Hierarchy of web pages for SEO potential

I'm slowly going to work developing my 'authority site' and one thing I'm struggling with is how to build out the website for the new SEO world.

I really like the info Neil Patel put out in this post:

A Cheat Sheet for Building High Ranking Authority…Without Cheating

But I don't get how this works for specific keyword ranking stuff. For example, let's say I have a site and my goal is to rank for Lavish Party Tips.

Back in the day (as far as I understand), I would build out a bunch of pages like:

lavish party dresses
lavish party venues
lavish party tips nyc
lavish party accessories
lavish party decorations

Nowadays, this feels wrong/spammy to me. So I'm trying to think about the personas of people I want to appear to:

- People who want lavish party tips in their area (ie. city guides)
- People who want lavish party tips around a theme (i.e. christmas, birthday, for kids, etc.)
- People who want to find items related to throwing a lavish party (affiliate shop, broken into categories etc.)
- People who want to get deals on items related to lavish parties (coupon codes).

Then I would build up content that goes under each of the 4 pillars above, and use the guide Neil put out as the framework for the structure.

Am I on the right track?

I know there's no "exact" formula and mostly I just need to get moving, but I see many sites out there that should be ranking in the top 10 (in terms of having good content) but my eyes are opening up to the fact that many of those sites just don't have good on-site SEO, proper hierarchy and what not. So I just want to make sure I set it up right from early on.

Thanks in advance,
-J