Search engines have shifted their focus from keywords to topics due to changes in user search behavior. As a result, SEOs now strive to dominate topics rather than just keywords to compete in the competitive search landscape.
In this post, I'll guide you through the exciting world of topic-based content and reveal the secrets to developing a powerful topic cluster strategy. By mastering this method, you'll establish authority in your industry which, in turn, improves search visibility for your website.
Let's dive in!
Table of Contents
Why SEOs Should Focus on Topics Over Keywords?
Take a look at any of Google’s algorithm updates over the last decade, and you’ll see: the search engine is focused on improved understanding of queries users type into the search box.
In 2013, the Hummingbird update allowed the search engine to process semantic keywords. The update helped the search engine provide results to what it deemed "conversational search" and better understand the words in the search query.
Two years later, we learned about RankBrain. This machine learning artificial intelligence helped Google sort through and learn from search results, and serve better answers to queries it had never heard before.
Then came the launch of the mobile-first index, once again taking into consideration a modern user’s behavior.
In the past, searching used to be all about keywords. It didn’t matter what information you needed to find - an auto repair shop to fix your car, new running shoes to buy, or information about a historical fact - you used short and highly-defined phrases to get to your answers. You may have searched for “best tire shop,” “running shoes” or “battle of Waterloo.”
Today, however, we've swapped those keywords for very intentional questions.
We ask Google “where to fix a flat tire?” or “what are the best running shoes for a beginner?” We also pose complex questions or give scraps of information, expecting the search engine to process them, and still give us the information we seek.
And, not surprisingly - it works!
Take a look at this example:
Google evolved its algorithm to be able to understand the context and intent behind the search query, matching it with available information to provide the most relevant search results. The next logical step is to start organizing information into topics that match the search query.
Recommended Reading: How to Achieve Keyword Research Success in 2023
What Are SEO Topic Clusters?
As you may have already deduced, the topic cluster model puts topics, rather than keywords, in the SEO focus. It’s all about organizing a site’s architecture and bringing related pieces of content together to form a cluster around a specific topic to boost its authority, and in turn, rankings.
Typically, we organize information on the site using a hierarchical model. A home page sits on top, followed by different layers of content that lead site visitors and potential buyers deeper into the structure.
Although there is nothing inherently wrong with this structure, it misses out on one important factor - collecting related content together. For example, your blog posts might reside at the same level but may never be interlinked together - in spite of them covering the same topic.
Topic clusters change that approach.
Let me show you proof that this strategy works.
In one of her amazing presentations, HubSpot’s former growth marketer Anum Hussain recounted the team's struggle to scale content creation to boost search visibility.
What’s important is that they discovered a particular strategy to have worked incredibly well; and that strategy was linking together related, quality content, and pointing it to the main page they were promoting (i.e. a pillar page).
As she describes:
Let’s say we previously wrote a blog article on being "The Slytherin’s Guide To Parseltongue" and another post on the "10 Habits of Highly Productive Hogwarts Founders." By linking our complete Site Page to these relevant blog posts, we saw a similar result as the previous learnings: ranking higher in SERP.
The Structure of Topic Clusters
When creating a topic cluster, you collect all relevant content around a pillar page that, as HubSpot puts it:
[...] definitively -- yet broadly -- outlines the topic.
In practice, it looks something like this:
(Clustered content is connected with internal links and a pillar page.)
At the center of a cluster sits pillar content. This page should include broad information of the cluster’s topic and links to each of its other elements (i.e. the various subtopics branching out).
Each cluster page, however, should cover a single aspect of the content mentioned on the pillar page in good detail. Typically, these subtopics will focus on long-tail keywords.
Let’s take “link building” as an example topic.
The pillar page would contain broad information about the whole concept of building links and mention various ideas around it. Cluster pages, however, would expand each of those subtopics into a full-blown piece of content. For example:
- Link building strategies
- How to measure links strength
- What links are safe in 2021
- Link building management
- Link-worthy content types
- Building more deep links to product pages
- Trimming and managing link portfolio
- Conducting a link audit
- Penalties for having poor links
- How to spot a weak link
- What links work best for eCommerce sites, etc.
Since each of those assets extends the topic from the pillar page, it makes sense to interlink them together through the implementation of internal links (and then link back these assets to the pillar content).
By doing so, you help search engines index those pages in the context of a semantic relationship between them. Plus, you send a strong authority signal about the content the cluster covers, demonstrating the breadth of knowledge that stems from the pillar page.
You can figure out these related subtopic ideas based on search volume to cover the most relevant content users are searching for.
How seoClarity Makes Creating Topic Clusters Simple
seoClarity simplifies the process of finding related topic ideas with Topic Explorer which allows you to quickly understand what topics to prioritize and create content around.
Let's look at the example of "unique gifts" in Topic Explorer.
We immediately see the summary of search volume based on terms related to "unique gifts" — this is a gold mine for content strategy and inbound marketing efforts!
Since we've integrated our AI-powered SEO assistant, Sia, into Topic Explorer, users also have the ability to automatically surface alternative keywords that are related to the term entered.
This information helps determine if the concept you searched for is the right starting point for your research (or if you missed out on another important term) before you dive into developing topic clusters around it.
To identify additional topic opportunities to build clusters around, Sia also explores the entire clickstream dataset to create a list of additional topic areas that the audience for your keyword would likely be interested in.
Plus, Sia also provides insight into the entire search journey for a given keyword which helps you see your target audience's search journey for before and after they search for a keyword. This information can be used to guide your topic clustering efforts even further.
Now let's take a look at related keywords …
Here, we see results sorted by search volume, but you can also sort by other criteria as well, like Intent Similarity. This reveals the overlap in similarity between keywords, and helps differentiate which keyword deserves its own page.
Recommended Reading: Scale and Expand Topic Research with Topic Explorer
Watch how Sia uncovers deeper keyword insights in Topic Explorer
How to Create SEO Topic Clusters
You already know the structure of a topic cluster. You know what content you need to create or gather from existing resources to create it. The biggest question that remains is figuring out what topics you should use to create topic clusters.
The simplest answer is this: create topic clusters on whatever your audience constantly seeks more information about.
To help you with that, let me show you two approaches that will help you identify that without any guesswork.
Strategy #1: Identifying Content Gaps
The term “content gap” describes keywords or topics that your competitor ranks for which you don't. This offers quick insight into opportunities to optimize or create content based on what your competitors have visibility on and you do not. From there, you can understand the traffic potential for those opportunities to decide what to prioritize.
To identify the content gap, seoClarity offers a tool dedicated Content Gaps that generates your content strategy in one-click.
Just take a look at the content gap between these domains:
Strategy #2: Researching Your Audience’s Most Common Questions
This strategy works particularly well for identifying individual cluster assets, apart from the pillar content. Because you see, questions your target audience asks in various places online suggest what individual cluster pages you should create.
You can identify those questions in a few ways. You could do it manually, by researching sites like Quora, Yahoo Answer and many others. Alternatively, seoClarity's Content Ideas automates this process and delivers insights from a plethora of sources.
Just take a look at this list of questions associated with the topic “link building:”
Closing Thoughts
Search engines are shifting their focus to topics. And this, in turn, changes how SEOs must think about online visibility and their content marketing strategy.
It’s no longer about dominating keywords, but instead about gaining authority over entire topics. After reading this post, you should have a good idea about how to utilize topic-based content for SEO, and understand how to develop topic clusters as part of a content strategy aimed at boosting your overall search visibility.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in November 2017 and has been updated to reflect upgrades in our platform and technology.
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