How to Create a Topical Map for Your Website (With a Free Template Layout)

When I talk to business owners about content, I often hear the same plan: “We’ll write two blog posts a week and see what sticks.” A year later they have a hundred posts, a few of them get traffic, and nobody can say what the website is actually an expert in.

A topical map fixes that. It is a simple plan of every page you need to cover one subject properly, how those pages group together, and in what order you will write them. It is the step that turns “random blogging” into building topical authority, the idea that search engines and AI assistants trust a site that covers its subject completely.

In this guide I will show you how I would build a topical map from scratch: picking the seed topic, finding entities and subtopics, grouping them into hubs and spokes, scoring what to write first, and turning it all into a content calendar. I will also give you a template layout you can copy into a spreadsheet, and a sample map for an example niche.

What a topical map is, and how it differs from a keyword list

Let me explain it simply. A keyword list is a pile of search phrases. A topical map is an organized plan of pages. Each row is a page you will publish (or already have), the main question it answers, the group it belongs to, and the pages it should link to.

People mix up four related documents. Here is how I separate them:

Document	What it answers	When you make it
Keyword list	What do people type into search?	During research
Topical map	Which pages must exist to cover this subject, and how do they group together?	Before you write anything new
Keyword map	Which keyword does each page target, so pages don’t compete?	After the topical map, page by page
Content calendar	Who writes what, and when?	After you have priorities

So the topical map sits in the middle. It uses your keyword research, and it feeds your keyword mapping and your calendar. If you are new to the idea of one main topic per page, the beginner lesson on keyword mapping covers that rule well.

Ahrefs describes the same structure in its guide to topical authority: group keywords by parent topic, make the broad page a hub and the narrower pages spokes, and merge thin subtopics instead of publishing weak pages. I agree with that, and I will add the practical details below.

Choosing a seed topic narrow enough to finish

The seed topic is the subject your whole map grows from. Most people pick one that is far too broad. “Fitness”, “marketing” or “home improvement” cannot be covered completely by a small business in any reasonable time.

A good seed topic passes three tests:

• It is tied to what you sell. A roofing company should map “roof repair and replacement”, not “home improvement”.
• You can realistically cover it in 6 to 12 months. If the honest list of pages is 400 long, narrow it down.
• You have real experience in it. Google’s own helpful content questions ask whether your content shows “first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge”. A seed topic you know well makes that easy.

Google also asks site owners a question that I think every topical map should answer with a clear yes:

“Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?”

— Google Search Central, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content

If you already have a broad site, you can still map one seed topic at a time. Pick the one closest to your best-selling service. You can add a second map later. The question of whether to go deep on one subject or spread across several is a big one, and I cover the trade-offs in content depth vs breadth: what to publish first.

Listing the entities and subtopics around your seed

Before you open any keyword tool, spend 30 minutes listing what belongs inside your topic. I split this into two lists.

Entities are the “things” in your subject: products, tools, materials, people, places, methods and problems. Search engines think in terms of entities and how they relate, not just strings of words. For a home coffee niche, entities include espresso machines, grinders, burr types, beans, roast levels, water hardness and milk frothing. If you want the background, my post on entity SEO explains how Google understands things rather than keywords. Google even offers a public Knowledge Graph Search API that returns matching entities, though Google’s page notes it is migrating that API to its Cloud Enterprise Knowledge Graph product.

Subtopics are the questions and tasks around those entities: how to choose one, how to use it, how to fix it, how it compares, what it costs. A simple way to generate them is to put each entity through a set of “lenses”:

1. Definition: what it is and how it works.
2. Choice: types, comparisons, “best for” questions.
3. Use: how-to steps, settings, routines.
4. Problems: errors, failures, troubleshooting.
5. Money: cost, value, buying and hiring decisions.
6. Context: who it suits, local rules, seasons, safety.

Ten entities through six lenses gives you up to 60 rough ideas before you have looked at a single keyword. Many will merge later, and that is fine. The goal at this stage is to see the shape of the subject.

Six places to pull subtopic ideas from

Your own brainstorm will miss things. So next, I pull ideas from six sources. Each one has a strength and a blind spot, which is why I use several.

Source	What it gives you	Watch out for
Google results for your seed and main entities	The subtopics Google already shows together, the formats that rank (guides, lists, tools), and related searches	Results vary by location and device; check a few variations
People Also Ask boxes	Real follow-up questions, phrased the way people ask them	Many PAA questions belong inside a page as a section, not as a new page
Google Search Console	Queries you already get impressions for, including long, specific ones	Only shows what you already rank for; useless for a brand-new site
Competitor sites	Topics they cover that you don’t; their category and hub structure	Copying their map copies their mistakes too
Keyword tools	Search volume estimates, keyword difficulty, parent topic grouping	Volumes are estimates; very low-volume questions can still matter to buyers
AI assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot)	Fast lists of subtopics and related entities you forgot	They don’t know search demand and can invent terms; always verify

Two of these deserve a short note.

Search Console is the most honest source because it is your own data. Open the Performance report, look at the Queries tab, and filter for question words like “how”, “why”, “best” or “vs”. Long queries with impressions but few clicks are often subtopics you mention in passing but never answer fully.

AI assistants matter for a second reason, too. Google says its AI Overviews and AI Mode may use a technique called query fan-out, which it describes as “issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources”. In plain words: one question from a user can turn into several searches about related subtopics. A map that covers those subtopics gives you more chances to be pulled into an answer. I go deeper on this in topical authority in AI search.

For competitor research, you don’t need to do it by hand. A proper content gap analysis shows you the topics competitors rank for that you don’t, and those go straight into your map as candidate rows.

Grouping ideas into hubs, spokes and merge candidates

Now you have a messy list of maybe 80 to 200 ideas. This is where the map takes shape. Here is the process I use:

1. Remove duplicates and near-duplicates. “How to clean a grinder” and “grinder cleaning guide” are one page.
2. Run the search results overlap test. Search two similar ideas. If Google shows mostly the same pages for both (say, 4 or more of the top 10 URLs in common), treat them as one page. If the results are clearly different, they need separate pages. This is the core idea behind keyword clustering.
3. Find the hubs. Look for 3 to 7 broad ideas that many other ideas sit under. These become hub pages (also called pillar pages).
4. Attach spokes to each hub. Every remaining idea goes under the hub it fits best. A spoke goes deep on one question.
5. Mark merge candidates. Some ideas are too small for their own page. Mark them as a section inside a spoke or hub instead.
6. Mark parked ideas. Anything off-topic, low value or impossible to cover well goes into a “parked” tab, not the map.

A word on merge candidates, because this is where many maps go wrong. Ahrefs puts it well:

“Depth matters more than length here.”

— Ahrefs, Topical Authority: What It Is, How Google Measures It, and How to Build It

Ten thin pages on tiny variations don’t make a site look like an expert. One complete page that answers the main question and its follow-ups usually does better.

For the structure of hubs and spokes themselves (what a pillar page looks like, how long it should be), see pillar pages and topic clusters. I won’t repeat that here.

A sample topical map for an example niche: home espresso

To make this concrete, here is a shortened example. Imagine a small online shop that sells espresso machines, grinders and coffee beans. The seed topic is “making espresso at home”. This is an illustration, not real client data, and the search volumes are left out on purpose because they change by country and tool.

Hub	Spoke page	Search intent	Format	Priority
Home espresso machines	How to choose a home espresso machine	Commercial research	Buying guide	High
Home espresso machines	Single boiler vs dual boiler vs heat exchanger	Comparison	Comparison table + guide	High
Home espresso machines	How to descale an espresso machine	How-to	Step-by-step	Medium
Coffee grinders	Why your grinder matters more than your machine	Informational	Explainer	High
Coffee grinders	Flat vs conical burrs	Comparison	Explainer	Medium
Coffee grinders	How to dial in grind size for espresso	How-to	Step-by-step with ratios	High
Espresso beans	Best roast level for espresso	Informational	Guide	Medium
Espresso beans	How long do coffee beans stay fresh?	Informational	Short answer + detail	Medium
Fixing bad shots	Why is my espresso sour (or bitter)?	Troubleshooting	Diagnostic flow	High
Fixing bad shots	Espresso channeling: causes and fixes	Troubleshooting	Guide with photos	Medium
Milk drinks	How to steam milk for latte art	How-to	Step-by-step + video	Medium

Notice a few things about this example:

• Every hub links to buying decisions the shop can actually serve. If you also want to match pages to each stage of the buyer’s journey, content mapping is a useful second layer on top of this map.
• Troubleshooting gets its own hub. Problem-based pages are often where real first-hand experience shows best.
• “Water hardness” and “tamping pressure” are not rows. In this map they are sections inside the dial-in and troubleshooting pages, because they are follow-up questions, not separate searches with different results.

The free template layout: columns to copy into your spreadsheet

You don’t need special software. A Google Sheet or Excel file works. Here are the columns I suggest, in this order:

Column	What to enter	Example
ID	Short code for the page	GR-03
Hub	The hub this page belongs to	Coffee grinders
Page type	Hub, spoke, or section-only	Spoke
Working title	Plain description of the page	How to dial in grind size for espresso
Main query	The one search the page targets	dial in espresso grind
Supporting questions	Follow-ups to answer as sections	Shot time? Dose? Water hardness?
Intent	Informational, comparison, how-to, transactional, troubleshooting	How-to
Status	Idea, brief, draft, live, update needed	Brief
Existing URL	If a page already covers it	/blog/grind-guide/
Links to	IDs of the hub and 2–3 sibling pages	GR-00, GR-02, FX-01
Value / Demand / Difficulty	Scores from 1 to 3 (see next section)	3 / 2 / 1
Priority score	Formula result	6
First-hand angle	What you can show that others can’t	Our shot log from 3 grinders

The “Links to” column is the one people skip, and it is the one that makes the map a cluster rather than a list. Google’s own advice is simple: “Every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site.” Planning links in the map means no page goes live as an orphan. The detailed rules for linking hubs, spokes and siblings are in my guide to internal linking for topic clusters.

The “First-hand angle” column is my own addition. It forces you to think, before writing, about what proof or experience you can add. That is the part a competitor or an AI tool cannot copy easily.

Scoring which pages to write first

A finished map can easily have 40 or more rows. You can’t write them all at once, so you need a simple way to decide the order. I use three scores from 1 to 3:

• Business value: 3 if the page leads directly to a sale or enquiry, 2 if it supports a buying decision, 1 if it is purely educational.
• Demand: 3 for clear search demand, 2 for some, 1 for very little (but still asked by customers).
• Difficulty: 1 if the current results are weak or from small sites, 2 if mixed, 3 if dominated by big, strong brands.

Then the formula is: Priority = (Value × Demand) ÷ Difficulty.

Worked example (hypothetical numbers):

• “How to choose a home espresso machine”: Value 3 × Demand 3 ÷ Difficulty 3 = 3.
• “How to dial in grind size for espresso”: Value 2 × Demand 3 ÷ Difficulty 1 = 6.
• “Why is my espresso sour?”: Value 2 × Demand 2 ÷ Difficulty 1 = 4.
• “History of the espresso machine”: Value 1 × Demand 2 ÷ Difficulty 2 = 1.

The buying guide has the highest value, but it is hard to rank for early. The dial-in guide scores best, so it goes first. It is also a natural place to link to grinder product pages and, later, to the buying guide.

One rule overrides the formula: publish the hub page early, even if its score is modest. Spokes need somewhere to link up to, and the hub gives visitors and search engines a clear entry point to the cluster. I treat the scores as direction, not hard science. Adjust them when you know your market better than a formula does.

Turning the map into a content calendar

A map only helps if it becomes published pages. Here is how I would turn the espresso example into a first 12-week plan for a small team publishing two pages a week. Again, this is an example plan, not a promise of results.

1. Weeks 1–2: Publish the “Coffee grinders” hub and the dial-in guide. Update any existing grinder page and add links to both.
2. Weeks 3–4: Finish the grinders cluster: flat vs conical burrs, plus one troubleshooting page that links back to it.
3. Weeks 5–6: Publish the “Fixing bad shots” hub and the sour/bitter diagnostic page.
4. Weeks 7–8: Channeling guide, then go back and add links from the earliest pages to the new ones.
5. Weeks 9–10: Start the machines hub and the boiler comparison.
6. Weeks 11–12: Buying guide, now supported by eight related pages that can link to it.

The pattern is finish a cluster, then start the next. Spreading the same 24 pages across five hubs would leave every hub half-done. If you need a format for scheduling, writers and deadlines, my guide on how to create a content calendar has a template you can use alongside this map.

Two habits keep the calendar honest. First, every time a page goes live, update its “Status” and “Existing URL” in the map. Second, block one slot a month for updates. Ahrefs recommends refreshing outdated stats and running a content gap analysis every few months, and a map with a status column makes that easy to plan.

Questions people ask about topical maps

How many pages should a topical map have?

There is no right number. A narrow niche might need 15 to 25 pages to be covered well, while a broad subject can need 50 or more. Ahrefs gives similar ranges in its topical authority guide. Map everything you find, then publish only the pages that pass the demand, business value and focus checks.

Is a topical map the same as a keyword map?

No. A keyword map assigns keywords to pages you already have or plan to write. A topical map comes first: it decides which pages should exist at all, how they group into hubs and spokes, and how they link together. You build the keyword map from the topical map.

Can I use ChatGPT to build a topical map?

Yes, as one idea source among several. AI assistants are good at listing subtopics and related entities. They are bad at telling you what people actually search for or what your customers ask. Always check AI suggestions against search results and Search Console data before adding them.

How often should I update a topical map?

I suggest a light review every month when you plan the next batch of content, and a proper review every quarter. Add new questions from Search Console, mark published pages, and move pages between hubs if the search results have changed.

Do I need a paid tool to make a topical map?

No. Google search results, People Also Ask boxes, Search Console and a spreadsheet are enough to build a good first map. Paid keyword tools save time on search volume and keyword grouping, but they are not required to start.

Where to start your topical map this week

In brief: pick one seed topic tied to what you sell, list its entities and subtopics, check them against real search results and your Search Console data, group them into hubs and spokes, score them, and publish cluster by cluster. Put it all in one spreadsheet with a “Links to” column, and you already have a better plan than most of your competitors.

If you have an existing site, do one thing this week: export your Search Console queries for the last three months and sort them into the hubs you think you have. The gaps will be obvious. Once pages start going live, my guide on how to measure topical authority shows you how to check whether the map is working.

If you would like us to build the map with you, or write the content for it, have a look at our content writing services and our SEO services. Or simply tell us about your site and get a quote. I am always happy to talk through your niche.

Our complete topical authority guide series

This article is part of a series. Start with the main guide, then read the parts you need:

1. Topical Authority: What It Is and How to Build It Step by Step
2. How to Create a Topical Map for Your Website (With a Free Template Layout) (you are here)
3. How to Measure Topical Authority (Without a Magic Score)
4. Building Topical Authority on a New or Small Website
5. Topical Authority vs Domain Authority: What's the Difference?
6. Topical Authority in AI Search: Why LLMs Favor Focused Brands
7. Content Depth vs Breadth: What to Publish First to Build Authority
8. Internal Linking for Topic Clusters: Rules That Build Topical Authority
9. Topically Relevant Backlinks: Why Link Context Matters More Than Metrics
10. Does Off-Topic Content Hurt SEO? When to Publish Outside Your Niche

Sources for this topical map guide

1. Topical Authority: What It Is, How Google Measures It, and How to Build It (Ahrefs)
2. Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content (Google Search Central)
3. AI features and your website (Google Search Central)
4. Link best practices for Google (Google Search Central)
5. SEO Starter Guide (Google Search Central)
6. Knowledge Graph Search API (Google for Developers)
7. Performance report (Search results): Overview and basic setup (Search Console Help)