Topicality and Relevance

Topical relevance is the importance and understanding of a website or page content to a reader’s interests. It’s one of the key factors that search engines consider when they rank how well your content addresses a user’s search intent.

A page’s topical relevance is based on three elements:

• Keywords: The short and longtail keywords that someone types into a search engine when searching for content on a particular topic.

• Content: The broader material on a page that should be relevant to the topic someone is searching for.
• Backlinks: The inbound links that a site or page receives from other websites.

These elements, collectively, determine the authority a site enjoys on a particular topic. A camping publisher may be viewed as authoritative for beginner campers because it contains content and keywords geared towards their needs — “new to camping” articles that address how to set up a tent, for example.