Website owners work vigorously to remain in Google’s good graces. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is vital to success, so publishers rely on a range of SEO strategies to rise through the ranks of Google’s organic search pages.
Content clusters are a vital part of any good SEO strategy. If you’re going to start a blog, you need to use them.
What is a Content Cluster?
A content cluster is a group of articles about the same topic. They allow writers to break big ideas down into shorter, more digestible bites, while showing the SEO gods that they’re subject matter experts on the concept (due to the wide range of articles on it).
They create a better user experience for readers as well, because instead of navigating a massive 10,000-word article about something to find the tiny part they’re interested in, they can navigate directly to the smaller article covering it.
Content clusters allow writers to dive deep into every aspect of a topic, with different pages answering users’ specific questions.
Employing content clusters is an essential white-hat strategy assisting website owners with on-page SEO.
What is On-Page SEO?
A quick aside for newbies – on-page SEO is everything you do on your website to improve search optimization. It includes things like web design, internal linking, site speed, user experience, and yes, content clusters.
The other vital component of SEO is off-site SEO, which includes backlinks, social media, and anything that’s not on your website.
Content Cluster Examples
Partners in Fire employs content clusters on a variety of topics.
Let’s use our cluster on Discord as an example.
Discord is a messaging service used by millions of people across the globe. It’s well known in the gaming world, but people use it for all sorts of things, from running businesses to connecting with friends.
But there’s so much to write about the web app, it could fill volumes. Therefore, rather than writing one epic post and dusting off our hands, we wrote numerous articles, each deep diving into a different aspect of the service.
Our cluster includes articles on Discord bots, Discord Emotes, Discord safety, How to Use Discord, How to Create a Discord Server, How to Find Discord Servers to join, Discord’s premium service, and more.
We wanted to highlight our expertise on Discord by covering all aspects of it.
Content Clusters Versus Categories
You will notice, however, that Partners in Fire does not have a specific category for Discord.
We started our cluster on Discord as it relates to gaming, so most of the Discord content initially fell into the “Gaming” category. Upon restructuring, we are slowly moving this content to the “Science & Technology” category, which is a better fit.
Content clusters are typically smaller topics than broad categories and should fit nicely into one of the other categories already present on a website.
Content Clusters vs. Topic Clusters
Topic clusters and content clusters are interchangeable. They describe the same thing.
A website owner will typically choose one phrase or the other, but you may find some who use them interchangeably within a post to target both keywords “content cluster” and “topic cluster.”
It is called a topic cluster more often, as that phrase has a slightly higher SEO search volume.
How Do I Create a Content Cluster?
Creating a content cluster is so straightforward that you’re probably already doing it.
Think of a broad topic you want to write about and consider all the different angles of that topic you can pursue.
After your initial brainstorming sessions, use an SEO tool like MOZ to conduct keyword research, which helps you discover related keywords you can write about.
For example, a financial blogger may write a content cluster on the main keyword “how to make money.” The top page, “How to make money,” would be their pillar page, but then they’d use Moz to discover related long tail keywords they can also write about.
As you can see from the screenshot below, the blogger may want to write posts about making money online, making money with YouTube, making money fast, and making money from home.
All these posts would fall under the giant content cluster about how to make money. Of course, that’s also such a wide topic that it could be used as a category (we have a “making it” category all about making money), but the basic idea remains.
Why Content Clusters are Essential for SEO
Content clusters are essential for SEO because they provide vital internal linking opportunities and showcase the website’s authority on a given topic.
Internal Links
Backlinks are crucial to SEO, but many website owners neglect the easiest way to build a backlink: internal linking.
Internal links help Google (and other search engines) crawl and understand your website. They show relationships between your content and help users navigate your website, finding the exact information they want.
Content clusters offer an easy way to add internal links throughout your related content and to your pillar pages.
Authority
via Shutterstock.com.
Google constantly promotes EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) as the top-ranking guideline. Content clusters help users with the “A” part by showing they are an authority on a topic.
Let’s consider two websites, both of which have a post on Discord Bots. Google crawlers cannot look at the content to determine which post is better (maybe someday our AI tools will be that good!), so instead, they look at the other information.
One site has just one post, and the other has a massive content cluster surrounding Discord.
Which website do you think the crawlers will assume has more authority? Which would you, a user, think knows more about Discord?
Content Clusters and Niche Sites
Niche sites rely on content clusters for ranking. Many SEO experts advise you to narrow down as far as possible, making a website a giant content cluster of related keywords and topics.
A lot of bloggers employ this tactic for their sites and get positive results. For example, some travel bloggers focus only on one city, country, or region, becoming an authority on that specific place.
Everything they write falls under the content cluster of that area.
You Don’t Have to Niche
However, many content creators and digital publishers discovered that you don’t have to niche down that far to be successful. Employing content clusters around specific topics can help with organic traffic just as much as niching down and doesn’t force you into a box.
Consider the big websites like Forbes and Business Insider, typically considered “Finance” publications, which also cover lifestyle and traveling.
These examples show you can successfully cover multiple niches if you have a content strategy and develop ways to ensure your topics relate to one another.
Using Content Clusters for Digital Marketing
Content clusters should be a vital part of your SEO strategy. Many website owners use content clusters as sales funnels for products or services, or to rise in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for related keywords.
eCommerce and affiliate marketing sites use this strategy to drive traffic to their sales pages. They write numerous articles about the products they’re selling and use these pages to funnel leads to the sales pages.
Bloggers also use content clusters to build their email lists. If they can drive organic traffic to specific pages, they can collect email subscribers and build their overall audience.
Creating topic clusters is an essential content-marketing strategy that website owners must employ to succeed in the ever-changing world of digital publishing.
Create Your Content Clusters
If you’re a website owner, you probably already have content clusters but didn’t think of them this way.
Review your content and create an internal linking strategy to highlight your clusters. Consider whether you’re missing a vital post about a specific topic to add to your cluster.
The more you can build your authority on a particular topic, the easier it will be to rank on page one and see the sweet influx of organic traffic.