Topics Over Keywords
Modern Google ranks one page for a cluster of 200-2,000 keywords; target the topic, not the keyword.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 93%
Google's semantic understanding means a single page can rank for hundreds to thousands of keyword variations. Planning by individual keyword produces wildly wrong search-volume estimates, wasted duplicate pages, and content that fails to cover the full intent. Instead, cluster keywords into topics by checking how much their search results overlap, then build one comprehensive page per topic.
Origin
Ethan Smith's account of how SEO shifted from one-keyword-one-page (pre-2008, before Google Panda) to topic-based ranking.
Core principles
- 01Any page typically ranks for 200-2,000 keyword variations, so a keyword's volume understates the true topic volume by ~10x
- 02Keywords whose SERPs overlap heavily are one topic; keywords with different SERPs are separate topics
- 03A topic page must cover every subtopic theme or it leaves engagement-killing gaps
- 04The topic label is usually the highest-volume keyword in the cluster
How to run it
- 1
Pull competitor keywords and pages
Use ahrefs or semrush to extract competitors' top pages, the keywords clustered to each, and the volume per cluster.
- 2
Cluster by SERP overlap
For any two keywords, search both and compare results. High overlap means one page; completely different results mean separate pages.
Pro tip 'Five year plan template' and 'five year plan examples' with identical SERPs are one topic; with different SERPs they warrant two pages.
- 3
Cover every subtopic on one page
Enumerate the sub-themes inside a topic (health benefits, recipes, related types) and make sure the page addresses all of them so the content is comprehensive.
Pro tip Use a content-scoring tool like Clearscope to detect subtopic gaps.
Watch out Missing a high-volume subtheme (e.g. butter lettuce health benefits) both lowers your content score and sends searchers back to the results to find it elsewhere.
In the wild
The butter lettuce page ranks for ~400 keywords with themes like health benefits, other types of lettuce, and recipes. Competitors with more authority (Food Network) had gaps because they weren't looking at all 400 keywords and skipped health benefits.
→ MasterClass outranked higher-authority incumbents because its page was comprehensive and theirs left subtopic gaps.
Common mistakes
Estimating opportunity from one keyword's volume
The true topic volume can be 10x the head keyword, so keyword-level planning produces badly wrong prioritization at large scale.
Writing a separate article per keyword variation
Creating pages for 'best cameras', 'best digital cameras', 'best rated digital cameras' wastes budget when one topic page ranks for all of them.
Is it for you?
Best for
Content strategists planning what pages to build and how to size their opportunity
Not ideal for
Sites whose queries genuinely have distinct intents that Google serves with different SERPs
From the transcript
“it's much much better to think in terms of topics rather than keywords”
“any given page is typically going to rank or be able to rank for about 200 to 2 000 different keywords”
“you can look to see how much overlap of the results are there”
“if the results are completely different for those two keywords you should probably have two different pages”
From the episode
The ultimate guide to SEO
Ethan Smith (Graphite)