Today, we’re going to be discussing topic clusters. Topic clusters work. What they are is, think of a book. You may have a book on the subject like SEO, and then there’s multiple chapters.
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So online, the way a topic cluster would work is you have a main page about the overall topic, like SEO, and then it goes into multiple sections, like link-building, on-page SEO, how to rank on Google really fast, how to create a site map.
That’s an example of a topic cluster. And if it works for me and other people in some of the most competitive niches, like SEO, it will work for any other niche out there.
And I’m going to go into it step-by-step. So how does it work? Well, you need one main page on that subject and you may cover what is that topic, how it works, why it’s important, and then you link out to other subpages that are more detailed, that cover specific topics within that niche.
So here’s what you need to do. First, you go to Ubersuggest and you type in a keyword like how to trade stocks or whatever sector you’re in, and then you want to click on the Content Ideas report in the left-hand navigation side. You’ll see all the popular pages, content around that topic based on social shares, like Facebook shares, Pinterest shares, backlinks, how many people are linking to that site, and how many estimated visits is that article getting from Google organic traffic.
Then from there, you want to click through, go to some of those articles and see, all right, here’s what this page is on. And look for themes. Do you see how many of the different topics cover different aspects of that subject? And if so, you can bring a lot of that content in, rewrite it, make it better versions of it, and create multiple subtopics around that main topic and bring it back up into the main article.
You want to be seen as an expert, you want to be authoritative, you want that trust. By using topic clusters, what you’re going to end up finding is it’ll help with your expertise, authority, and trust. Now here’s another example for you.
Typically my guides on, like, what is SEO, what is content marketing, some of those have clusters in them. Here’s some more, like, beerbrand.com/blogs/urbanbeardsman. And you can just go to a few of these places because some of these websites have topic clusters and you can check them out, and from these URLs, you can find quite a few of them.
As I mentioned, right, my one on SEO, that’s an example of one of them. I even have things like within this article on what is SEO, on topics like link-building and on-page SEO, which then allows my on-page SEO article or my link-building article to rank higher as well.
So let’s play a little fun game. What is the basic theme of your topic cluster, right? You should have a theme. If you don’t, you’re not going to do well. What resources can back up your theme? So, what places can you cite, source? This gives you the authority. Remember EAT, expertise, authority, trust. Who do you have as expert quotes? This is, again, citing sources. This makes you more credible. Can you back up your data? And, who’s your demographic? This will all give you ideas on how you should be creating your content clusters out there.
Of course, when you’re creating these, you need to have the optimal link structure. You should, from your main page, you should link to the internal pages. And then from the internal pages, you should link back up to the main page. Your anchor texts could contain the keywords, but also make sure it’s natural as well. When you’re creating these pages, make sure you also optimize for SEO from your metadata to including the keywords within your body, to using all tags for images, to technical code, to schema markup.
If you’re not sure on how to get the most out of SEO, check out neilpatel.com/training and click on SEO Unlocked. I have a whole course that breaks down how to do SEO and even videos and cheat sheets and PDFs that teach you how to do on-page SEO as well.
So, next up for you, I want you to download the Pillar & Cluster Pages Workbook. You can find this at neilpatel.com/training. Click on Content Marketing Unlocked, go to week two, video two, where you can download that.
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What if you have pretty much all the elements – pillar posts and linking content – but they are all in a blog. How would you go about putting those into pages? Thanks for a steer!
I don't understand the part that you said to look for themes at 2:47, it's a little bit confused such as what kind of theme that you mean? I hope you could explain it. Thank you.
Hi Neil, do you have to do the same in-depth keyword research for each post in the cluster? I am struggling with that. For example my last post was How to Define and Audience for Affiliate Marketing. If I had left it at How to Define an Audience, that would have been an okay keyword but by adding For Affiliate Marketing it was not an okay keyword lol. However, to keep it in the same topic, I added For Affiliate Marketing. Will it be okay because it is pointing to a main post and other posts with the same topic or not? Thanks for clarifying.
Sorry but not clear topical cluster topic and how to use it in content not clear
Great info, Neil. I've already created a lot of articles on subtopic. Now need to create the pillar article.
Hey Neil. The Cluster content templates PDF is missing in the resources section on the website. Please look into it 🙂
Hi Neil , I have website that ranked in Google suddenly I did not found it serp whene I test it with " site:" I found it but not whene I search with main keyword , I reindexed it again but no new until now
Great video, so if your main article keyword is hard to rank for, do you still write it and use the sub articles to help rank main article.??
Awesome Video. Go ahead .Follow Me
I've applying the topic cluster's perspective since a while.
It's useful for user experience and linkbuilding on site
It's a great tactic
Thanks for your insights Neil 😊
Great video.
Neil .. you nailed it💯
Hey Neil,
As I am your Instagram follower,
I saw that you follow same color schemes, black, orange, grey combination. Should I too follow a same color scheme ?
If I don't do that, will that reduce my possibilities to make people remember my brand ?
Hey Neil, I've removed date from my blog posts using css but Google still shows the date in Google search results. Please, help me in this very issue.
Sir I have a doubt sir how vloger earn view which
main source they use for views because they randomly type titles and descriptions without SEO
Thanks for the info.
Hi Neil I have a question and I was wondering if you could help me, I saw a video of your, however I can't seem to find it you mentioned a website that helps exchange page viewers with other people what is the name of the website ? Can you direct me to the video
Hii Neil,
It's amazing information.
Your all videos are gr8 value addition.
I have one 1⃣ question
Why Peng Joon 💯 & other influencers create new website 💥💥 for each course ? 🎯🎯
If possible kindly make a video or reply to this comment.
Thanks in advance ☺🙏
Hi,
My dear Neil Patel, please guide me about images and vectors for videos, which website's vectors and images are copyrighted free.
Neil please tell me your openion about Builderall???which is better for marketing Russell brunson clickfunnel or builderall???or get response..???? please reply..
Another great video Neil. All the best. Take care.
Hello Sir, Does Making updates in the content (inserting affiliate links) negatively affects the google ranking?