Topic clusters are, essentially, a collection of pages on a website that all relate to one another by focusing on the same topic.
The page that sits at the top of the topic cluster umbrella is known as the pillar page. This page covers the broad details of a topic, giving the reader an overview of the subject.
Any additional content that dives into specific aspects of the topic of the pillar page is known as the cluster content.
For example, if your website offers services in digital marketing, you may create a pillar page titled “The Ultimate Guide to SEO”.
This page may focus on outlining what SEO (search engine optimisation) is, the importance of SEO, an overview of on-page and off-page SEO and the basics of Keyword Research.
You would then create more specific pages that focus on covering the topic mentioned in the pillar page in more detail, such as “The importance of backlinks for SEO” or “Top Keyword Research Tools for Beginners”.
Why are topic clusters important for SEO?
Topic clusters are important for SEO because they help organise the content on your website in a way that’s both helpful to the user, and search engine crawl bots.
They let you target a broad range of keywords, all related to one topic. In doing so, this can help attract higher levels of organic search traffic to your website from search engine users researching a specific topic.
Topic clusters can make keyword research easier and more effective. While you’re researching the keywords to include in your pillar page, you’ll naturally discover related terms to target in your cluster content.
Also, topic clusters can help improve search engine rankings. By improving the internal linking structure of your website by adding links pointing to/from a central pillar page to its related cluster pages, this signals to search engines that your website is an authority on a specific topic.
This can subsequently increase the chances of ranking higher on the search engine results page.
These internal links can aid in providing visitors with a better user experience by making it easy to navigate through the site to find all the information they need on a topic. This can improve the engagement rate of users on your site and help keep users on the site as they move further down the sales funnel towards conversion.
How can I research ideas for topic clusters?
Researching ideas for topic clusters is easy. Start by looking at the services or products that your online business offers. For example, SEO. Break this topic into smaller, related areas, such as “on-page SEO” and “keyword research”.
To find keywords associated with these sub-areas, use free keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner. For “on-page SEO” this could be “meta tags” or “image optimisation”.
To get more inspiration, manually search Google for these terms. The ‘People Also Ask’ snippet will show a few Google search queries that people have asked relating to your keyword.
The following People Also Ask questions show up when you search for “meta tags”:
“What are meta tags?”
“Are meta tags still useful?”
“Do I need to put meta tags on every page?”
“Are meta tags the same as keywords?”
Viola! You have concepts for your content clusters!
Topic clusters create a clear, interconnected framework for content on your website that can help boost your site’s authority, improve search engine rankings, and drive the most relevant traffic to your website.
Need help identifying the best topic clusters for your website? Reach out to the team of professionals at Engage Web today!
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