NinjasMyth
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It's time to get a guide up on topical research, as it's something I've been focusing on for the last couple of years. I actually do keyword research in terms of caring about the metrics of a keyword, nowadays, I'm also focused on picking a topic and trying to cover it, and you should too. I'm hoping this is not too much of a mess of text. I'm tired, so I hope it all flows properly!
For this article, we're going to use a well-defined and popular entity. Baseball bats. I know little about baseball bats, and as I write this, I'm slowly fearing how big this topic likely is and, as such, how long this article may turn out to be...
Ok, so first things first: I mentioned that a baseball bat is an entity.
I can tell this is an entity because it's in Google's Knowledge Graph. Here are a few ways I can tell:
[
"Thing"
]
In the quote above, you can see a few things such as its ID, entity type (thing), description, etc. one of the most important aspects is the Wikipedia URL. You can pretty much do most of your topical research using the main Wikipedia article to get a good sense of how everything is related.
So why does it matter that a baseball bat is an entity? Well, because it's a uniquely defined thing, it's fairly easy to find out about the topic as a whole. Because it's a unique thing, there's a Wikipedia article on the topic, and as such, you can get a great overview of the important elements that are related to baseball bats.
Wikipedia and Trusted Sources for Topic Mapping
Ok, so now we can get down to getting some background knowledge on our entity and start to note how we're going to map everything out.
Below are some common ways to describe an object that you should be able to use for essentially any entity. There's more that you can think of, but this is a good start.
Now let's move onto the Wikipedia page.
So if we take a look at the contents, you'll notice we've got some great topics that are obviously important to the topic of bats:
1 Terminology
2 History
2.1 Innovations
3 Materials and manufacture
4 Environmental threat to ash wood
5 Regulations
6 Care and maintenance
7 Fungo bat 8 See Also
All of these are topics we'd likely need to discuss/cover in order to show topical authority. Don't forget, you'll likely need to dive into these topics also. On a broad level, each one of these is probably good enough to be a main pillar article.
To find related entities, what you want to do is read the page and look for terms that look related that you could expand on. It's hard to explain so I'll share some examples that I'd take note of. Hyperlinks are sometimes a good place to look, but not everything will be super related. I will search for a term on Google and see if SERPS are showing me relevant info articles on a term. So I'm looking at the innovations section and searched banana and mushroom bat, and the results aren't great so it's not something I'd likely explore further other than talking about it perhaps in a general "innovations of baseball bats" article.
Axe Bat™ found in the same section is showing great relevant results in SERP. I'll make a note of this because it looks like something I can expand into further. I can tell this quickly by seeing the wide range of People Also Ask queries. This looks likes a topic we can write several articles on in detail.
In the Materials and Manufacturing section I've take note to research further into questions like "who manufacturers baseball bats" (in the see also section there's actually a link to a page that list them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_baseball_bat_manufacturers, I bet there's heaps of questions about specific bats and manufacturers) and "what's the best type of wood for baseball bats?" Just by experience of doing keyword research I know there's likely heaps of questions around this section. Why? Because it's an important aspect of a bat and people looking to purchase a bat likely have a lot of questions surrounding this topic. You'll likely find a fair amount of informative and commercial intent style keywords.
Another few examples in the article I like the look of and think are worth exploring:
With a little work reading over Wikipedia you can get a good idea of what makes up the topic of your entity and various related entities you can expand in to. Now you have this list you can now start keyword research. But I'm not talking about using a tool that spits out keywords that are "low competition/KD" or "high monthly searches". Forget those, what you need is just data. You need big list of queries people are searching for on each topic.
Bonus - How to find even more related entities on Wikipedia!
Not sure if people are aware but there's a way to show you every single Wikipedia article that links to another article! This is super cool as you can find closely related entities to yours.
Learning About Products
One can look at major retail stores online to get an idea of features and attributes of products you're exploring. Let's go on DICK's Sporting Goods https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/f/baseball-batsfor bats.
You get a great deal of info here that you can make note of when you do your keyword research. Let's look at the top of the page.
Doing Keyword Research
This isn't really a keyword research article, it'd be too long haha, so I'm just going to mention a few methods I use nowadays. You don't need fancy expensive tools. I don't use keyword grouping tools but it's probably useful when dealing with thousands of keywords.
I use data Google gives me on SERP and not much more:
So what you need to do is basically do keyword research for all of your terms you listed. It's going to be heaps of keywords but this is what it takes to get topical authority. This is just for one topic, you might have a site on baseball. So you'd want to do research on balls and gloves etc. Don't neccessairly worry about writing queries that make sense into Google. See below for what I mean, you can find perfectly good results with terms like "baseball bat length"
For this article, we're going to use a well-defined and popular entity. Baseball bats. I know little about baseball bats, and as I write this, I'm slowly fearing how big this topic likely is and, as such, how long this article may turn out to be...
Ok, so first things first: I mentioned that a baseball bat is an entity.
- How do I know this?
- Why does it matter?
I can tell this is an entity because it's in Google's Knowledge Graph. Here are a few ways I can tell:
[
"Thing"
]
In the quote above, you can see a few things such as its ID, entity type (thing), description, etc. one of the most important aspects is the Wikipedia URL. You can pretty much do most of your topical research using the main Wikipedia article to get a good sense of how everything is related.
So why does it matter that a baseball bat is an entity? Well, because it's a uniquely defined thing, it's fairly easy to find out about the topic as a whole. Because it's a unique thing, there's a Wikipedia article on the topic, and as such, you can get a great overview of the important elements that are related to baseball bats.
Wikipedia and Trusted Sources for Topic Mapping
Ok, so now we can get down to getting some background knowledge on our entity and start to note how we're going to map everything out.
Below are some common ways to describe an object that you should be able to use for essentially any entity. There's more that you can think of, but this is a good start.
- Types - Are they're different varieties? By size, weight, material etc.
- Materials
- Brands/Manufacturers
- Uses
- Comparisons
- Wood vs metal bats etc.
- What types of materials are used
- Are there different sizes (adult/child etc.)
- Are there different weights (adult/child etc.)
- Are there bats used for different situations, playstyles, players etc.
- What baseball bat does player/team use?
- Regulation standard of bat?
- What are the main brands/manufacturers
Now let's move onto the Wikipedia page.
So if we take a look at the contents, you'll notice we've got some great topics that are obviously important to the topic of bats:
1 Terminology
2 History
2.1 Innovations
3 Materials and manufacture
4 Environmental threat to ash wood
5 Regulations
6 Care and maintenance
7 Fungo bat 8 See Also
All of these are topics we'd likely need to discuss/cover in order to show topical authority. Don't forget, you'll likely need to dive into these topics also. On a broad level, each one of these is probably good enough to be a main pillar article.
To find related entities, what you want to do is read the page and look for terms that look related that you could expand on. It's hard to explain so I'll share some examples that I'd take note of. Hyperlinks are sometimes a good place to look, but not everything will be super related. I will search for a term on Google and see if SERPS are showing me relevant info articles on a term. So I'm looking at the innovations section and searched banana and mushroom bat, and the results aren't great so it's not something I'd likely explore further other than talking about it perhaps in a general "innovations of baseball bats" article.
Axe Bat™ found in the same section is showing great relevant results in SERP. I'll make a note of this because it looks like something I can expand into further. I can tell this quickly by seeing the wide range of People Also Ask queries. This looks likes a topic we can write several articles on in detail.
In the Materials and Manufacturing section I've take note to research further into questions like "who manufacturers baseball bats" (in the see also section there's actually a link to a page that list them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_baseball_bat_manufacturers, I bet there's heaps of questions about specific bats and manufacturers) and "what's the best type of wood for baseball bats?" Just by experience of doing keyword research I know there's likely heaps of questions around this section. Why? Because it's an important aspect of a bat and people looking to purchase a bat likely have a lot of questions surrounding this topic. You'll likely find a fair amount of informative and commercial intent style keywords.
Another few examples in the article I like the look of and think are worth exploring:
- Bats for different leagues/age groups
- High School
- Little League
- Pine tar
- Gorilla Gold Grip Enhancer
- Care and maintenance
- Boning
- Fungo bat
- Baseball doughnut
- Composite baseball bat
- Pink bat
With a little work reading over Wikipedia you can get a good idea of what makes up the topic of your entity and various related entities you can expand in to. Now you have this list you can now start keyword research. But I'm not talking about using a tool that spits out keywords that are "low competition/KD" or "high monthly searches". Forget those, what you need is just data. You need big list of queries people are searching for on each topic.
Bonus - How to find even more related entities on Wikipedia!
Not sure if people are aware but there's a way to show you every single Wikipedia article that links to another article! This is super cool as you can find closely related entities to yours.
- Self defense
- Woods of baseball bats
- One of the articles that links was on bitter oranges. The linked text?
- "The hard, white or light-yellow wood is used in woodworking and made into baseball bats in Cuba." pretty cool. I may not of found out about this type of wood being used in bats if it had not been for this link.
- One of the articles that links was on bitter oranges. The linked text?
- Baseball bats in TV/movies
Learning About Products
One can look at major retail stores online to get an idea of features and attributes of products you're exploring. Let's go on DICK's Sporting Goods https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/f/baseball-batsfor bats.
You get a great deal of info here that you can make note of when you do your keyword research. Let's look at the top of the page.
- Materials
- Weight
- Construction
- Diameter
- Brands
- Drop
- Certification
- Length
- Leagues
Doing Keyword Research
This isn't really a keyword research article, it'd be too long haha, so I'm just going to mention a few methods I use nowadays. You don't need fancy expensive tools. I don't use keyword grouping tools but it's probably useful when dealing with thousands of keywords.
I use data Google gives me on SERP and not much more:
- Autocomplete
- Trends
- People also ask - this is where the gold is and you can get away with just using this.
- Related searches
- Common sense
- Think about what questions people would use. You can combine different things and simply search them to see if people are looking for combinations like best baseball bat for high schoolers or best 32" baseball bat etc.:
- Age
- Length of bat
- Think about what questions people would use. You can combine different things and simply search them to see if people are looking for combinations like best baseball bat for high schoolers or best 32" baseball bat etc.:
So what you need to do is basically do keyword research for all of your terms you listed. It's going to be heaps of keywords but this is what it takes to get topical authority. This is just for one topic, you might have a site on baseball. So you'd want to do research on balls and gloves etc. Don't neccessairly worry about writing queries that make sense into Google. See below for what I mean, you can find perfectly good results with terms like "baseball bat length"
