Organic Growth with Topic Clusters

You can grow your website’s organic traffic with content, using:

• Latent semantic indexing
• E-A-T (Expertise, Authority and Trust) giving searchers relevant results

Therefore, creating content that focuses on core topics instead of on-off keywords.

Which is known as topic clustering.

Topic clusters main aim to is provide answers to questions for:

• Your readers
• Their search intent
• The context of their searches

This content strategy leads to:

• Gaining search engine trust
• Driving organic growth

So, in this article we will learn how to get started with topic clusters.

Let’s get into it.

What are Topic Clusters?

Topic clusters are related web pages linked to a pillar page and each other.

Using this strategy to organise your content helps search engines know:

• Your website is an expert of a chosen topic
• the connection between your web pages

The three main elements for creating a topic cluster include:

• A pillar page
• Subtopics or cluster content
• Hyperlinks

The pillar page is the main page of the cluster and is the topic you want to rank for.

So, your pillar page is a detailed resource that covers the main questions on your topic.

Then, it’s the subtopic pages or cluster content.

Cluster content answers questions related to your core topic in a more detailed way.

After this it’s hyperlinks, which is internally linking your subtopic pages to the pillar page and even linking subtopic pages to each other.

This tells search engines that the pillar page is the resource authority on your topic.

Building Topic Clusters

To build your topic cluster, do the following:

• Pick your main content topic
• Pick your subtopics
• Fit existing content in the topic cluster
• Start internally linking
• Create a content plan
• Analyse and improve your content

Pick your main content topic

You could have a lot of target keywords or topics.

But you need to know which are the most valuable for your website.

When creating a content strategy, do the following to find cluster topics:

• Make the product you sell the main theme of your content
• Put yourself in the customers shoes and ask how they use your product or service
• Target problems your customers have and how your product or service solves them
• Use high-ROI paid keywords for content topics.

Note: For a new website with a low domain authority, pick one or two main topics.

Pick your subtopics

Now it’s time to pick subtopics that support the main pillar page of your cluster.

Subtopics are:

• Related to your main topic
• Long-tail queries
• The main focus of supporting content

Start your subtopic research by thinking like your topic searchers.

To do this, use the following for inspiration:

• List frequently asked questions around a content topic
• List all the questions your target audience might have about your main topic
• Read forums like Quora and reddit for related questions and problems
• Don’t forget to read customer reviews on websites like Amazon for the same
• Use SEO tools that recommend subtopics
• Talk to customers via live chat or forms for information on the content they want

Note: Make sure each subtopic is unique, so search related queries to see if similar search results appear.

You can also use SEO tools like Moz Pro or Ahrefs, to prioritise subtopics based on search volume.

Fit existing pages in the topic cluster

Fit your current content pages into your topic cluster.

Note: Make sure your existing web pages are related to your topic clusters.

If not, then find another topic cluster you could naturally place them into.

Start internally linking

Linking your content is important for topic clustering.

You can build authority for your pillar page by linking relevant content pages to it.

Do this by:

• Go through each topic cluster
• See which subtopic pages aren’t linked to your pillar pages
• Add missing links from each subtopic page to your pillar page

Your subtopic and pillar page should relate on topic, so you will naturally find a place to link. 

Or, use Sitebulb for a visualisation of the linking connections between your web pages.

This visualisation tool will show your content as organised clusters.

Create a content plan

After adding your existing content to your topic clusters, you can start filling the gaps with content pages yet to create.

Prioritise these new content topics based on:

• Search potential
• Relevance

Start by:

• Creating subtopic content on problems your product or service helps solve
• Producing in-depth, detailed content

Remember, write content that answers all questions searchers might have on the subtopic.

To make sure your content is in context and search-friendly, do the following:

• Compare the top search results for your topic or subtopic and to find more keywords
• Find topic questions from searchers using AnswerthePublic or Google’s “People also ask” section
• Find related topics for content using LSIGraph and Google SERP’s “searches related to” section
• Research and format your content to target Google SERP features for your topic
• Use H2s and H3s for the main questions or subtopics you found in your research
• Find content gaps in the search results and relevant research to add
• Think like the searcher by creating information they want, in their preferred format

Analyse and improve your content

Make sure to always analyse and improve your content.

It’s easier these days with SEO tools, evaluating how your pages are performing.

A few examples of how these tools help, include:

• Tracking the number of organic visitors your pages drive
• Website visitor engagement with your pages
• The average time visitors spend on your content

This can help with future content ideas or find weak content that needs improving.

Conclusion

In SEO, to be successful using topic clusters you need:

• Time
• Patience
• Constant improvement

Also, other technical factors contribute to your search engine rankings.

But establishing a long-term presence on search engines like Google takes:

• Planning
• Providing value
• Gaining search authority

Now it’s your turn to tell me how you have used topic clusters.

And the results you have gained for your website.

Let me know in the comments below.