Topical Map Examples: 5 Sample Maps for 5 Kinds of Sites

A topical map example is a worked plan for one website: its core topic, the pillar pages under it, the cluster pages under each pillar, the one query group each page owns, and the links between them. Below are five examples for five kinds of sites, drawn as trees and tables you can read at a glance, plus one bad map so you can see what to avoid.

One thing to be clear about. These are illustrative maps I built for this post around plausible businesses. They are not client work, and I haven’t attached search volumes because any number I printed would be a guess for your market. Check demand in your own tools before you publish a single page.

Why a Topical Map Example Beats a Definition

You can read ten definitions of a topical map and still freeze when you open a blank spreadsheet. The shape is the hard part. Where do service pages sit? Does a buying guide go above or below a category? How many clusters is too many?

Seeing a finished map answers those questions faster than any explanation. That’s why every section below leads with the map itself and then walks through the decisions behind it, branch by branch.

The process for building one from scratch lives in my guide on how to create a topical map. This post assumes you know the steps and want to see the result.

How Do You Read the Maps Below?

Every map uses the same labels, so you can compare them side by side:

[money]    page that sells: a service, category, product or pricing page
[pillar]   broad guide that links down to every page in its branch
[cluster]  one page that answers one query group in depth
[support]  small page under a cluster (rare, only when a cluster gets too big)
->         "links to" (the most important internal links only)

Each page owns one group of queries. If two pages in a map look like they chase the same search, that’s a mistake, and example six shows what it looks like when it happens.

Example 1: A Local Plumbing Company

Core: plumbing services in one metro area
|
+-- [money] /drain-cleaning/
|     +-- [cluster] /blog/why-does-my-drain-keep-clogging/      -> /drain-cleaning/
|     +-- [cluster] /blog/is-drain-cleaner-safe-for-pipes/      -> /drain-cleaning/
|
+-- [money] /water-heater-repair/
|     +-- [cluster] /blog/water-heater-making-popping-noise/    -> /water-heater-repair/
|     +-- [cluster] /blog/tank-vs-tankless-water-heater/        -> /water-heater-installation/
|
+-- [money] /water-heater-installation/
+-- [money] /emergency-plumber/
|
+-- [pillar] /service-areas/
      +-- [money] /service-areas/north-town/    (only towns you really serve)
      +-- [money] /service-areas/lakeside/      (each with unique local content)

Look at where the money pages sit in this tree. They’re at the top level, not buried under the blog, because a local business earns from services first and articles second. Every cluster post points up to the service it supports, so the informational traffic flows toward a page that can book a job.

Notice the tankless cluster. It sits under repair in the tree, but its arrow goes to installation, because someone comparing tank and tankless heaters is closer to buying a new unit than to fixing an old one. Arrows follow the reader’s next step, not the folder they happen to live in, and it’s the reason I prefer topic clusters over strict silos that keep every link inside one group.

The emergency plumber page has no clusters under it at all. That’s deliberate. Someone with water pouring through the ceiling isn’t reading a blog post; they want a phone number, so the page stands alone and gets linked from the header of every other page.

The branch marked service areas is where most local maps go wrong. Google’s spam policies list pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page as doorway abuse. So in my map, a town page exists only when the business really works there and has something specific to say: local jobs, response times, the permits that town requires. For the rest of the local groundwork, my local SEO checklist covers it.

Example 2: An Online Coffee Equipment Store

The first two rows are categories, and they come first for a reason. In ecommerce, the category page is often the page Google ranks for the broad buying query, so the map protects it: no blog post is allowed to target “espresso machines” and compete with it.

Now look at the last row. Filter URLs are real pages on the site, but they aren’t map entries. When I audit a store, filtered and sorted URLs are a very common source of duplicate pages, so the map says explicitly that they get a noindex or a canonical back to the category.

The guides column does the teaching. Each guide answers one question a buyer has before choosing, then links to the category where they can act. If you want the product side of this in more depth, I’ve written separately about product page SEO.

Example 3: A SaaS Invoicing Tool for Freelancers

This one reads differently because SaaS buyers move through stages. The table runs from bottom-of-funnel at the top to education at the bottom, and each layer hands the reader to the layer above it.

Look closely at the last row. “How to charge late fees” links to the late payment reminders feature, and “net 30 meaning” links to recurring invoices. That pairing is the whole trick. When I map a SaaS site, I pair every education cluster with exactly one feature page, and if I can’t find a sensible pair, the cluster probably doesn’t belong on the map.

The comparison row is the touchy one. Pages that name a competitor must stay factual and current, since an outdated claim about a rival’s pricing or features erodes trust quickly. I’d schedule a review of every comparison page each quarter, the same way you would a pricing page.

The use-case rows matter more than most teams think. A designer and a developer search differently, even for the same tool, and a page written for each one usually beats a single generic features page.

Example 4: A Houseplant Care Blog

Core: indoor plant care for beginners
|
+-- [pillar] /plant-care-basics/
|     +-- [cluster] /how-often-to-water-houseplants/
|     +-- [cluster] /best-soil-for-indoor-plants/
|     +-- [cluster] /how-much-light-do-houseplants-need/
|
+-- [pillar] /plant-problems/
|     +-- [cluster] /why-are-my-plant-leaves-turning-yellow/
|     +-- [cluster] /how-to-get-rid-of-fungus-gnats/
|     +-- [cluster] /overwatered-vs-underwatered-plant/
|
+-- [pillar] /plant-guides/
      +-- [cluster] /monstera-care/
      |     +-- [support] /monstera-leaves-not-splitting/
      +-- [cluster] /pothos-care/
      +-- [cluster] /snake-plant-care/

A publisher has no money pages, so the pillars carry the weight. This tree has three, and they’re sliced by what the reader is doing: learning the basics, fixing a problem, or caring for one specific plant.

I could have sliced it by plant only, with everything about monsteras under one branch. I didn’t, because a reader with yellow leaves doesn’t always know what’s causing it. The problems pillar catches them first, then links across to the right plant guide.

See the single support page under monstera care. That’s the only one in the tree, and it’s there because “monstera leaves not splitting” is a query group big enough to deserve its own page. Most clusters never need a support layer. Add one only when the search results show the question needs its own page.

Example 5: A 20-Page Map for a Tiny Niche

Core: sourdough baking at home (one pillar, 19 clusters)
|
+-- [pillar] /sourdough-guide/
      +-- starter: /how-to-make-a-sourdough-starter/, /starter-not-rising/,
      |            /how-to-feed-sourdough-starter/, /starter-hooch/
      +-- dough:   /sourdough-hydration/, /stretch-and-fold/, /bulk-fermentation-time/,
      |            /how-to-shape-sourdough/, /cold-proofing-sourdough/
      +-- baking:  /sourdough-in-dutch-oven/, /sourdough-without-dutch-oven/,
      |            /how-to-score-sourdough/, /why-is-my-sourdough-dense/
      +-- recipes: /sourdough-discard-recipes/, /whole-wheat-sourdough/,
                   /sourdough-sandwich-bread/, /sourdough-pizza-dough/,
                   /sourdough-bagels/, /sourdough-focaccia/

Small niches don’t need layers. This whole map is one pillar and 19 clusters, grouped into four labelled branches only to keep the list readable. On the live site, all 20 pages would sit flat under one guide.

Why not split starter, dough and baking into three pillars? Because each branch would hold four or five pages, and a pillar that thin adds a click without adding clarity. Flat wins here.

This is the map I’d hand anyone who writes 4 posts a month. It’s finishable in about 5 months, it answers one subject completely, and it leaves room to grow into a second pillar later, perhaps gluten-free baking, if the first one starts earning traffic.

What Does a Bad Topical Map Look Like?

Here is the sixth example, the one to avoid. On the left, a map for the same coffee store built by grouping keywords on shared words. On the right, the fix.

Read the first row across. Both URLs contain “espresso machines”, and a word-based tool would happily plan both. Broad product queries like that tend to show shops and category pages, so a blog post aimed at the same phrase has little chance and quietly pulls links and attention away from the category that could rank.

The second row is one of the most common patterns I see in audits. Two posts written months apart by different writers, targeting one intent, each getting half the links. The fix is always the same: one owner, one redirect.

The One Detail Most Maps Get Wrong

This small table is the detail behind every map above. Look at the “shared words” column: every pair shares two words. Yet the last column differs, because what decides the page count is whether Google shows the same results for both queries.

The fourth column is my expectation, not a measurement, and that’s exactly the point. You can’t see the answer from the keywords alone. You have to search both and compare, which is why I check grouping against the live results before I write a single URL into a map. My guide to semantic keyword clustering walks through that check.

What Do All Five Maps Have in Common?

Scroll back through the five examples and the same rules show up in every one, whatever the business model. These are the parts I’d never skip:

1. One owner per query group. No two URLs in any tree or table chase the same search.
2. Money pages sit highest. Services, categories and pricing come before articles, except on the blog, which has none.
3. Every page links somewhere useful. Clusters point up to a pillar or across to a money page; nothing is a dead end.
4. Scope matches output. The sourdough map is small because a hobby site publishes slowly. The store map is bigger because it has more to sell.
5. Things that aren’t pages stay off. Filters, sort orders and thin town pages never appear as entries.

Honestly, the fifth rule surprises people. They expect a map to list everything, but a good map is as much about what you deliberately exclude.

Red flags I look for when someone sends me their own map:

• A pillar with only one cluster under it
• Two titles that differ by a single word
• Location pages for towns the business doesn’t serve
• Clusters with no link target
• A blog folder holding every post with no pillars at all

Any one of these is fixable in an afternoon. Three or more usually means the grouping was done by word similarity, and I’d rebuild the map rather than patch it, because patching a badly grouped plan tends to create fresh overlaps faster than it removes the old ones.

Which Example Is Closest to Your Site?

Pick the closest row, copy the shape, and swap in your own queries. If you’d rather start from blank columns, the topical map template gives you a ready-made sheet layout to fill in, and if you’re choosing software to speed things up, I compared the options in best topical map tools.

If you’d rather have the map built for you, Skyranko does topical maps as part of its keyword research service, with every group checked against the live results page. Projects start at $99, and you can try 5 keywords free.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Does an SEO Topical Map Example Look Like for an SEO Blog?

It would follow Example 4. Three pillars, for instance keyword research, on-page SEO and link building, each with clusters that answer one question, like “what is keyword difficulty” under keyword research. Any service pages sit above the pillars, the way they do for the plumber in Example 1.

Can I Copy One of These Topical Map Examples for My Site?

Copy the shape, not the pages. The structure transfers well between similar businesses, but the queries, URLs and priorities have to come from your own market and your own Search Console data.

How Many Pages Should a Topical Map Have?

As many as your topic needs and you can realistically publish. The sourdough map has 20 pages; a store or SaaS map can run to a few hundred. Scope the first version to about 6 months of publishing.

Should a Topical Map Show Search Volume?

Yes, when it’s your working document. I left volumes out of these examples because they’re illustrative, but a real map needs demand data next to each query group so you can set priorities.

Last updated: September 2026 by Mizanur Rahman