Skip to main content
Topics help you organize prompts into logical groups, making it easier to analyze AI search presence by theme and identify opportunities at a thematic level.

What are Topics?

A topic is a category that groups related prompts together: Topic: “Discovery”
  • “What is the best data validation library for Python?”
  • “Top schema validation tools”
  • “Recommended API validation solutions”
Topic: “Migration”
  • “Migrate from Pydantic v1 to v2”
  • “Alternatives to Marshmallow for Python”
  • “Replacing Cerberus with a modern validator”
Topics provide aggregate metrics across all prompts in the group, making it easier to see which themes perform well and where content investment is needed.

Auto-Created Lifecycle Topics

When you create a project, DevTune automatically generates lifecycle topics based on common user journey stages:
  • Discovery - Prompts about finding and exploring solutions in your category
  • Evaluation - Prompts about comparing options and making decisions
  • Integration - Prompts about setting up and implementing solutions
  • Migration - Prompts about switching from one tool to another
  • Troubleshooting - Prompts about solving problems and fixing issues
These lifecycle topics map to the stages users go through when adopting a tool. You can customize, rename, or delete them as needed.

Why Use Topics?

Thematic Analysis

See presence by theme:
  • Which lifecycle stages show strong presence?
  • Where are thematic gaps in your AI visibility?
  • Which themes have the most competitive pressure?

Volume-Weighted Insights

Topics aggregate data across prompts, and volume-weighted analysis accounts for the relative importance of each prompt. High-volume prompts within a topic have more influence on the topic-level metrics than low-volume prompts.

Strategic Planning

Understand which areas of the user journey need attention:
  • Strong Discovery presence but weak Integration presence suggests your content explains “what” but not “how”
  • Strong Troubleshooting presence but weak Discovery presence means users find you when they have problems but not when they are exploring

Creating and Managing Topics

Creating a Topic

Navigate to AI Search Tracking > Prompts (topics are managed alongside prompts) or access topic management from the sidebar.
  1. Click Create Topic
  2. Enter a topic name
  3. Add an optional description
  4. Save

Assigning Prompts to Topics

When creating or editing a prompt:
  1. Select the topic from the dropdown
  2. Save
You can also bulk-assign prompts to topics from the topic detail view.

Editing Topics

Click on any topic to:
  • Edit the topic name or description
  • View all prompts assigned to the topic
  • Review topic-level metrics

Deleting Topics

Remove a topic by clicking the delete action. Deleting a topic does not delete the prompts assigned to it. Those prompts become unassigned and can be reassigned to other topics.

Topic-Level Metrics

Aggregate Presence Rate

The combined presence rate across all prompts in the topic. This shows how well your brand appears across the entire theme.

Topic Share of Voice

Your share of voice within the topic, compared to competitor brands. This identifies which themes you dominate versus where competitors lead.

Volume-Weighted Presence

Presence rate weighted by the estimated search volume of each prompt. High-volume prompts contribute more to this metric, reflecting their greater real-world impact.

Opportunity Score

Each topic receives an opportunity score that factors in:
  • Current presence rate (lower presence = more room to improve)
  • Estimated aggregate volume (higher volume = more potential impact)
  • Competition level (lower competition = easier to improve)
  • Trend direction (declining presence = more urgent)
Topics with high opportunity scores represent the best candidates for content investment.

Prompt Count

The number of prompts assigned to the topic. Topics with very few prompts may not provide reliable aggregate data.

Topic Organization Strategies

By Lifecycle Stage

The default auto-created topics follow this pattern:
  • Discovery - “Best [category] tools”, “What is [category]?”
  • Evaluation - “[Product] vs [Competitor]”, “Compare [options]”
  • Integration - “How to set up [product]”, “[Product] quickstart”
  • Migration - “Migrate from [competitor]”, “[Competitor] alternatives”
  • Troubleshooting - “Fix [error] in [product]”, “[Product] performance issues”

By Feature Area

Organize by product capabilities:
  • Authentication - Auth-related queries
  • Data Processing - Data handling queries
  • API Integration - API connection queries

By Audience

Organize by target user type:
  • Beginners - Entry-level queries
  • Enterprise - Business and scale-focused queries
  • Specific Language - Language or framework-specific queries

Best Practices

Balanced Topic Sizes

Aim for 5-15 prompts per topic. Topics that are too small may not provide meaningful aggregate data. Topics that are too large may mix unrelated themes.

Clear, Descriptive Names

Use names that clearly indicate the theme:
  • “Getting Started Guides” - Clear
  • “Topic 1” - Not helpful

Assign All Prompts

Review your prompt list periodically and assign any unassigned prompts to topics. Unassigned prompts are still tracked individually but do not contribute to topic-level analysis.

Use Opportunity Scores for Prioritization

When deciding where to invest content effort, sort topics by opportunity score. The highest-opportunity topics offer the best combination of room for improvement, high volume, and low competition.

Topics and Analytics

Filtered Dashboard Views

Use topics to filter the Search Tracking Overview dashboard. Select a topic to see all metrics scoped to just the prompts in that topic.

Cross-Topic Comparison

Compare topic-level metrics side by side to understand which areas of the user journey are strongest and weakest for your brand.

Next Steps