by Venchito Tampon Jr | Last Updated on July 5, 2023

If you’ve landed on this blog post, chances are you’re already familiar with the term “SEO” and the various factors that can impact your website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

One of the most important things to consider when trying to improve your website’s SEO is topical relevance. But what exactly is topical relevance, and how can you make sure your website has it?

 

What is a topical relevance?

Topical relevance, in SEO, defines how well a website aligns with a specific keyword or subject. It helps search engines determine a site’s authority on that topic, leading to better rankings. This process evaluates the content and relevancy of a site to ensure its pages are ranked appropriately based on their topical authority and keywords used. Ensure your website showcases strong topical relevance for improved SEO performance.

Several factors can impact your website’s topical relevance, including:

  • The content on your website (including the topics you write about and the keywords you use)
  • The structure of your website (including your navigation and how your pages are linked together)
  • The external signals pointing to your website (including backlinks and social signals)

 

Why Is Topical Relevance Important?

There are several reasons why topical relevance is important for SEO.

For one, it can help you rank for your target keywords. If your website is highly relevant to your target keyword, chances are that Google will recognize this and reward you with a higher ranking in search results.

In addition, topical relevance can also help you attract high-quality backlinks. If your website is relevant to the topic of a high-authority website, there’s a good chance they’ll be willing to link to you. This can help improve your SEO and send referral traffic your way.

Finally, topical relevance can also help improve your website’s click-through rate (CTR) in search results. If your website is relevant to the topic a searcher is interested in, they’re more likely to click on your listing in search results. This can help improve your SEO and result in more traffic to your website.

 

How Topical Relevance Works

There are several different ways that topical relevance can impact your website’s SEO.

One way is through the use of keyword research. When you’re trying to determine which keywords to target, it’s important to consider not only the search volume and competition levels of those keywords but also how relevant they are to your website.

For example, let’s say you own a website that sells bicycles. If you’re trying to decide between the keywords “bicycles” and “cycling,” it’s important to consider the search volume and competition levels of those keywords and how relevant they are to your website. The keyword “bicycles” is much more relevant to your website than the keyword “cycling,” so it’s likely that you’ll have an easier time ranking for the former than the latter.

Another way that topical relevance can impact your website’s SEO is through on-page optimization. When optimizing your website’s pages for specific keywords, it’s important to ensure those keywords are relevant to your page’s topic.

For example, let’s say you have a page on your website about the history of bicycles. If you’re trying to optimize that page for the keyword “bicycles,” it’s important to ensure that the keyword is relevant to your page’s topic. If you use the keyword too many times or in an irrelevant way, Google will likely penalize your page.

Finally, topical relevance can impact your website’s SEO through off-page optimization. This includes things like link building and social media marketing.

For example, let’s say you’re trying to build links to your website about bicycles. If you’re only targeting websites about bicycles, you’ll likely have an easier time getting those links than trying to build links from websites about unrelated topics.

 

5 Strategies To Build Topical Relevance For Your Website

1. Write In-Depth, Thorough Content

Writing in-depth, thorough content is one of the best ways to build topical authority for your website. This includes both blog posts and articles.

When writing your content, it’s important to ensure you cover all aspects of the topic. This will show your audience that you’re an expert on the topic and that they can trust you. You need to research your topics very well to write such content.

You need to research your topics thoroughly to write in-depth, thorough content. This means going beyond just reading a few articles on the internet.

When researching your topic, you should look for primary sources, like data from studies or surveys. You should also read books and articles from experts in the field. Use tools such as Google Scholar to find scholarly articles.

Add relevant resources as external links to improve your content’s relevance to users and search engines. 

topical relevance in content

 

 

2. Get Links From High-Quality Websites

Another great way to build topical authority for your website is to get links from high-quality websites. This includes both inbound links and outbound links.

Inbound links are links that come from other websites to your website. These are also known as backlinks. Outbound links are links you put on your website that go to other websites.

You can use tools such as Ahrefs and SEMRush to check the quality of a website. This will help you determine whether or not a website is of high quality.

Here are the top link building strategies you can use to build more quality backlinks to your website:

 

3.  Analyze the search intent for your topic

When optimizing your website for a particular topic, it’s important to consider the search intent. People are looking for this when searching for a particular keyword.

There are four different types of search intent:

  • Navigational: People who use this search type intend to go to a specific website. For example, if someone searches for “Facebook,” they intend to go to the Facebook website.
  • Informational: People who use this search type intend to find information about a particular topic. For example, if someone searches for “bicycles,” they want to know more about bicycles.
  • Transactional: People who use this type of search intend to buy something. For example, if someone searches for “bicycle shop,” they want to find a bicycle shop to buy a bicycle.
  • Commercial: People who use this search type intend to find a business or service. For example, someone searching for “bicycle repair” wants to find a bicycle repair shop.

You can use tools such as Google AdWords and Microsoft Advertising to research the search intent for your topic.

 

4. Improve your On-Page SEO with Supporting Content and Structure

This means you need to create at least 3 supporting articles you publish on your website that will link to your main landing page. By doing this, you’re essentially building a mini authority site on the main topic, which will help your website rank higher in the search engines.

When optimizing your website for a particular topic, it’s important to target long-tail keywords. These are more specific keywords and usually have less search volume than shorter, more general keywords.

For example, if you’re optimizing your website for “bicycles,” you might want to target the long-tail keyword “road bikes.”

Also, on top of content, it is also important to consider your website’s linking structure. This means you need to ensure your website’s navigation is easy for users and search engine crawlers to understand.

 

Use the Hub + Spoke Model

In SEO, the hub and spoke model is a linking strategy used to help improve a website’s link equity.

The basic idea behind this strategy is to have a “hub” page on your website that links to several other pages (the “spokes”). This hub page should be well-linked to other pages on your website.

 

5. Promote Your Content

Once you’ve created your content, it’s important to promote it. This will help you get more people to see it and will also help you build links.

There are several ways that you can promote your content. You can share it on social media, post it in forums, and submit it to directories.

 

Topical Relevance Frequently Asked Questions

How do you build topical relevance?

1. Conduct keyword research.

As mentioned above, one of the best ways to improve your website’s topical relevance is by conducting keyword research. This will help you determine which keywords are relevant to your website and how difficult those keywords are to rank for.

You can use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner and Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer to conduct keyword research.

2. Optimize your website’s pages.

Another way to improve your website’s topical relevance is by optimizing your website’s pages for specific keywords. This includes both on-page optimization (like using the keyword in the title and body of your page) and off-page optimization (like building links to your page).

3. Create blog posts and other content.

In addition to optimizing your website’s existing pages, you can also improve your website’s topical relevance by creating new blog posts and other types of content. This is a great way to target additional keywords you didn’t have room to target on your existing pages.

4. Build links from relevant websites.

Link building is another great way to improve your website’s topical relevance. When you’re trying to build links, it’s important to focus on getting links from websites that are relevant to your own.

5. Use social media marketing.

Finally, social media marketing is a great way to improve your website’s topical relevance. This is because social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter frequently discuss topics relevant to your website.

Using social media marketing, you can get your website in front of people interested in the same topics as you. This can help you attract new visitors and improve your website’s SEO.

These are just a few of the many ways that you can improve your website’s topical relevance. Using these strategies can improve your website’s SEO and attract more visitors.

 

What is topical expertise?

Topical expertise is the degree to which a website is considered an expert on a particular topic.

This is generally determined by looking at factors such as the age of the domain, the number of inbound links, the content’s quality, and the website’s overall authority.

 

What is a topical search?

Topical search is the process of searching for websites that are relevant to a particular topic.

This can be done using various methods, such as keyword research or a tool like Google’s Related Searches.

 

What is topical authority?

Topical authority is a measure of how authoritative a website is in a particular niche, as opposed to a single keyword.

Since Google’s Hummingbird update was released, there has been an increased focus on topical authority. This is because Hummingbird gives greater weight to websites considered experts in a particular topic, as opposed to those just optimized for a specific keyword.

A topical site is a website that focuses on a specific topic.

This can be a website about a particular niche, like photography, or a website that covers a wide range of topics, like a news site.

Topical sites are often considered more authoritative than those that cover a broad range of topics.

 

What is relevance in SEO?

Relevance is one of the key factors that search engines use to determine the ranking of a website.

In general, the more relevant a website is to a particular keyword or topic, the higher it will rank in the search results.

 

What are the four types of relevance?

The four types of relevance are Direct, Indirect (circumstantial), Context, and Comparison. These relevance types pertain to the different roles a piece of information can play in supporting an argument or claim. By understanding these types, we can better assess the significance and applicability of information within a given context.

 

What are the 5 types of relevance?

The five types of relevance are direct relevance, indirect or circumstantial relevance, context relevance, comparison relevance, and pointer relevance. Four judges evaluated these relevance types during the Summer 2003 assessment of items in the MALACH test collection.