Create a Topic Wheel for Massive Authority and Power

The Topic Wheel is one part of personal branding and content marketing.

We have a course on content marketing, which is how do you create content? How do you organize the content? How do you produce the content? 

I understand many people get confused because there are so many courses. 

So, we like to recommend one at a time. It’s like the library, where we’ll give you access to anything you want, but we recommend doing one or two things simultaneously. Then as you get those things done, ask for more. That will save you a lot of time as well. 

You can start making the videos before we go through the topic but believe in learning, doing, and teaching. It would help if you were always learning, but you must take action. As you take action, you can come back and tune in.

For example, you have topic wheels for people and companies, and if you put yourself or your company in the middle, this is what you’re selling. With a funnel, you can make a topic wheel anywhere.

People are buying your products and services. What are the things you want to be known for is a step up from that, and if people were to buy your product or service, you need to have content around these things instead of just saying that you’re authoritative in, i.e., digital marketing or entrepreneurship.

Look for other people that are authoritative in that, and see if you can create content with those people around different things. So this will be the topic on the outside.

Create content with high-authority people

It will help if you co-create content with high-authority people.

For example, if I’m making content with Al Casey- – CEO of American airlines- – that implies that I have some knowledge of managing businesses, airlines, and other domains where they are authorities.

3 Components of the Topic Wheel

So, we think about WHY, HOW, and WHAT, which are the three components in the topic wheel.

Think of it as a top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, but you have to wrap it into a circle as in the topic wheel.

When you have content that ties to you, it could be stories that these other people tell, and it could be you hanging out with them at dinner or a podcast that naturally ties into their expertise, which ties into who you are. So, people see that you have a connection with these other people.

It could also be content that you create. It doesn’t have to be content that’s co-created with other people, but that does have higher authority than somebody who’s a coach or an author.

It’s always more powerful when your customers and clients also talk about it, creating social proof. When other people talk about you, they believe in your expertise.

The hub of the Topic wheel is getting people to buy.

It is something that people ask all the time. They say I don’t have the network to put this together. I don’t have tons of repurposed content in these other channels. 

That’s okay. It’s just like bingo. 

Start with the different pieces you have. Put the details of your high authority content into a Google sheet, your content library. 

Then upload it on TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube, promote it for a dollar a day, repurpose it, and convert it into a blog post. That’s what these channel-level objects are.

The core of digital marketing is when you have something unique. Try to get more out of the thing. 

Topic Wheel drives value

The topic wheel drives value to you because of your relationship, key customer, review, and a piece of authority.

A topic wheel is a machine where you take your best-performing assets, put them in the machine, close the lid, and press the button, and you get ten more of the same thing.

What are the top things in your business that you want to amplify? Put that in the machine, press the button, and have more of it.

You can have courses, too, but they are the best if you have a couple of pieces of great content. So when you create training, it’s evergreen.

The beauty of SEO is that it continues to drive massive value for us.

Look at the content you should be mapping to the topic wheel. If you do any content, I believe you should be doing a topic wheel. It doesn’t matter what your channel is.

It doesn’t matter what your product/service or reviews are if people buy based on your expertise, word of mouth, or because customers love you. Then you’ve to create things where you connect your network with your knowledge. 

Start by creating more content and organizing your stuff. Do not think you can’t make content until you have some perfectly mapped-out strategy.

You need to create content along the way, and you should not randomly start creating content and think, maybe one day, I can assemble it along the way. That’s a horrible strategy too. 

You have to start with something that’s already working and that will help you frame what these other topics are.