Topical relevance is a keyword research concept that sits under the topical authority and semantically relevant SEO concept. The idea is that websites or domains that have expertise, experience, authority, and trust (EEAT) for a given topic are more likely to rank for semantically related topics in SERPs (search engine results pages).
Key Takeaways
- Topical relevance is a keyword research concept that is closely related to topical authority and semantically relevant keywords. The idea is that websites or domains that have expertise, experience, authority, and trust (EEAT) for a given topic are more likely to rank for semantically related topics in SERPs (search engine results pages).
- Semantic relationships are connections between those words based on their original or intended meaning. These relationships can show similarities (synonyms), differences (antonyms), or hierarchical structures (hypernyms/hyponyms).
- Topically relevant keywords can easily be found on both Google search results pages as well as using keyword research tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, SurferSEO, and more.
What is Topical Relevance?
To understand topical relevance we first need to understand the idea of semantically related keywords and where that began. Semantic relationships are entities (think nouns: people, places, things) that have close relevance to each other. When you boil it down to words and keywords, semantic relationships are connections between those words based on their original or intended meaning. These relationships can show similarities (synonyms), differences (antonyms), or hierarchical structures (hypernyms/hyponyms).
Search engines like Google and Bing tend to understand the context of a User or searcher (Google uses the Hummingbird and BERT engine for this). And can use semantically related keywords to provide relevant search results. For example, if a user searches for "gym shoes," semantically related keywords might include "sport shoes" and "sneakers."
Why topical relevance is important
Topical relevance became more important when Google introduced systems like the helpful content processor. Which is now a core part of its ranking algorithm. It uses these engines to better understand the overall quality of a website and the quality of a given page.
This is very similar to the concept of “page rank” that once dominated SEO in the early 2010s. And in later years, fueled much of the need to produce backlinks. However, now, thanks to these engines, Google can better understand if a page is answering questions for an end User without the need of external signals.
Introducing: topical authority. The concept is simple: the more you help Users answer questions across a single topic, the more Google begins to “trust” your answers. As a result, your domain earns a type of “authority” that gives it an edge (ranking for keywords becomes easier).
How to Find Topical Relevance During Keyword Research
Topical relevance really becomes important when you’re thinking about keyword planning or when you’re creating a topical authority map. The concept of topical relevance has actually made SEO simpler and more challenging.
For the average person trying to perform SEO, it’s made it more complicated. In order to rank, you’re forced to string together a deep weave of information to almost replicate Google’s own understanding of a topic's knowledge graph. Making it easier for SEO professionals to know what to create. However, making the process more cumbersome as the “leg work” deepens.
How to find keyword topical relevance in Ahrefs:
Tools like Ahrefs have made topical relevance easy to spot. However, they often only drill in on a per keyword basis. It’s important to understand that if you’re targeting a very competitive keyword, you may have multiple “fingers” of semantically related (or topically relevant) terms that you’ll need to keep track of.
In the keyword explorer in Ahrefs, navigate to the “Matching terms” box and open that. From here, you’ll want to look at all the topics and queries that are clearly related to your keyword. In some instances, you’ll need to use your discretion to eliminate those. And that’s really it!
Easy steps to do this:
- Navigate to the keyword explorer in Ahrefs
- Start with a parent or big keyword you want to target
- Click the “Matching terms” see all keywords link
- Use your own discretion to determine complete relevance
How to find keyword topical relevance in Google:
Luckily, Google shows us keyword relevance. It does it in the form of showing us related nouns (people, places, things). For example, if we search for a baseball game score, we often see relationships to those individual baseball teams.
You can use Google’s own search engine results pages to give you related terms. In addition, you can use the autocomplete in the search box to better understand deeper relationships to individual topics.
Easy steps to do this:
- Search the keyword that you want to target in Google
- Look around the rich results page for indicators of other keywords, use your own judgment to determine how closely related those topics are
- Start going A through Z on your keyword, using the autocomplete to see other related topics or keywords
Common Questions
Questions and answers about topical relevance:
How important is topical relevance in SEO?
As of 2024 and going into 2025, it’s extremely important. If you’re creating a content strategy that’s expanding your topical reach too far from each other, there’s a quite literal scoring method that Google uses to understand your own authority on a subject.
The more that you expand your reach of a given subject (meaning, further and further away from your core target topical authority) the more likely you are to actually lose rank position.
Why is Google doing this?
It all comes down to Google trying to serve the best User Experience for Users. They want to give Users helpful, trusted, and new insights. That’s what keeps their engine working. And that’s what keeps searchers coming back.
Since backlinks and the importance of them are often not applicable any longer, the best way for them to comprehend quality is to look at User signals and pages. And determine if you’re more often driving quality User signals (no bounce rate, the user getting their question answered, and more).
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Written by Joshua Davis - VP of SEO
Updated on:
November 5, 2024
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