If you still don't get what 'topic clusters' are, it's okay. At first, Neither did I (completely). But from
what I do understand, they're an incredibly cool and nifty tool to help you get ahead of
the game, and/or to help your content help itself.
First of all, understand that a topic cluster is a tool and also a strategy primarily used in
and developed for marketing on the internet. It's a system and concept that involves
multiple steps and multiple facets and is usually applied to websites. To simplify what topic
clusters are, let's break the term down. A cluster is “a group of similar things'' or simply
just the word “bunch”. So; a bunch of topics. Specifically, a bunch of topics to not just
answer a user's question, but to hopefully further expand on what they had in mind with
several relevant subtopics and topics of interest.
Moving on, do you remember how you used to use internet search engines, and they
hardly seemed to understand what exactly you were trying to look for? Remember the
off-point search results and the extra time you spent wading through the results pages?
Fundamentally, search engines would use your keywords individually to find the closest
and most accurate thing they think you're looking for. Rather than understanding you
through individual keywords, Hubspot (the creators of this wonderful system!) made it
possible for search engines to understand you through the sentences (or group of words
you strung together before hitting 'Enter') you type to bring you more specific and
relevant results. Keep in mind that people use search engines as a means to have their
many questions answered and being in the business of answering those questions as best as
possible is an actual job, as well as being able to do that will help position the link to your
website higher up in search results.
Previously under the "older way of doing things", any given search engine’s SEO (Search
Engine Optimization) technology would scour the internet through individual keywords,
ignoring context and whatever words were next to it, which inevitably brought irrelevant
and random content up in search results making this harder for the technology to be
effective. Creators and entrepreneurs would be forced to put out more content in order to
increase their odds of showing up better and ranked higher in internet search engine results.
Thankfully there is a more updated way of doing this considering the context, sentences
and terms, and specific long-tail keywords.
Known as content clusters or a content hub, this method is a popular marketing tool used
to enhance and boost your website’s traffic through SEO. However, the topic cluster SEO
focuses on topic optimization rather than keyword optimization, which aims to and would
result in boosting your website's ranking and visibility in search engine results and improve
on your website’s overall architecture.
You start with creating the landing page as the main lobby, which attempts to answer user
questions in a more general sense. Then, linking more pages that explore more in-depth
topics or subjects in the same vein on the landing page (obviously relating to your business
or matter of expertise) in order to better satisfy the user's need or question; that is what a
topic cluster is.
A topic cluster can consist of many pages and sub-pages as well. These are categorized into
two parts; the pillar pages (main content page) and cluster pages (sub-pages to the main
content page and a.k.a. the cluster topic). Think of pillar pages as a hotel lobby where you
receive and welcome guests, and cluster pages as hotel rooms for your guests to enter.
Pillar pages are the core that serves as an introduction to the main topic of your business
or subject matter while allowing access to the sub-topics that are (hyper-linked) linked on
the pillar pages, allowing ease of navigation and increasing time spent on or with your
content. There's more relevance to explore, and one usually feels that they're already there
so why not partake in it. Furthermore, these pillar pages allow for expanded sub-topic
content and categories within the main page to exhibit and expound on the whole subject,
cater detailed information, and assemble a thorough keyboard frequency throughout your
website for admissible search conclusions.
Other than better engagement on your content, users will have more accurate results on
search engines, creating improved user-friendly accessibility of your website.
With a well-kept lobby and tidy rooms all organized and neatly arranged through the
implementation of topic clusters, you now have a well-oiled machine that's ready to go,
and receive. I suppose at this point, you could think of topic clustering as the hotel
management and housekeeping in a way. Your hotel is now ready for business, and better
business! Go forth and go well.