Your rocks are in the wrong order.

_{Day 194/100}

Hey—It's Tim. 

Quick one from the trenches. Maybe 2 years ago.

A client said, “We did everything right… 40 posts… nothing moved.”

I’ve been that guy.
In my drafting days I tried to “rank” with a pile of posts too.
Piles don’t rank. Systems do.

Topic, not keyword spray

Client: “We spread our keywords across the blog so we could ‘cover more ground.’ One post per keyword. Different writers. Different weeks.”

Me: “That’s the old advice talking. It’s not a ‘more keywords’ problem. It’s a structure problem.”

Client: “Structure?”

Me: “You built a pile of posts, not a topic. Search today rewards topics—clean clusters that are MECE.”

MECE = Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive.

• Mutually Exclusive: each section covers a distinct slice - little overlap. It should read like a mini blog inside the main one.

• Collectively Exhaustive: all slices together cover the whole topic - signals authority.

Client: “So our ‘sprinkle keywords everywhere’ thing…?”

Me: “…spreads thin, creates duplicates, and confuses both readers and models. The result is silence.”

The result is Google takes to notice. And your content is an overhead.

I have a whole short on this concept.

The turnaround

Client: “Okay - what did we change?”

Me: “Three moves.”

• We declared a pillar: one hub that answers the big question and routes to deeper reads.

• We mapped a topic tree: each child tackled a unique angle - no fuzzy overlaps.

• We interlinked like adults: hub → child, child → hub, and smart laterals when it helped the reader.

Client: “And keywords?”

Me: “They live inside the topic strategy now. Each piece uses the entities, questions, and proofs people/models expect for that slice - not a bag of near-duplicates.”

And so we shipped in one-week sprints. Rankings climbed. Traffic followed.
And then when AIO panels started swallowing queries, the site stayed strong.

The hub nailed primary intent, children covered the edges, and the whole thing read like a coherent system, not 40 islands.”

This is the core problem I see with content these days.
No cohesion. And the content just “covers” things. It never does the topic justice.

You can do this yourself.

Step 1 - Pick the pillar
Choose the #1 “money” topic your buyer actually searches and your product truly solves. Build a hub whose job is to give the best direct answer + links to deeper reads.

Step 2 - Build a MECE map
List 10–20 subtopics that don’t overlap and together cover the whole. If two ideas feel similar, separate by intent (what-is vs how-to vs comparison vs checklist) or merge.

Step 3 - Brief for intent
For every child: define reader intent, list 5–10 must-have entities, line up 2–3 proof points (quotes, screenshots, data), and write the answer block first (3–5 sentences).

The easiest way to do this is spend time reading everything that ranks for the topic you want to write for. Map the patterns. Map the gaps. Cover both.

Patterns are how you rank.
Gaps are yow you stand out.

Step 4 - Ship in a 1-Day loop
Outline (30m) → Draft (60–90m) → Proof-in receipts (30m) → Publish (15m).
At least these are my times with Penfriend… just sayin'

Repeat per topic.

Step 5 - Interlink with purpose
Hub ↔ child; add laterals only when the reader needs the next step. No link dumps.
Aim for a link every 250-300 words.

Step 6 - Guardrails
One URL = one intent. Consistent slugs. A naming convention. Monthly audits to kill/merge things ranking for duplicate topics.

Step 7 - Refresh cadence
Every 12 weeks, revisit the hub and top children with new proof, FAQs, and examples from search + sales calls.

Follow that and you stop “spreading keywords.” You start owning topics.

Or let me do it for you

You can run that plan - and if you do, you’ll win.
Or you can grab the new Penfriend and we’ll do the heavy lifting.

This is the base of the custom content plans I will personally build for you in the founders tier.

Your next 12 weeks of content lined up. And then I’m going to run a workshop on how to do so you can do it every 12 weeks.

Founders Tier is open. I’ve got 13 spots left.

✌️ Tim "The blog post is dead, long live the blog post" Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai

Same brain, different platforms: X, Threads, LinkedIn.

P.S. Put the coffee on and run this.
Open a sheet → paste your last 30–40 blog URLs.

Add two columns: Root noun (the head term, singular) and Intent (what-is / how-to / compare / checklist / pricing).

If any two rows match both columns, you’re cannibalizing. Merge the weaker into the stronger, 301 it, move any unique proof, add hub↔child links above the fold, hit reindex.
Boring. Works.

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