The Pillar-Cluster Model

Reorganise your blog infrastructure for the topic cluster model.

This new way of content organisation is putting similar blog posts together under specific topics.

The old way was writing blog posts to rank them for different long-tail keywords.

Although you cant see these changes, these are all important behind-the-scenes changes.

So, in this blog post we will learn:

• How to change your blog’s infrastructure
• How topic clusters help readers

Lets dive right in.

Change you Blog with Topic Clusters

Create a better user experience for your blog readers.

Because search has changed.

Gone are the days of:

• Creating editorial calendars
• Targeting keywords
• Publishing blog posts

This way isnt optimised for how people search for information.

So change your blog infrastructure.

Topic Clusters

Topic clusters are important for:

• Giving searchers a good experience
• Helping content rank effectively in search

As technology changes, so does the way people search for the information on search engines like Google.

For example, instead of typing to search, people have conversation to find the information they need using voice search devices like:

• Apple’s Siri
• Amazon Echo
• Google Home
• Microsoft’s Cortana

Voice search even accounts for 20% of Google searches on mobile or Android devices.

And search engine algorithms now use machine-learning technology to find the best answer to search queries.

So create topics clusters instead of writing blog posts to rank for long-tail keywords.

Before Topic Clusters

Previously with blogs focussing on ranking for specific long-tail keywords, the infrastructure was all over the place.

So a large number of blog posts about all sorts of topics were unorganised.

This meant some posts ended up competing with each other because they were similar.

For example, 10 different blog posts about similar topics, with overlapping content and similar URL structures.

Blog posts are bound to compete with each other in SERPs.

With Topic Clusters

Organising blogs using topic clusters by using pillar pages and internal links.

Not creating blog posts to rank for long-tail keywords but organising blog posts into main topics.

The main topic page gives a broad overview of the topic.

Then hyperlinks lead to specific blog posts on sub-topics brifly mentioned in the main topic page.

This is how a topic cluster is made.

Each sub-topic blog post, known as a topic cluster, hyperlinkd back to the main topic page, known as the pillar page.

And some topic cluster pages also hyperlink to each other.

Doing so shares domain authority with all blog posts in a cluster, helping them rank for specific keywords.

In turn, the whole topic cluster improves rankings in SERPs.

Get Started with Topic Clusters

Organise

The first step is organising the blog posts into different topic clusters.

These clusters should be broad enough for 20-30 different sub-topic blog posts.

Remember dont make clusters too broad so a pillar page cant go deeo into the topic.

So, audit all your content and separate them into groups of blog posts that are based around a specific topic.

Identify

The topic cluster model make sure you provide readers with all the information about a topic.

So when you’ve found your topic, do keyword research to find:

• Your pillar page
• Content gaps
• Duplicate content

Pillar Page

A pillar page goes over a topic broadly by answering basic topic questions for visitors.

It doesnt go too deep by answering specific questions.

Its great if you have the content to create a pillar page, but if you dont, make it.

Content Gaps

When keyword research is done, pick topic related keywords with the highest search volume.

Then, if you havent written about these topics then you need to write a new blog post.

And if you have content for that keyword, use on-page SEO so your blog post is optimised for that keyword.

Content Duplicates

Sometimes blog posts cover overlapping topics by ranking for the same keywords and compete with each other.

So, take the highest ranking URL and merge the information in these posts, then redirect the other blog posts to it.

De-Link and Re-Link

Now, review every blog post and removed all internal hyperlinks.

Then after making the pillar pages, internally link it with the topic cluster pages.

Doing so, improve the domain authority for all the blog posts and webpages in the cluster.

Note: roughly try to have one hyperlink for every 150 words.

Conclusion

In SEO, results arent quick and dont always stay.

Different factors that could affect this includes:

• Less organic traffic in the summer
• Less traffic from Google’s Featured Snippet

Note: with Google’s Featured Snippets searchers dont have to click on links for information.

Remember, Google always changes but for now topic clusters offers your blog:

• More traffic
• Better rankings