Cuong Thach's Content system map for selling

What this map is for

Every post on the blog and every page in these docs serves one job, which is selling the product. The content system wants you to write less, sell more, so each post needs a place and a path to the product.

The map lets you see that at a glance. Each page is a dot, each link is a line, and the whole system appears in one frame you can turn, in three groups, the Truth vault, the Content funnel and Products.

The measure is still just two numbers, the people who join the waitlist and the orders that come in. The map shows which posts feed those numbers and which still stand alone.

Blue is the Truth vault

The blue cluster is the Truth vault, where the brand writes down what it has really done and checked. Blog posts, sales pages and the answers AI gives about the brand all take their facts from this cluster.

The vault is always public and keeps only what is true now, so it grows each time you do something new. A dot in this cluster can play three roles:

A Source of evidence that posts and answers to customers point back to.
A Brand footprint, since its public date shows who said it first.
Entity docs that customers, your team and AI can all read.

Green is the Content funnel

The green cluster is the Content funnel. Here posts do not stand apart, they join into roads that follow how a reader moves from knowing, to trusting, to loving:

A Know post helps readers see their real problem, then sends them on to a Trust post.
A Trust post hands over a small task readers do themselves and see work, then sends them on to a Love post.
A Love post draws the whole way out of a long-running pain, then opens the door to the product.

Because the funnel decides which posts are needed before any writing, a post on no road does not get published. On the map such posts show as grey dots.

Readers rarely start at the first post. Google or AI can drop them on any dot, so what matters is that every dot has a way forward.

Orange is Products

The orange cluster at the top is the website's pages, set around what the whole system aims at, the product. Each page has a type:

Core product is a page that sells a product. The paid product is the biggest dot, in the middle of the cluster, and every other page of the cluster circles it. A free product is a medium dot with a lit road running to the paid product.
Sales is the comparison pages, always joined straight to the paid product.
Navigation is the home page and the blog page, which send readers on.
Information is pages like about, contact or the policies, always shown grey.

A product page is also tied to the docs pages it takes its copy from, so you see at once how the Truth vault feeds a sales page.

How to read the map

Blue dots are pages of the Truth vault, green dots are posts of the Content funnel.
In the Truth vault the biggest dots are the Overview pages, and the more links any other page has, the bigger its dot, up to medium. On the funnel side dots come in three sizes: the Love post biggest, the Trust post medium, the Know post smallest. On the product side the paid product is the biggest dot of the map.
Solid lines join two pages of the same part.
Thin purple lines join a post to the docs page it rests on, with a light running from the Truth vault to the Content funnel.
Green roads with moving lights are a funnel's path, from the Know post to the Trust post, then to the Love post.
Each funnel is laid out like a shuttlecock aimed at the product: the Love post is the head, nearest the product, the Trust posts fan out just behind it, and the Know posts open widest at the outer end.
Grey dots are lonely pages, such as a post in no funnel yet, a docs page no other page links to, a website page not tied to the paid product, and every Information page.
The yellow dot is the page you were reading before you opened the map.
The map has depth: lines in front are clear and thicker, lines behind fade and thin out, and a purple line between two groups fades toward its far end. Labels shrink as you zoom out.
Orange dots at the top are the website's pages in the Products group, circling the paid product.
Purple lines from the Truth vault and from Love posts, with lights running up to the Products group, show which pages lead readers to a product.

Using a mouse

The map turns slowly on its own when it opens and stops for good the first time you touch it.
Drag empty space with the left button to turn the map, scroll the wheel to zoom in or out.
Hold the mouse still on a dot for about half a second until the cursor changes, then drag: the dots linked to it follow, stretch and settle again. A drag without the hold always turns the map.
Hold the wheel or the right button and drag to move the map, or hold Shift while dragging with the left button.
W A S D or the arrows move forward, back, left and right; Q and E go down and up; hold Shift to go faster.
Zoomed out only the purple lines leaving medium or big dots show, and those of smaller dots appear as you zoom in, like a street map. Purple lines of tiny dots show only when you zoom right in, so the map stays clear.
Hover a dot to see its full title and the links of that page.
Click a dot to keep it. Unrelated pages fade out, its group spreads out so it is easy to read, and only medium and big dots keep a label. Hover the picked dot itself to show the labels of the small dots too. The arrow beside the dot opens the page in a new tab.

On a phone

One finger drags to turn the map. To drag a dot and the dots linked to it, hold your finger still on the dot for about half a second first.
Two fingers pinch in to zoom out and spread to zoom in.
Two fingers dragged together move around the map's space.
Tap a dot to pick it, tap it again to let it go. A picked dot stays picked while you zoom or move with two fingers.

The buttons on the map

Search (magnifier, top right) finds a page or a post by name. Use the arrow keys to choose and Enter to open, then the map picks that dot and zooms to it.
Critical Path (eye) keeps only the big dots tied to each other, the main Truth vault pages, the Love posts and the products. Lonely and small pages hide and the purple lines turn bold, so the map is easy to read. Press it again to see the whole map.
Focus (viewfinder, last of the top-right buttons) spreads the map over the whole screen and hides every button, filter, this guide and the page header, leaving only the map. The button turns into an X: press it, or Esc, to leave.
Cinema (clapperboard, in the three-dot menu) spreads the map over the whole screen on a dark ground, with every label and button hidden. Dots glow, the map turns slowly, tilts a little and breathes, and lights flow along every line. The camera button beside the X records a video of the show; press it again to stop and save it (a minute at most). Press the X or Esc to leave.
Snapshot (camera, in the three-dot menu first in the row) saves the frame you see as an SVG image, with the same turn, zoom and filter.
Reset the view (round arrow) brings the map back to how it opened, its place, zoom and turn, and leaves Free flight.
Free flight (gamepad, in the three-dot menu, computers only) lets you move in among the dots like in a game: turning it on locks the mouse, so moving it looks around like a shooter game (after Esc frees it, click the map to lock it again); W A S D or the arrows to move, Q and E to go down and up, hold Shift to go faster, scroll to move forward or back, click to pick the dot in the cross. Esc frees the mouse; press the button again, Esc once more or Reset the view to leave.
Truth vault (bottom left) filters by the four big kinds of docs page, Explanation, Tutorials, How-to guide and Reference, then by the smaller types inside, or by each component of a docs set.
Products (bottom centre) filters website pages by type, Navigation, Information, Sales and Core product, then narrows Core product to Free or Paid.
Content funnels (bottom right) picks one funnel, named by its Love post's tag.
The All chip of each filter card keeps only that card's group and hides the others, purple lines too, so you see its dots alone. Reset the view shows the whole map again.