Topics

The Topics view sits under the Fixes tab and answers one question: "Choose what to write or improve next."

The idea behind it

Search engines read a group of pages that reference one another as one subject you cover properly, rather than as several unrelated pages that happen to share a word.

So the useful shape is a lead page covering a subject broadly, with the more specific pages around it linking back to it and to each other. A topic without a lead page is a set of pages that never adds up to anything.

The audit works out what each page is about while it reads your site, and this view is the result.

What it shows

Topics without a main page, described as "Give each topic a page that brings its related content together." Each one names the subject and the pages that belong to it. This is the clearest writing brief the audit produces: you already have the specific pages, and the piece that ties them together is missing.

When every topic has a lead page, the section says so rather than inventing work: "Every topic has its lead page", with "Nothing to write here — each group of pages already has a main page the rest link to."

Topics with links missing between their pages, described as "Pages in the same topic that do not link to each other yet." These are cheaper than writing anything: the pages exist, they just do not reference each other. Internal links usually has the specific suggestions.

Your related pages, grouped by topic, the clusters themselves, with Why this page leads it on the page currently acting as the lead.

Findings that belong to a topic rather than to a single page appear here too, with the same steps, evidence and actions as anywhere else in the Fixes tab.

When it is empty

Before enough related pages have been analysed the view says so: "Clusters appear after enough related pages have semantic analysis."

That usually means the site is small, or the audit was capped low. Run a fuller audit and the groups appear.

Turning a topic into an article

Open content calendar sits at the top of the view.

The calendar plans from search demand, but you can hand it a subject directly. In the calendar's Refresh topics sheet there is a box for a topic you want written, described as going straight in because you know your market better than a keyword tool does.

So the honest workflow is: find the topic with no lead page here, decide whether it is worth a page, and if it is, type it into the calendar rather than waiting for the keyword pool to suggest it. See refreshing your topics.

Where to go next

Internal links is the cheaper half of the same problem. The content calendar is where a topic becomes an article.