04: What Is a Content Cluster? Breakdown w/ Examples

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Ready for Content Clusters to blow your mind?

Content Clusters are a set of pages that all link to each other focused on 1 main topic.

They’re an easy way to generate 100s of content ideas and plan your content, but most SEOs & marketers don’t tap into them.

Why? I don’t have the answer, but I'm going to break them down for you.

Within 2-3 minutes, you’ll have a full understanding.

What are Content Clusters?

Content clusters are a set of pages that all link to each other focused on 1 main topic.

You may also hear them called topic clusters, pillar pages, or hub and spoke. They all mean the same.

Here’s how to visualize it:

I use these to plan SEO campaigns & rank for target keywords on my company's websites.

Here’s the process:

Step 1: Choose a topic to rank for

Pick a top level keyword for your company or client that it's important you rank for.

If you’re writing about SEO, one of your top level keywords may be “keyword research” or “backlinks”.

Following?

Step 2: Plan out a pillar page

Do keyword research. Make an outline. Find resources. Aim for 5k+ words.

Your Pillar Page is the main Hub page that goes DEEP into the main topic or keyword you’ve chosen.

This page will link out to your Spoke pages and your Spoke pages will link back to it as well.

Step 3: Plan 5-10 cluster pages

Research and create a 5-10 blog content cluster. Write down titles for each and focus keywords.

Following our example from above. If the main keyword is “keyword research”, you may have cluster pages for:

1. Long tail keywords

2. Short tail keywords

3. Keyword research w/ Ahrefs

4. Keyword clustering

Step 4: Create & publish the pages

Write the content and publish the pillar and cluster pages on your site.

Don’t forget to optimize each page for optimal SEO and user experience.

Step 5: Internal link them all

Link from your pillar page to each cluster page. And vice versa.

Make it easy for readers to get more information all of the content cluster.

Step 6: Incorporate existing blogs

If you have content already published that can fit into the cluster, link them in too.

Anywhere that makes sense, link out to other pages and blogs on your site.

Step 7: Make complementary clusters

Think of other Pillar pieces to complement this one you just made. Repeat the process.

If you just completed a content cluster for “keyword research”, you may next move on and make one for “backlinks”.

Step 8: Measure results & improve

Track traffic and keyword rankings for your new content cluster. Make improvements quarterly.

Content Cluster Example

Content cluster topic: Digital Marketing Strategies

Pillar Content: "The Ultimate Guide to Digital Marketing Strategies"

Subtopic 1: "Social Media Marketing Tactics"

Subtopic 2: "Content Marketing Techniques"

Subtopic 3: "SEO Best Practices"

Subtopic 4: "Email Marketing Strategies"

See how it works?

In Summary

Content clusters are extremely helpful when planning content and researching keywords.

Start with the highest level topics specific to your business then work your way down from there.

Google will be able to easily crawl your website seeing what expertise you have & visitors will stay on the site longer reading all of your cluster content.

Action Steps

Incorporate this process into your content planning.

Use ChatGPT with the prompt: "Pillar title" is my pillar blog article. Make a list of 10 other articles to complement it.

Happy Sunday!

Connor

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