Chapter 8 — Exercises

Work these in order; they climb from recall to a real content plan. You will get the most from them with a keyword list in front of you (your own, from Chapter 7, or a client's) and a browser open. No tool required here costs anything. Items marked with a dagger (†) have full worked solutions in Appendix — Answers to Selected Exercises; odd-numbered items are worked there too. Attempt every item before you look.

A reminder in the spirit of the chapter: the goal is never more pages. It is the right pages, each with one job, wired into a structure — and the discipline to not build the rest.

A. Recall and vocabulary

Exercise 8.1 — Define topic cluster, pillar page, and cluster content in your own words. Then name the one structural element that turns a set of pages into a real cluster rather than a pile.

Exercise 8.2 — What is content mapping, and what is the single rule it enforces about intent? Finish this sentence without looking back: "One page, one ______."

Exercise 8.3 — Define content gap, and list the three flavors of gap the chapter distinguishes. Give a one-line example of each.

Exercise 8.4 † — Define content velocity. Then state, in one sentence each, what the chapter says velocity is and is not with respect to ranking.

Exercise 8.5 — What are the minimum fields a real editorial calendar row should contain? Name at least five, and say which one comes from Chapter 7's work.

Exercise 8.6 — In one sentence, what is cannibalization, and which later chapter owns its full treatment and cure?

B. Applied reasoning

Exercise 8.7 — The chapter claims "a content plan is inseparable from a site-architecture plan." Explain what that means, using the pillar-cluster model, and name the chapter that builds the architecture side.

Exercise 8.8 — Why does a cluster of ten thin, near-identical pages perform worse than one strong page — even though it is "more content" and neatly interlinked? Tie your answer to at least two ideas from the chapter.

Exercise 8.9 † — A colleague says, "Our competitor ranks for 300 keywords we don't; let's write 300 articles." Give the two questions from Chapter 7 that every one of those 300 gaps must pass before it earns a place on the calendar, and explain why writing all 300 would likely lower the site's traffic.

Exercise 8.10 — Explain the difference between a topic gap, a coverage gap, and an intent gap, and say which one a keyword-gap tool (Ahrefs/Semrush) can and cannot find for you.

Exercise 8.11 — Why does the chapter insist on building the pillar early and sequencing the calendar by cluster rather than by whatever seems interesting that week? What does the ordering buy you?

Exercise 8.12 — Restate the "post daily" advice in its most charitable form, then give the honest, evidence-sorted rebuttal: what is false, what has a grain of truth, and what rule should replace it.

Exercise 8.13 — The chapter says "a gap is a candidate, not an assignment." Explain how this single idea separates a strategist from someone who just does whatever a tool's report says.

C. Mapping and "why won't it rank" problems

For each, produce a decision — a map, a merge, a split, or a diagnosis — and justify it.

Exercise 8.14 † — A site has three live pages: "Best Furnace Brands 2026," "Top-Rated Furnaces," and "Furnace Brand Comparison." All three sit between position 6 and 15 for the query best furnace brand, trading places week to week, none breaking the top five. Diagnose the problem by name, and state the fix.

Exercise 8.15 — A page titled "Everything About Furnaces" tries to be a buying guide, a repair how-to, a cost breakdown, and a booking page. It ranks for none of them well. Using the "one primary intent" rule, explain the failure and describe how you would split it.

Exercise 8.16 † — A brand-new, genuinely excellent cluster page ("furnace short cycling") has been live three weeks and gets zero impressions. Nothing on the site links to it and it isn't in the pillar. Which stage (Chapter 1) is failing, and how does this chapter's model prevent it in the first place?

Exercise 8.17 — You inherit a blog with 80 posts and no structure. Describe, in five steps, how you would turn it into two or three clusters — without necessarily publishing anything new first.

Exercise 8.18 — Two pages target furnace repair cost and how much does furnace repair cost. One ranks

6, the other #12. Should you merge them, keep both, or delete one? State your decision and the single check

that would confirm it.

Exercise 8.19 † — A page targeting furnace repair vs. replace is written as a "how a furnace works" explainer. The SERP for that query is full of decision-focused comparison pages. Name the failure precisely, and say whether the fix is a rewrite of that page or a different page — and why.

D. Audit your own site (use a free tool)

Exercise 8.20 — Open Google Search Console for a site you control. In the Performance report, sort queries by impressions and find three where you have high impressions, a low click-through rate, and an average position between roughly 8 and 20. Write one sentence per query naming the likely gap type (coverage, intent, or a near-miss to strengthen). Do not fix anything yet.

Exercise 8.21 † — Pick your most important subject. Sketch a pillar-and-cluster for it: one pillar target (the broad head term) and five to eight spoke topics, each with one primary intent. Then run the two checks from the chapter — no two spokes share an intent, and any transactional topics are routed to service/product pages, not blog posts.

Exercise 8.22 — Take any three existing pages on your site and try to assign each a single primary intent. If you find a page you cannot assign to one intent, you have found a page to split. Record it.

Exercise 8.23 — Using a site: search and your own memory of the site, find two pages that appear to target the same query. Write one sentence proposing keep / merge / delete for the pair (the full method is Chapter 12; here, just make the call and justify it).

E. Research and build

Exercise 8.24 † — Research these keywords. Using free tools (Google Suggest, "People Also Ask," and Search Console if you have it), expand this seed into a cluster: "furnace". Produce a pillar target and at least six spoke topics, each labeled with its primary intent. Then mark which spokes are informational (cluster articles) and which are transactional (route elsewhere).

Exercise 8.25 — Build a seven-row editorial calendar for the cluster you produced in 8.24. Each row needs: target query, primary intent, content type, cluster role (pillar/spoke), a due order (which first and why), and an owner. Sequence it so the pillar and the two highest-priority spokes come first.

Exercise 8.26 — Optimize this plan. Here is a messy content plan for a plumbing site. Rewrite it into a clean map: Water Heater Repair, Fixing a Water Heater, Water Heater Not Working, Water Heater Installation Cost, How to Install a Water Heater, Emergency Plumber Near Me. Group cannibalizing items, assign each resulting page one primary intent, and flag which items are transactional pages rather than articles.

F. Read the report

Exercise 8.27 † — Interpret this content-gap report excerpt.

FIGURE E8.1 — "Keyword-gap: you vs. two competitors"          [constructed teaching example]
  Query                          You     Comp A   Comp B    Est. monthly volume
  "furnace flame sensor"          —        #3       #6         1,900
  "how long do furnaces last"     —        #2       #4         3,400
  "furnace repair near me"        #14      #4       #5         6,200
  "best furnace 2026"             —        #8       #11          880

For each row, say whether it is a topic gap, a coverage/intent issue, or a transactional query that belongs to a different page type — and which one row you would prioritize first, and why. Which row is a trap?

Exercise 8.28 — A dashboard shows your blog published 52 posts last year; 9 of them account for 94% of the blog's organic traffic, and 31 got fewer than 10 visits each. Write the two-sentence interpretation you would put in front of an owner, and the one strategic recommendation that follows (name the chapter that executes it).

G. Myths, ethics, and judgment

Exercise 8.29 † — Spot the myth. A popular agency deck claims: "Google's algorithm favors fresh, active sites, so the #1 growth lever is publishing volume — aim for a new post every business day." Identify the myth, state what is actually true (sorting the grain of truth from the falsehood), and give the cadence rule that should replace it.

Exercise 8.30 † — Ethics / risk judgment. A client insists on hitting "100 blog posts this quarter" to impress an investor, and is happy to use fast, generic, unreviewed drafts to get there. Using the chapter (and forward-looking to Chapters 6 and 13), explain the real risk this creates — not just that it "won't help," but how it could actively harm the site — and propose an honest alternative you could deliver in the same quarter.

H. The Strategy File (Rivertown Home Services)

Exercise 8.31 — Extend Rivertown's Strategy File: design a second cluster (cooling, plumbing, or electrical) the way the chapter designed the furnace cluster. Produce a pillar target and five to seven spokes, each with one primary intent, and note which spokes hand off to Rivertown's service/location pages (Chapters 25 and 33) rather than becoming blog posts.

Exercise 8.32 — Marisa Delgado asks, "How often should we publish?" Write the two-sentence answer you would give her — grounded in this chapter, honest about cadence, and specific enough to act on given a shop full of busy technicians who must review furnace content.

Where these go next. Keep your answers to 8.21, 8.24, 8.25, 8.31, and 8.32 — they are your growing Strategy File (Appendix C's worksheet). The cluster and calendar you build here become the content plan you assemble in full at Chapter 40, and the pages you mapped are the ones you will learn to write in Chapter 9.