As a lifestyle blogger, topical relevance is the difference between
- a random, thrown-together blog trying to be taken seriously
- a blog with established topics run like they all connect to each other
Does this mean no one will land on your blog and criticize it for lacking a niche?
No. But…every single page on your blog is the first point of connection with new readers.
Having a good site structure prevents the nicheless random panic. Readers who resonate with your content won’t mind, anyway. 
Topic clusters never worked for me long-term.
I learned about them for freelance writing clients, but noticed their blogs died despite doing everything “right”.
Why was my blog thriving while theirs died?
I tried the SEO strategy for myself, and my blog also began dying. I lost interest in blogging about my usual topics, too.
I went back to the topic loop, and my blog traffic improved.
What is topic looping?
A topic loop connects all your posts to each other.
Kinda how all Wikipedia pages are connected to each other.
Unlike a topic cluster, a topic loop has no pillar page.
No “hub” page everything branches off.
We are not creating trees.
We’re creating Alice’s chart from The L Word.
See the difference, know the difference, visualize the difference.
Think in points, where lines meet.
Choose 2-4 major points to focus on
A point is where multiple lines meet.
These are your starting points, like Alice’s friends’ names were for her chart. You can always add more points later.
If you have an existing blog, your categories are probably your points (but they don’t have to be).
A DIY blogger may choose to focus on
- Cat-themed projects
- Cricut projects
- Upcycling projects
All of these could intertwine and connect to each other, and that’s okay. That’s what we need, anyway, for the loops to occur.
On my lifestyle blog, I’m choosing to focus on
- Blogging
- The Sims 4
- Watercolor painting
These topics are completely unrelated to each other at a glance, belonging to completely different industries:
- Art
- Business/media
- Video gaming
Looping them will require more creativity than the DIY blog’s focus points, but not impossible.
Brainstorm specific post ideas for each focus point
One post = one topic.
I don’t like repeating myself.
I don’t want to see more than one post showing up in search engines for the same queries when one post could collect them all.
But this is what happens when you fragment a topic. Breaking one idea into multiple posts increases the quantity of your posts, but lowers the quality.
You can only add so much water to Mott’s Apple Juice before a toddler knows you’re diluting their sugar intake.
I also prefer short, clean permalinks. You can’t have that with segmented posts.
I call this “clean topic coverage”, ’cause it keeps a blog’s structure tidy.
There’s nothing wrong with having a concise, 3000-word post as long as it’s accessibly formatted for blog readers.
Follow the one post = one topic guideline. The guideline is nuanced, when you consider list posts like ways to grow your lifestyle blog.
One post = one topic means you can create short, clean slugs.
One post = one topic teaches your audience that when you link to posts like
they know they don’t have to keep digging for more information.
They know they can remember one simple URL instead of a longer, complex one.
Create those posts
My blog post production process varies depending on my motivation, mood, energy — lots of factors play a part.
Sometimes, I’ll outline several posts. Other times, I’ll dive into writing it. I dove into writing this post here!
But sometimes I have ideas for posts and the only way to make sure I will remember them is by making the headers, adding bulleted list notes under some of them, and hoping for the best.
Link your posts to other existing posts
Linking your posts to each other contributes to your blog structure. It’s how you create rabbit holes on your blog.
Physical links are obvious.
But how could you reference other posts?
Perhaps…
- Comparisons that could be exaggerations but are real experiences, like something being as painful as dropping a pickle jar on my toe or as scary as when my heart stopped beating for 10 seconds
- Mentioning how an unrelated skill like blogging helps you survive a toxic job
- Random, ridiculous reference to break tension in your writing and add humor
Blogging for 16+ years, I learned how to work personal details into evergreen content.
When my DIY blog is active, I could reference and link to my crafts, e.g. “We’re not making [specific craft] here. We’re [doing this instead].”
Publish or schedule the posts
I create a handful of posts in a loop and publish them in one go, sometimes backdated.
This way, they’re interconnected from the start and I don’t need to wait for the other posts to be published to link to them.
I prefer scheduling most of my posts, but not when attempting to establish or nurture a new topic loop.
‘Cause I see where deeper explanations are needed, and a new post is the best way, but that post not existing yet is a barrier to my other explanations.
Update older posts with links to newer ones
Keep the loops going! Create more loops!
Keep linking to other posts, referencing seemingly unrelated posts, in your posts.
Create rabbit holes for your readers to fall into so, before they know it, they’re three hours deep into your life story or a hobby you picked up that healed your inner child.
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