‘Content clusters’ is the new buzzword in the world of SEO content marketing. But what are clusters and can they strengthen SEO?
Google’s guidelines clearly favor valuable content to determine what sites reach the top spot in Google Search. Many businesses cram their pages full of text with related keywords and hope that Google rewards them.
What if there was a better way to structure content so that it had a clear and positive role in SERPs rankings?
This article examines content topic clusters and their impact on SEO. Read on to discover how to improve your online marketing results and how to better engage your visitors.
What Is SERP Content Marketing?
SEO always evolves to match changes in Google’s organic search engine results pages (SERPs). Yet, one constant is that Google promotes websites that provide quality content.
Sites that offer useful and engaging articles to attract and keep visitors rank at a higher level.
That trend continues into 2022, but with one extra milestone in the SEO journey. No longer does Google evaluate only content, but how that content gets linked and grouped.
What Are Content Clusters?
Does your website have a blog? Are your articles presented as a random series of distinct pages? Or are they clearly organized into clusters of related topics?
Content clusters bring together topical web pages and link them to a central page.
Think of a cluster as a sub-topic on a particular subject. Instead of overloading your visitors with one page jammed full of info, break that content into clusters.
Joining related clusters relies on that central page to bring everything together — the content pillar.
What Are Content Pillars?
A content pillar acts as an index to link to related clusters. However, it contains core content on the topic itself and often scrolls for several screens.
Pillar content focuses on a particular product or subject.
Google indexes the page and spots the keywords in the title, text, etc. It then follows the internal links to the clusters or sub-topics. If both pillar and cluster have a clear relationship, then Google may award you with an authority score.
The higher the authority the higher your ranking for that keyword.
Topic Cluster Content Strategy
There is a clear link between the number of internal links on your site and SERP impressions.
Related pages that link together will generally appear higher in the search results. Sporadic content will not perform to the same degree.
Organizing your content is more important than ever. Linking between those pages is now a vital piece of the SEO puzzle. Take time to map out your pillars and clusters and write to build up those mini-ecosystems.
Best Practices for Pillars and Clusters
Below are some tips to help build better content clusters and content pillars:
- Link text content rather than images
- Don’t overlink on one page
- Add links not found in your navigation
- Check for broken links
Remember to create engaging and unique content first. Then add your internal links between the pages using the pillar page as the first point of contact.
Build the Perfect SEO Content Strategy
Content clusters help to promote the pillar pages on your site. They in turn will add authority to your domain. The result is a boost in your overall rankings.
Take time to build great content, then structure those pages to make everything easy to find. Google will reward you and so will your visitors!
Learn more about SEO and content clusters on our blog.
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