🚀 The Problem: Planning Content from a Topical Map

When working with clients, we create a detailed topical map tailored to their niche. These maps include multiple elements:

• ✅ Core sections
• ✅ Outer sections
• ✅ Source content
• ✅ Central Search Intent

The topics are carefully chosen to align with the client’s website goals, focusing on relevance, business alignment, unique indexes, and search demand.

However, topical maps often include hundreds of topics. Clients frequently ask:

💬 “What is the best strategy to prioritize and publish these topics, especially with limited budgets?”

Even with unlimited budgets, logical reasoning and positive ROI must guide content production. Investments in content must generate measurable returns.

🎯 The Five Key Factors for Prioritizing Topics

1️⃣ Business Goals

🔹 Content must align with the business's primary goals and revenue streams.

🔹 If a topic doesn’t support the business model or its ability to generate revenue, it should not be prioritized.

🔹 Traffic alone isn’t enough—it must convert to meaningful results (e.g., leads, sales).

💡 Example: If we’re working with a plumbing business, we might create guides about general plumbing topics. These guides strengthen topical authority, but the focus must remain on service pages that directly contribute to business growth.

2️⃣ Client's Budget

• 💰 Budgets dictate how quickly topics can be covered and prioritized.
• ⚡ For smaller budgets: Focus on quick wins—topics that can drive measurable results quickly.
• 💡 For unlimited budgets: ROI must justify spending. Publishing 20–30 pages without a positive ROI won’t make sense to the client.

3️⃣ Nature of Topics

📝 Some topics can be covered using a template-based approach, reducing content production costs.

• ✅ Benefits of templates:
• ✔️ Lower costs for similar entities or repeatable formats
• ✔️ Cost-effective yet high-quality content production

⚠️ However, templates must ensure:

• 🚀 Optimized micro-semantics
• 📌 Unique Information Gain
• 💡 High information density

4️⃣ Website’s Current State

📊 The current condition of the website heavily impacts content prioritization:

• 🔹 For new websites: Focus on topics with strong search demand to generate early traffic and build historical data.
• 🔹 For established websites: Analyze Search Console data (e.g., clicks, impressions, CWV reports) to find opportunities for transferring authority and data to core business pages.

5️⃣ Niche and Competition

🔍 The competitive landscape influences how topics are prioritized.

• ⚠️ In competitive niches (e.g., health, finance), more resources & strategic planning are needed to rank.
• ✅ In less competitive niches (e.g., local plumbing), quicker wins are possible with less effort.

🔥 Conclusion

By considering business goals, budget, nature of topics, website state, and competition, we can create an effective content strategy that delivers measurable ROI.

✅ Aligning with semantic SEO principles ensures content supports the business model from the planning stage.

📈 This approach leads to better early results, stronger client satisfaction, and long-term investment in the strategy.

💡 If you think there are other factors I should consider while planning content prioritization, I’d love to hear your suggestions. Thanks for reading! 🎉