If you’re attending the hands-on-workshop, please submit your name, email by signing up here (You’ll also get $90 in credits for keyword forecasts/research)
Reference Blog posts:
- https://jeremyriveraseo.com/seo/how-to-create-worthwhile-seo-content/
- https://linkbuildingideas.com/link-generating-expert-roundups/
- https://www.copypress.com/blog/forecasting-seo-success/
- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UhzdZ58Qmw9bqA67hlCwJDOyU-BBExfwa870C2RPvGM/copy
Topical content creation Workflow Steps
- Understand your audience intent
- Understand funnels
- Understand market/expertise/brand/legal restrictions
- Gather initial keywords (SEO forecasts *paid, SEMrush *paid, ahrefs *paid, content analysis *free
- Understand push/pull of volume/cpc/difficulty
- Understand seasonality
- Understand competitor GAP vs unique value/market proposition
- Clean, Rate, Group and cluster
- leverage forecasting for strategic decisions
- Expand & find Featured Snippets/People also ask
- Determine required topical depth (SERP competitors)
- Determine headline
- Curate h2s
- 40-60 word “FS” capable answers
- Image inclusion
- Lists, tables, videos, quotes
- Repeat for all viable h2s
- Custom calls to action
- Internal Links
- Hub and spoke
- Include outreach for link building & content strategy
Jeremy’s 2026 Refresh: Topical Authority Is How You Get Cited, Not Just Ranked
When I first built this resource, the goal was ranking a page. In 2026 the goal has shifted: you’re now trying to become the source an AI model reaches for when it answers a question. Large language models and AI Overviews don’t pull from a single thin page — they ground their answers in sites that cover a subject completely and unambiguously, with clear entities and interlinked clusters. That’s why the workflow below still holds up: intent, clustering, topical depth versus SERP competitors, and hub-and-spoke internal linking aren’t tactics anymore, they’re the difference between being a footnote and being the citation. I dug into exactly this with Grant Simmons — his “one entity per page” framing and why hallucinations happen when you leave gaps on your site — in this Unscripted SEO episode on entity SEO, LLMs, and the future of search visibility.
My practical advice for 2026: stop publishing orphan pages and start building the full cluster around a topic before you chase any single keyword. Depth, original experience, and a coherent internal structure are what earn machine trust — and they map directly to Google’s own guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness). Use the steps below to plan the cluster, then use the internal links to wire the hub and spokes together. Topical authority compounds; a one-off article does not.