Topic Clusters: The Future of Content Marketing
In case you haven't noticed, the machines are getting smarter. And while we're not at Terminator levels of intelligence yet, some of the tools we use to search and market every day have begun to understand search context and speech semantics. As Google's search capability improves, search engine users are able to submit queries that are more natural. The average user these days feels totally comfortable asking Google a complete, complex question, because the search engine can now parce semantics, and is able to provide results that answer those questions directly. What does that mean for inbound marketers?
Basically, it means that our content can be more intuitive. As Google continues to make user-focused improvements to their algorithm, their search bots are favoring content that's written for people over content that's written to rank well. That means that keyword-stuffed content is definitely out, and it also means repetitive, keyword focused content isn't going to be as valuable as content that's genuinely helpful. Search algorithms have reached a point where they can understand what keyword your content is centered around, even if you don't use that specific keyword anywhere in your blog. This is where topic clusters come in.
What's a Topic Cluster, and How Can it Help Inbound Marketers?
Topic clusters are a new method of content marketing designed to capitalize on newer consumer search habits. Created and announced by Hubspot—a leading inbound marketing authority—topic clusters work to boost your website's ranking power, and help your site users reach your content more easily. Topic clusters take note of new search algorithm behaviors, and propose a more effective way of tailoring your content marketing strategy for higher SERP rankings and better readability for search engines and human users.
If your company has a blog, implementing topic clusters can help you improve the authority of your website, as you simultaneously improve the user experience of your blog for your clients. Essentially, topic clusters are dedicated clusters of information that all relate to one central "pillar page." Let's use the Evenbound website as an example. We've been optimizing our blog to take advantage of topic clusters lately, and at this point, have our blog centered around 7 major topics, or pillar pages:
- Inbound marketing
- Content marketing
- Lead generation
- PPC and Paid Advertising
- SEO
- Social Media
- Website Design
If you're familiar with Evenbound, you'll know that each of these topics is a service that we provide for our clients. Each one of these topics also has a dedicated top-level page on our website, that answers all of the basic questions a consumer might have about the topic. For us, each of these pages is a separate pillar page, forming the central point for each content cluster. The rest of our blog posts are linked to the pillar page they're the most relevant to.
For example:
Inbound marketing is the pillar page. Cluster content would be any blog that's related to inbound marketing, but gives our audience more in-depth information about a specific aspect of content marketing. Some cluster content for inbound marketing would include:
- Content Creation Tools
- How to Write a Content Calendar
- An In-Depth Guide to Inbound Marketing
- Why Blogging is Important
- How to Shift Your Sales Team from Outbound to Inbound
Each one of these blogs then links back to our pillar page: Inbound Marketing
This method of organizing our content strategy helps search engines catalog our site. Since each cluster topic links back to the pillar page, we boost the authority of that pillar page. This organization strategy also helps search engines better categorize our site. Since each blog that's related to content marketing links back to the content marketing pillar page, search engine bots can more easily crawl each of those pages, understanding that each blog that links to that pillar page will offer more, in-depth content about the topic of content marketing.
Implementing Topic Clusters
The point of topic clusters is to help you rank highly for keywords you have the most authority on. Before topic clusters, you may have chosen a keyword, and then written a number of blogs about that same keyword. While this used to work well in the past, with today's algorithm, you'll just end up with a bunch of blogs that are competing with each other for the same keyword. This makes it confusing for search engine bots to decide which of your pages deserves the higher rank, and it doesn't do much to collectively boost the power of your website. With topic clusters, you can essentially pool all of the authority gained from each of your blog posts and content-rich site pages, for a higher rank overall. But, how do you do it?
Start with Pillar Pages
The best place to start building your content clusters is your pillar pages. These are going to be pages that provide a lot of information, but have a very general keyword. Don't pick a page with a long-tail keyword here, go for something more generic that speaks to your target audience.
For example, one of our pillar pages is Inbound Marketing. The page provides a ton of content, and answers basic questions that anyone would want to know about inbound marketing, like what it is, how it works, and who uses it. If you're not sure what a pillar page would look like on your website, think about the services you provide. Do you have a page for each of those services, explaining what it is, and how it works? If you're a home services contractor, you might have separate services pages for roofing, decks, and kitchen renovations. Each of those pages would make a great pillar page to center the rest of your topic clusters around.
Brainstorm Cluster Topics
Cluster topics should be related to your pillar page, but should each be focused on a different, more specific topic. If you chose roofing for a pillar page, potential cluster topics might be: "how to fix a leaky roof," "when it's time to replace your roof," or "10 ways to choose the right roof for your home". These topics are all about roofing residential homes, but they offer your site viewers more information that's relevant to their everyday questions about roofing.
Write, and Link
Once you've got some solid topics for your topic clusters, it's time to write and post that content to your website. Don't forget to link to your pillar page! The most important part of topic clusters is proper linking, because that's what tells search engines that a blog is related to your pillar content, and helps ensure that the authority each blog gains is passed onto your pillar page. This is the best way to build your site's authority, and make sure you're ranking as highly as possible for the keywords that are most important to your company.
Pro Tip: Choose the same anchor text to link to your pillar page in every topic cluster post. For example, when we write subtopics for our Content Marketing pillar page, we always link to that page with the words "Content Marketing." This helps your readers, and search engine bots, identify where the link will take them, and it can boost your ranking for those keywords.
Reorganizing an Existing Blog
What if you already have a blog, but you want to take advantage of this new, totally helpful, very powerful way of content marketing? Do you need to delete all of your content and start over?
Thankfully, no. But you will have to put a little time and effort into restructuring your content so that it all links together in a logical way. The more straightforward your internal links, the easier it will be for search engine bots to crawl and categorize your site.
Start With One Pillar Page
Decide what just one of your pillar pages will be. Then go through your blog's existing content, and be sure to link any blogs that are relevant to that pillar page. If you have multiple blogs on the same topic, consider combining them together for one longer, more helpful blog that's easy to find and offers a wealth of information to your readers. When you've made it all the way through your blog by combining similar posts, deleting duplicate information, and linking relevant content to your pillar page, then you can start on another pillar page!
Once you get the hang of it, topic clusters are actually surprisingly easy, and they can do a lot to help you boost your blog and website's overall ranking power. It's a new method of content marketing that capitalizes on current consumer search trends, and new search engine categorizing technology. By implementing topic clusters, you'll be providing your site viewers with an easy-to-navigate content strategy that simultaneously boosts the search engine ranking of each of your pillar pages.
If topic clusters still seem a little intimidating, check out the helpful diagrams provided by Hubspot for a visual explanation of topic clusters, or get in touch with us! Inbound marketing is kind of our thing, so we're always happy to help if you've got questions about your blogging or topic cluster linking strategy. If you're looking for help with your inbound marketing strategy, see how we helped this company rise to the top with our unique strategy:
