Topic Clusters are the Future of Content Marketing Strategy

Last updated on January 19th, 2024

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar

Discover the SEO strategy 'Topic Clusters' that focus on topics, as opposed to keywords. Improve your site’s architecture and make it easier for Google to discover related content and ultimately boost your visibility.

Related: Why Serial Entrepreneurs Work on Go-to-market Strategies First

Key Takeaways: --------------
  • This SEO strategy focuses on topics as opposed to keywords and 'The Pillar Page’ broadly outlines a topic.
  • Cluster content, focused on specific longtail keywords.
  • The main page ‘Pillar page’ links to each cluster page
  • Topic clusters signal to Google, that there’s a semantic relationship between the content and more importantly, pushes you higher up the page.

See a practical example of how topic clusters helped team Upscope achieve results

Summary transcription

It wasn’t long ago that you would type some broken search term into google, but now you simply have to ask a question, because you assume search engines are smart enough to recognise intent. But does your SEO strategy reflect this changing search behaviour?

Meet the topic cluster model, an SEO strategy that focuses on topics as opposed to keywords to improve your site’s architecture and make it easier for Google to discover related content and ultimately boost your search engine visibility.

Consider how the average website grows:

  1. You start with a homepage and a blog
  2. You decide to target a keyword

You then learn that there are more than a thousand longtail variations of that term. Meaning you’re stuck writing post after post to capture the search traffic. In the end your site becomes repetitive, loaded and disorganized.

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In the topic cluster model each grouping covers a single topic

You have one larger piece of content, that we’ll call ‘the pillar’, that broadly outlines the topic.

Then, there is the defined group of cluster content, focused on specific longtail keywords.

The ‘Pillar’ links to each cluster page, while the cluster of links back to the pillar, each time with the same hyperlink keyword.

That way, when one page performs well, the entire topic cluster gets a boost. It’s all about helping web crawlers make connections.

Topic clusters signal to Google, that there’s a semantic relationship between the content, and more importantly you’re a trusted authority on the topic, worthy of a top spot.

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Like that? If you want to see proof of this working…

Read more on the topic cluster strategy including some key evidence of how well it works even for amateurs like us ?

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar

Pardeep overlooks growth at Upscope and loves writing about SaaS companies, customer success and customer experience.