SEO: Creating Topic Clusters

Search engine optimisation is aimed at increase ranking on SERPs, and you have to make happy many metrics before you can reach your goal. A webmaster or seo content writer has to create topic clusters from top down order or from a pillar page.    

Search engines respects and understand relations on Net be it creating silos in the directory structure or clusters in content. This accords greater relevancy to the topic a website is targeting and thus this strategy leads to fortification on relational search terms or keywords.        

In this methodology related or rather highly relevant content is clustered around a pillar page be that on a website of a blog.  The relationship is brought to live by internal linking. From the pillar page related secondary pages are linked using internal linking. 

Relevancy is a broad term, it is shaped by intent besides the relationships between or within a topic. Hence study the object that is the website or a blog and then do intense keyword research. Analysis plays a major role in website promotion and keeping the client and the engines happy.     

Besides increasing search visibility this content marketing strategy also increases ROI. In case of content marketing how you organize contents matters a lot and clustering in one way to enhance your efforts. 

For search engine optimization content creation is a must if you are not a writer you can move towards technical seo which is more of a smooth delivery mechanism than a winning strategy. Well is does help in ranking on SERPs for example dealing efficiently with web core vitals and making a responsive site.    

External linking also helps using the pillar page on strictly topic related platforms using articles, blogs and visual contenting. This is one way of fortifying the pillar page and building authority in the cluster. You can accord a character to not only the pillar page but to secondary internally linked pages as well.

Topic Cluster On Website 

In a website the main page is the home which  carries a holistic definition of the topic. In most of the cases the pillar page would be the home page if it precisely defines the offering or the topic. But remember website itself is a cluster of internal pages. These are pages which are connected and under the scope of the pillar page topic. But within this too there could be a variance the pages could be sub related.

For Example take example of a Tea  Portal. The first or index page is usually an introduction and what is being offered. Then the architecture proceeds and the main or home page is linked to sub topics like:

• Organic  Leaf Tea
• Green Leaf Tea
• Black Leaf Tea
• Green Tea Bags 
• Organic Tea Bags

All these links would be on the main page  usually in the header. These pages are then further linked to sub pages:

Example Organic Leaf :

• Organic green leaf tea
• Organic black leaf tea   

Thus a well defined and three tier structure is emerging. This helps in fortifying the Home Page or in other instances an internal page with authority. This is a fine way of spreading targeted terms on different pages rather than bombarding home page with a huge load of terms.    

During external link building carefully choose to promote on content platforms using category which are closely related. This is the essence of link building. 

Clusters for Blogs

Unlike a a horizontal structure in website the blog is more on lines of a scroll down. Hence link closely related entries internally. This again will create authority pages and focus on relevant terms during promotion. Choose authority pages and promote them as you would a website using external linking.  

Link your blog to your website only if the content is well matched else leave it alone. Authority blogs are fantastic platforms for link building and promoting products and profession. If you use external linking on the blogs quite often they turn into spam blogs do not do it, use it sparsely. However interlinking of blog entries has no limits but than the entries linked in this manner should be highly relevant.     

Creating topic clusters is one of the preferred methodology in search engine optimization during a SEO Campaign. All your actions have to be justified within framework of white hat techniques, the search engines are evolving an no quick fire methodology will work.        

More on Topic Clusters for Seo

Uday provides search engine optimization service for digital marketing. He provides website contents and content for authoritative links. 

He also teaches digital marketing in his home town Jabalpur. He can be contacted at: 

pateluday90@hotmail.com

09755089323          

Topic Clustering A New Approach to Search Engine Optimisation

Search algorithms are constantly evolving and so is the need for for webmasters to keep on updating themselves in order to produce results. The evolution of search engines is natural since there is a constant need to filter trash and weak or spammy content and to be in sync with ever changing technology and trends. 

Hence Google has come with many updates like Panda, Penguin and RankBrain to name a few. The evolution of  indexing and ranking mechanism means change in Seo practices. In the initial stages weak content with excess keywords worked. It does not any more. Hence more and more efforts are being made in creating contents on web pages in order to attract search engines to rank a site higher. 

Well in the initial stages creating content meant a series of pages that were relevant to the main topic. These where interlinked using search terms often repeated but it worked. As search engine explore for contents on websites they have begun to appreciate deep content clustering which are relevant and add to the information. 

Hence in topic clustering a pillar page is created which is linked reciprocally to other web pages or sub domain having intense but relevant information. The anchor used to link with the pillar page could be repeated in order to inform search engines of relevancy of the topic. This information architecture is helping sites ranking better and better.  The information architecture could be subdivided using silos creating cluster of pages that provide one set of information while another cluster could be providing another set of information but all relevant to the main topic. 

In topic clusters intense content and unique information is a must in order to qualify as useful pages. Slight repetition could lead to a penalty. I would further add blogs containing relevant and anecdotal contents should also be linked to the cluster provided they are updated regularly.       

Content creation for search engine optimisation is part of the requisite skill set in fact a skill set of highest order. It depends much upon the creativity and knowledge of optimisation of the webmaster in order to succeed. Another advantage of good content creation is assimilation of naturally gained links due to useful information contained.

Yes links still matter much!