The Topic Wheel

The Topic Wheel is the content strategy framework BlitzMetrics uses to organize everything a personal brand or business publishes around a central product or service, so that every piece of content — every video, article, social post, and collaboration — builds authority instead of creating noise. If you have ever published content that felt random or disconnected from your core message, the Topic Wheel is how you fix that.

The framework works because it mirrors how real audiences discover and trust a brand. People do not start by caring about your product. They start by connecting with your story and the stories of people they already trust. The Topic Wheel organizes content into three concentric rings — WHY on the outside, HOW in the middle, and WHAT at the center — so that your content strategy moves audiences naturally from awareness to trust to purchase.

This is the definitive article for the Topic Wheel concept. For how individual articles connect to each other within this framework, see the SEO Tree. For how Google recognizes the people and brands referenced in your Topic Wheel, watch Marketing Mechanic Episode 1: How Google Actually Decides Who Ranks (Entities + Trust).

WHY — The Outer Ring

The outer ring of the Topic Wheel is the WHY. This is where your audience first encounters you — not through a sales pitch, but through stories. One-minute stories about what you stand for, what drives you, and what you believe in. These are the stories that make people say “I relate to that person” before they ever care about your product.

The WHY ring has two types of content: stories from you and stories from other people. Your own stories show who you are as a person — the moments that shaped your career, the lessons you learned the hard way, the values that guide your decisions. Other people’s stories come from interviews, collaborations, podcast appearances, and testimonials where someone in your network shares their own WHY while naturally connecting it to you.

This is where entities matter most. Every person you interview, every authority figure who endorses your work, every collaborator whose story you tell — each one is an entity that Google’s Knowledge Graph can recognize. When Dennis Yu interviews a Knowledge Panel holder on a podcast, and that episode links to Dennis’s site, and Dennis’s site links to the guest’s personal brand site — both entities get stronger. Google sees the connection. AI systems see the connection. The WHY ring is how you build those entity connections through authentic relationships, not manufactured backlinks.

The WHY ring also serves the tangential audience strategy. Your core audience is the people who will buy from you. But the people who influence your core audience — industry leaders, adjacent professionals, complementary service providers — are your tangential audience. By creating WHY content with and about these tangential figures, you position yourself in front of their followers, who then become aware of your brand through a trusted referral rather than a cold ad.

In practice, the WHY ring is built from one-minute videos — short, authentic clips where you or your collaborators share a single story, lesson, or perspective. These are produced through the Content Factory and amplified through the Dollar a Day strategy.

HOW — The Middle Ring

The middle ring is the HOW — the topics that demonstrate your expertise. These are not about your product directly. They are about the knowledge areas that surround your product and prove you understand the space deeply enough to be trusted.

If your WHAT (the center) is a plumbing service, your HOW topics might be water heater maintenance, drain cleaning best practices, pipe inspection technology, and seasonal plumbing preparation. If your WHAT is a digital marketing agency, your HOW topics might be Facebook advertising strategy, content repurposing workflows, digital plumbing setup, and SEO auditing.

The HOW ring is where your Topic Wheel intersects with the SEO Tree. Each HOW topic becomes a branch on the SEO Tree — it needs a definitive article, supporting content (leaves), and internal links that connect everything. The Topic Wheel tells you which topics to cover. The SEO Tree tells you how to organize them on your website so Google understands the structure.

This is the critical connection between the two frameworks: the Topic Wheel is the planning tool (what content to create and why), and the SEO Tree is the architecture tool (how to structure and link that content once it exists). They are complementary, not competing. You build the Topic Wheel first to map your content strategy, then you plant the SEO Tree to execute it on your website.

The HOW ring groups the WHY stories from the outer ring into coherent topic clusters. A dozen one-minute videos about lessons learned from running Facebook ads for local businesses all cluster under the HOW topic of “local service advertising.” A handful of podcast interviews about entity authority and Knowledge Panels cluster under the HOW topic of “SEO and entity building.” The topics give structure to the stories.

WHAT — The Center

The center of the Topic Wheel is the WHAT — the product or service you sell. This is where the audience journey ends in a purchase, a signup, or an engagement. Everything in the WHY and HOW rings exists to build enough trust and authority that when the audience reaches the center, the sale feels like a natural next step rather than a cold transaction.

The WHAT should be specific and clear. It is not “marketing services.” It is “the Dollar a Day advertising strategy for local service businesses.” It is not “SEO consulting.” It is “the Social Amplification Engine that takes your best content and distributes it across every channel.” The more specific your WHAT, the more focused your HOW topics become, and the more targeted your WHY stories become.

The Topic Wheel works from the outside in for the audience: they encounter WHY stories first, become interested in HOW topics second, and discover the WHAT last. But you build it from the inside out: start by defining your WHAT, then identify the HOW topics that support it, then create the WHY stories that attract the right audience to those topics.

How the Topic Wheel Connects to Entities

The Topic Wheel is not just a content planning framework — it is an entity building strategy. Every ring of the wheel maps to entity signals that Google’s Knowledge Graph uses to understand who you are, what you know, and who trusts you.

In Marketing Mechanic Episode 1, Dennis explains how Google ranks based on entities and trust. An entity is any person, organization, place, or concept that Google can uniquely identify — it has a name, attributes, and relationships to other entities. When you build a Topic Wheel, you are systematically creating content that strengthens your entity profile.

The WHY ring builds entity relationships. Every person you interview, collaborate with, or feature becomes a connected entity. Google sees that Dennis Yu is connected to the Golden State Warriors, to Content Factory clients, to podcast hosts, and to marketing conference organizers. Each connection is an entity relationship that strengthens both sides.

The HOW ring builds topical authority. Google assigns topical expertise based on the depth and breadth of content you publish on a subject. A Topic Wheel with five HOW topics, each supported by a definitive article and multiple WHY stories, signals to Google that you are a genuine authority on those subjects — not someone who mentioned the topic once in a blog post.

The WHAT at the center is your brand entity. When Google’s Knowledge Graph has enough signals — consistent identity across platforms, authoritative content organized by topic, entity relationships with other recognized entities — it builds a Knowledge Panel for you. The Topic Wheel is the strategy that generates those signals.

This is why the Topic Wheel and the SEO Tree work together. The Topic Wheel plans the entity signals. The SEO Tree organizes them on your website. Entity linking is the specific technique for connecting them at the article level — making sure that when you mention a person, you link to their personal brand site, and when you mention a concept, you link to its definitive article.

How to Build Your Topic Wheel

Step 1: Define Your WHAT

Start at the center. What is the one product, service, or offering that you want to be known for? Be specific. Write it in one sentence. If you cannot say it in one sentence, you have not defined it clearly enough.

Step 2: Identify Your HOW Topics

List the three to seven topics that surround your WHAT. These should be subjects where you have genuine expertise and that your target audience cares about. Each HOW topic will become a branch on your SEO Tree — a definitive article supported by related content.

Use keyword research, customer questions, and your own experience to identify these topics. If you are a plumber, your HOW topics come from the services you perform and the problems you solve. If you are a marketing consultant, your HOW topics come from the methodologies you use and the results you deliver.

Step 3: Map Your WHY Stories

For each HOW topic, list the people, stories, and collaborations that connect to it. Who have you worked with in this area? What results have you achieved? Who are the authority figures in this space that you have relationships with?

Each person on this list is a potential entity connection. Each story is a potential one-minute video. Each collaboration is a potential podcast episode, guest article, or joint case study.

Step 4: Create and Organize the Content

Produce the WHY stories first — they are the easiest to create (one-minute videos require minimal production) and they generate the most engagement. Then use the Content Factory process to repurpose those stories into articles, social posts, and other formats.

As content accumulates, organize it using the SEO Tree. Each HOW topic gets a definitive article. Each WHY story links back to the relevant HOW topic. The WHAT at the center connects to all of them. Follow the Blog Posting Guidelines for every article you publish.

Step 5: Amplify with Dollar a Day

Use the Dollar a Day strategy to put paid distribution behind your best-performing WHY stories. A dollar a day to the right audience gets your story in front of the people who need to see it — including the tangential audiences whose attention brings credibility and new connections to your Topic Wheel.

Topic Wheel vs. SEO Tree: How They Work Together

The most common question about these two frameworks is whether they are the same thing. They are not, but they are deeply connected.

The Topic Wheel is the strategic planning tool. It answers: what content should I create, who should I create it with, and how does it all connect to my core offering? You build a Topic Wheel before you create content. It is outward-facing — you could draw it on a whiteboard with a client or present it at a conference.

The SEO Tree is the architectural execution tool. It answers: how should I organize all this content on my website so that every page strengthens every other page? You build an SEO Tree as you publish content. It is inward-facing — it guides your content team, your AI agents, and your internal linking strategy.

The Topic Wheel tells you what to plant. The SEO Tree tells you where to plant it and how to connect the roots.

In practice, the HOW topics on your Topic Wheel become the branches on your SEO Tree. The WHY stories become the leaves. The WHAT at the center becomes the trunk. When both frameworks are aligned, every piece of content you create has a purpose (Topic Wheel) and a place (SEO Tree).

The Topic Wheel in the Nine Triangles Framework

The Topic Wheel sits within the Content side of the Nine Triangles framework. In the MAA (Metrics, Analysis, Action) cycle, it is the planning layer that determines what content gets produced before the Content Factory executes on it.

When you apply GCT (Goals, Content, Targeting) to your Topic Wheel, the WHAT maps to your Goals, the HOW maps to your Content strategy, and the WHY maps to your Targeting — because the people and stories in the WHY ring define the audiences you are trying to reach.

Real Examples of the Topic Wheel in Action

Dennis Yu’s Personal Brand Topic Wheel

Dennis Yu’s WHAT is the Dollar a Day advertising strategy for local service businesses and personal brands. The HOW topics include Facebook advertising, content repurposing (Content Factory), entity building (Knowledge Panels and KGMID SEO), the Nine Triangles framework, and mentoring young adults in digital marketing. The WHY stories include collaborations with figures like the Golden State Warriors’ marketing team, presentations at conferences alongside industry authorities, podcast appearances on shows like the James Dooley Podcast, and one-minute videos from Dennis’s daily experiences.

Each HOW topic has a definitive article. Each WHY story is a leaf on the SEO Tree. The entire system feeds the entity signals that power Dennis’s Google Knowledge Panel.

A Local Service Business Topic Wheel

Consider a plumbing company in Phoenix. The WHAT is emergency plumbing repair and installation services. The HOW topics are drain cleaning, water heater installation, pipe inspection, and commercial plumbing. The WHY stories are customer testimonials (“they saved us when our pipe burst at 2am”), community involvement stories, and collaborations with local real estate agents and home inspectors who refer clients.

Each HOW topic becomes a service page (branch) on the website. Each WHY story becomes a case study or testimonial page (leaf) that links back to the service page. The Thank You Machine generates the testimonial content automatically.

A Personal Brand Consultant’s Topic Wheel

A consultant building authority in the personal branding space might have the WHAT as “personal brand website builds and coaching.” The HOW topics cover digital plumbing setup, personal branding strategy, website QA and optimization, and content creation. The WHY stories come from the clients whose sites they built, the results those clients achieved, and collaborations with other consultants who serve the same audience.

What Others Are Saying About the Topic Wheel

The Topic Wheel is not just a BlitzMetrics internal framework — it is being taught, applied, and validated by marketers, agencies, and personal brand builders around the world. Here is what people say about it after putting it into practice.

Practitioners Who Have Built Their Own Topic Wheels

Liana Ling, digital marketer and Dollar a Day practitioner, shared on LinkedIn after going through the AdSkills training: “I’m going through what Dennis Yu taught us in AdSkills.com and started to create my Topic Wheel. It is going to be helpful to refocus my [content strategy].” Liana also mapped out the full BlitzMetrics strategy publicly on Facebook, showing how the Topic Wheel connects to Dollar a Day and the Content Factory in one integrated system. Her post received 60+ reactions.

Mark Lack, motivational speaker and personal branding expert, built his own Topic Wheel with topics including public speaking, business coaching, and motivational training. His Topic Wheel is documented at blitzmetrics.com/mark-lacks-topic-wheel and is featured in Devon Hennig’s walkthrough of the framework.

Third-Party Coverage and Endorsements

Devon Hennig, writer and former software executive, published a full guide titled “Tackling Personal Brands with the Topic Wheel” on his website, calling it “a powerful strategy designed by Dennis Yu at Blitzmetrics” that allows you to “produce content faster and leverage word of mouth for your funnel.” His article walks through the five-step process with screenshots of Mark Lack’s Topic Wheel as the primary example.

Dr. Ai Addyson-Zhang, educator and LinkedIn thought leader, published an article with 140+ reactions titled “Your Go-to Guide for Facebook Ads: Five Lessons from Dennis Yu and BlitzMetrics” on LinkedIn, featuring the Topic Wheel as a key concept alongside the Dollar a Day strategy and the Content Factory.

The Conquer Local Podcast featured Dennis explaining the Topic Wheel on Episode 114, where he described how “personal branding means you’re gonna assemble what we call a Topic Wheel. And the outside ring of the wheel are all of these [authority figures and stories].” The episode is available on the Conquer Local website.

Fluxe Digital Marketing, a content marketing agency, featured the Topic Wheel framework in their interview with Dennis titled “The 3 Pillars of Genuine Authority,” noting that the Topic Wheel “aims to build systematically intentionally, not randomly.”

Mohammed Nasaj wrote on LinkedIn about how Dennis Yu’s Topic Wheel strategy was instrumental in generating results, describing the concept in his article “How to hack Facebook advertising in 2019” which received 10+ reactions.

Jeremy Ross Miller created a YouTube video titled “RAW: How to Make a Topic Wheel” walking viewers through how to build one from scratch, calling it “a powerful strategy designed by Dennis Yu at Blitzmetrics to accomplish all three [goals of content strategy].” The video has received 480+ views and serves as an independent tutorial validating the framework.

Brocton Rye shared on LinkedIn a step-by-step breakdown of the Topic Wheel process: “Step 4: Create a topic wheel — identify six topics relevant to the [brand]… Dennis Yu and it will work for you.”

High Rise Influence, a contractor marketing organization, featured the Topic Wheel in their LinkedIn content, describing how “Jack walked the room through the Topic Wheel, showing how mapping core [topics to authority figures]” drives results for local service businesses.

William Jones, who runs the Local SEO Strategies community on Facebook, shared his experience implementing the Topic Wheel alongside Dennis’s Knowledge Panel strategies, noting that “it helped me secure my Google Knowledge Panel (a huge win)” and describing how “we walked through the Topic Wheel to help them map the areas they [want to be known for].”

Conference Presentations

The Topic Wheel has been presented at Social Media Marketing World (SMMW), one of the largest digital marketing conferences in the world. Attendees have documented the framework in their conference recaps, with bloggers noting that Dennis “showed a topic wheel” as part of his presentation on Facebook Ads for Local Businesses, demonstrating how the framework applies to driving store traffic and sales.

Your Assignment

Draw your Topic Wheel right now. Put your WHAT in the center — one sentence describing what you sell. In the HOW ring, write three to seven topics that demonstrate your expertise. In the WHY ring, list the people, stories, and collaborations that connect to each topic.

Then check: does each HOW topic have a definitive article on your website? If not, create one following the Blog Posting Guidelines. Does each WHY story link back to its HOW topic? If not, add the links. Is the whole structure connected in your SEO Tree?

If you want help building your Topic Wheel and executing it through the Content Factory, explore our personal branding program or learn how to amplify your best content with the Dollar a Day strategy.

Download the Skill File

This article has a companion Claude skill file that automates the process described above. Download it below, rename from .zip to .skill, and install it in Claude to get step-by-step guidance.