Writing in Topic Clusters - A Visual Guide

Hi Everyone,

Many of us (myself included) are visual learners, so I thought I would create 3 mind maps (as below) in order to help illustrate the benefit of writing in topic clusters over jumping from topic to topic.

I have used the simple niche topic example of 'Growing Tomatoes in Containers' and, as can be seen from the first mind map, you could potentially break that niche topic down in to the 6 sub-topic categories as shown:

Clearly for each sub-topic category (and for any niche) there will be a number of articles you can write, but what is the most efficient approach to researching and writing these articles - essentially what order would you write the articles in?

Many people, especially early on in their affiliate marketing careers, chose a sort of cherry-picking, almost haphazard approach to writing articles and they jump around from sub-topic to sub-topic. This can be illustrated on the mind map as follows (the highlighted yellow articles being the 'haphazard' choice of articles to be written:)

The 'problem' with this approach really boils down to a few key things.

First of all, the development of your website isn't generating depth for any of the topics quickly - instead you are providing higher level coverage of multiple topics.

This lack of depth can be a barrier to establishing authority, not just with search engines, but also with your readers.

The second 'problem' is the efficiency of the research process. I find, that it's much easier to research a single sub-topic fully and then write all of the articles I want about that topic before moving on. If I jump from topic to topic, I find it takes longer to remember the research I've done when returning to a topic I've written about previously.

Also, it's often easier to spot opportunities for internal linking between articles that all belong to the same sub-topic. Internal linking is a very helpful idea, and if you're writing a bunch of connected articles, one after the other, the places where internal links are most useful to your readers, I find, present themselves more readily.

So, my recommended path of writing articles is to cover a single sub topic in full before moving on to the next.

On the mind map that would look more like this: (again yellow highlights show the articles chosen to write about)

I actually use mind maps a lot to set out visually how topics can fit together. I then work through the map, writing all of the article ideas in each topic, before moving on to the next.

And, as we all know, the WA Hubs is a fantastic place to generate a ton of article/topic ideas, and I find combining mind maps with Hubs, so visually setting out my intended content, helps me to better see what I'm trying to do.

I also find it motivating to tick off articles and topics as I go.

Anyhow, that's what I've found works for me, so I thought I'd share!

Hope the above is helpful!

Best wishes

John