Running topic-first SEO for a client is the same six steps with three differences. The topic list has to come from their counter, not from your keyword tool. The map is the deliverable they can see and sign off, instead of a ranking report. And the receipts, the things only they know, have to come out of them on a schedule, or the pages you write become copy 1,001 with their logo on it.
The receipts interview
I call the third difference 'the receipts interview': thirty minutes with the client, per page, before anything gets drafted. You cannot know that two of the four entry-level machines came back with a steam valve fault. The shop owner does, and will tell you in a minute if asked the right question. Without that half hour, the best writer in the world produces a tidy, correct, interchangeable page.
The rule: every client page gets thirty minutes of the client's own knowledge, and the map is what you show them instead of a ranking report. The consequence is that you price by the page, not by the keyword, and the monthly conversation is about which topic produced enquiries, which is a conversation clients understand and renew on.
| Per client | What it is | When | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| The map | Their topics, the pages each needs, covered, gap, ranking, now or later. Signed off | Once, then re-sorted quarterly | A day at the start |
| Three pages | Blueprint, receipts interview, draft, the checks, on-page | Monthly | About nine hours |
| The launch list | Run for each page, with their list and their profiles | Publish days | An hour and a half |
| The ledger | Impressions, clicks, enquiries, mentions, cited. Per topic | Monthly, one page | An hour |
| The prune | Merges, updates, deletions, with them in the room for the deletions | Quarterly | Two hours |
That is roughly thirteen hours per client per month at three pages, plus the forum hour, which for a client has to be done in their name and with their say-so. Below three pages a month the topic never finishes. Above six, the receipts interviews become the bottleneck, and the client's patience with them runs out before yours does.
The thirty-minute receipts interview, for one page. The page is "water leaking from the machine" for the espresso shop. Five questions, in this order: What comes in most often with this complaint? What do you check first, and why that first? What has the customer usually already done wrong by the time it reaches you? Is there a photo on your phone of the last one? What is one number you know about it, a price, a time, a count? The answers are the blue block of the page, and they took the owner thirty minutes of talking and you thirty minutes of listening. Without them, the page is the manufacturer's troubleshooting table, reformatted.
Worked example: the five questions that produce the receipts
Onboarding a client
- Collect the questions across their counter before you open a keyword tool. Their inbox, their phone, their reviews, one forum thread in their trade. Step 2, done with them, not for them.
- Build the map and get it signed off. Topics, pages, covered, gap, ranking, now or later, and the order. This is the moment they see what they are buying, and it is a better moment than a keyword list.
- Agree the pace: three pages a month, one topic at a time. Fewer and the topic never finishes. More and the receipts interviews stop happening.
- Book the receipts interview as a standing half hour per page. In the contract, if you can. It is the part of the work they cannot delegate, and the part that makes the pages theirs.
- Run the launch list in their name. Their newsletter, their profiles, their forum account, with their say-so. Never yours.
- Report the ledger per topic, once a month, on one page. Impressions and clicks per topic, enquiries per topic, mentions, cited or not. The enquiries line is the renewal conversation.
- Do the quarterly prune with them in the room for the deletions. Nobody likes watching their old pages go. Everybody likes what happens to the topic afterwards.
When you need this, and when you don't
You need this if you run topic-first SEO for more than one business: an agency, a freelancer, an in-house marketer with several brands. The three differences are the whole adaptation. The rest of the Academy applies unchanged, per client.
You don't need a merged map across clients. Every client has their own market, their own counter and their own results pages, and a combined view of an espresso shop and a tax adviser tells you nothing about either. A roster is a list of separate maps with one column for enquiries. That is all it needs to be.
Next
- Back to the start of the method for a new client: Topic-first SEO, the short version.
- SitePerfector runs the full system per client, each with its own map, and a roster view across them: For agencies.
- If you would rather hand a client's map and pages to me: Done for you.