easily categorize which topic comes as Awareness, Consideration, or Decision stage. This helps align content with your buyer journey — for example:
   • Awareness: “How to Improve Team Productivity Remotely”
     
   • Consideration: “Best Time Management Tools for Remote Teams”
     
   • Decision: “Why Businesses Choose Your Tool for Team Productivity”.
6. Auto-Generated Article Outlines & Content Creation
   • Keywordly goes beyond keyword clustering — it generates detailed, SEO-optimized article outlines for each topic, including headings, talking points, and suggested internal links. You can also generate full-length articles directly inside the platform.
7. One-Click Publishing
   • Once your article is ready, Keywordly allows you to publish it straight to your connected CMS (like WordPress), turning your topical map into live, optimized content instantly.
8. In short: Keywordly doesn’t just organize topics — it helps you research, plan, create, and publish content that builds authority from day one.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Building clusters that are too broad or vague
  
• Ignoring search intent segmentation
  
• Skipping the audit step before expansion
  
• Overlapping clusters that cause keyword cannibalization
  

Final Thoughts — From Chaos to Clarity with Keywordly.ai

If you’ve ever tried to build a topical map manually, you already know how overwhelming it can feel, hundreds of keywords in spreadsheets, duplicate ideas across tabs, and no clear sense of what connects where.

You spend hours researching, sorting, and grouping, only to realize your content plan still has gaps, overlaps, or cannibalized topics.
And just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, search intent shifts, new trends emerge, and your map becomes outdated.

That’s the problem most marketers face:
you’re not short on data — you’re short on clarity and direction.

Keywordly.ai turns the chaos of scattered keyword research into a streamlined, content strategy. No more juggling tools, tabs, or spreadsheets — you get one intelligent platform that does it all. Discover high-potential topics and keyword clusters in seconds, organize them into clear hierarchies and visualize your entire content ecosystem with ease. As your site grows, Keywordly.ai continuously refines your topical map using live ranking data and emerging trends — keeping your authority fresh and focused.

👉 Ready to turn your content chaos into clarity? Try Keywordly.ai and build your first topical map today.

FAQs

1. What is a topical map in SEO?
A topical map is a structured layout of interconnected topics and keywords that represent your site’s subject expertise. It helps search engines understand your content depth and relationships, improving topical authority and rankings.

2. Why is a topical map important for SEO strategy?
Topical maps help organize your content around themes instead of isolated keywords. This improves internal linking, prevents keyword cannibalization, and boosts visibility across multiple related search intents.

3. How do I create a topical map manually?
Manually, you can start by identifying a core topic, researching related subtopics through Google Autocomplete, People Also Ask, and competitor blogs, and then mapping them using spreadsheets or mind-mapping tools. However, this process can be time-consuming and complex to scale.

4. How does Keywordly.ai simplify topical map creation?
Keywordly.ai automates the entire process — from discovering topic clusters to organizing them. Its AI engine analyzes live SERP data, groups related keywords, and generates a visual topical hierarchy ready for content planning.