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The Power of Cluster Articles / Creating a Content Hub

Build a resource that creates authority in your industry and drives more traffic

Publishing rich text content on company websites is a perfect starting point for brands looking to increase their organic searchability online. However, after several months of content investment, many businesses may see poor traffic and little or no return on their digital marketing efforts. 

Sound familiar? There can be a few reasons why your digital marketing strategy isn’t getting a good return on investment (ROI).

• You have no content strategy and publishing content with no real purpose

• There was no research on user habits or search terms used for your industry sector

• Your keyword mapping was targeting high-value or broad results where the competition is too great

• The metadata for each article does not reflect the content

• You have no internal link-building strategy

• The content you are creating is weak when compared to existing content online

• Your website needs more helpful information for your audience or potential new users.

Some of these variables may seem daunting at first glance. However, there is a way to capture the essence of a solid digital marketing strategy that will combine all of these factors. The answer is found by creating cluster articles.

1. How To Get Started

The brilliance of producing cluster content lies in making articles that fall under top-level categories so that you create a hierarchy of information. More critical is naming the top-level category and the wealth of blog posts, articles, or company news assigned as supporting content.  

Example: Top Level Category Name - Wedding Rings

The search term ‘wedding rings’ is a high-value search term that will be difficult to rank on page one of any search engine results page (SERP) due to the broad subject and competitive nature. Your content strategy is telling search engines what your product are and what information you have relative to that search term.

The idea is to create rich content that talks about everything and anything important or valuable about Wedding Rings. 

The key is to offer value through genuinely useful, educational, and informative content. Once you start seeing an increase in search traffic from one category, you can start adding other categories. A rule of thumb for a small team is 1 category per quarter for each campaign making 4 campaigns per year. You could map out your top-level categories for the year that you want to rank high in google for in advance so that you and your team can start to plan your supporting content, graphics, media, and promotions. An example content plan may look like the image below. We use the free tool https://www.figma.com/ to create our plans.

Over time, your company website should hold a wide range of relative information that is useful for your customers, promotes your services and products and helps with your digital marketing strategy.

2. Advanced Cluster Articles

You can enhance your content hub by adding an additional sub-layer of content. For example, applying another layer to the primary category can work well if the product or service allows for a breakdown of content that has a wealth of additional information. This works well if you already have a main category and content already created under this category and wish to expand further.

A content strategy for organic SERPs should see your online business grow into an entity where search engines need and should be ranking your content. Rank comes from wealth and authority through the content that you offer users. 

What Is Wealth? Photography, graphics, design, UX navigation and layout, technical SEO and modern coding standards.

What Is Authority? Content, quality, educational, internal link strategy, public relations (PR), external links, inbound links (backlinks) from relative domains, social profiles and services or product pages.

3. Link Building

The diagram below illustrates how search engines crawl the matrix of cluster articles on your website. Although the content is essential, you can see other factors working together to show a powerful tool for search.

Primary Category - Often referred to as Cornerstone content. This shows all the articles related to the top-level search term.

Pillar Content - Is used to connect most of the articles for offering questions and answers (good internal link building)

Cluster Articles - Forming authority and wealth for your brand.

Internal Link Matrix - shows how the articles can talk to each other through internal linking.

External Links - Pointing the user to relevant information across the web.

Inbound - Backlinks - Shows other domains pointing back to your useful content.

4. Helpful Questions and Answers about Cluster Content

What is the difference between cluster articles and pillar content?

Custer articles can be subject-specific and short in length; however, pillar content is an informative article that covers many different subjects, detailed and long in length. It’s a good idea to point (using hyperlinks) cluster articles back to pillar content for more information.

How do you build a topic cluster?

Research the keywords you want to target for SERPs, create a primary category, and write content around that subject. Try to ensure each article is original, helpful, and has structured metadata around the keyword for the title and description. 

How do content clusters strengthen SEO?

Over time, creating a large volume of carefully considered cluster articles for one subject can boost your SEO efforts. Equally important is metadata, internal/external link building, social sharing, outreach, and PR campaigns for each publication.

What is a cluster page?

A cluster page is a publication in the form of an article for a blog or news feed. Moreover, a cluster page forms an article relevant to a topic where many articles have already been created, and more can be assigned.

5. Why Do Cluster Articles Work?

Producing cluster articles for your online business can work for many reasons. In addition, working through all the points to consider can sometimes seem time-consuming. A great tip would be to spend the first 12 months writing content for your desired service or product. Once you have a good selection of articles, start to add the technical SEO at a later date. 

Key points to consider:

1. Grouping content into clusters under primary categories can generate more traffic to your website.

2. Creating hyperlinks that talk to other cluster articles on your website can help convert your readers to relevant content. For example, if the user clicks through to more information about your products and services, your content has done its job. 

3. Search engines like Google launched a core algorithm update called RankBrain. The primary function of this upgrade is to rank content based on search intent. Google puts more emphasis on the quality of content and information provided. Cluster articles help promote this update.

4. Cluster articles help you become an expert in your field and produce high-quality, in-depth information for your industry.

5. Build short and long (*pillar) articles that can create a readership for your users. *Pillar articles are typically written and published with intensive and resourceful information. Many small cluster articles will point (using hyperlinks) back to the pillar article for more information.

6. Think of clusters of articles as chapters of a book, and the primary category is the book title.

7. Audit your website and see which articles drive your blog traffic. You can continuously improve stagnant articles and bulk them out with more content. Moreover, a good trick is to combine cluster articles and form a more in-depth publication that helps with SERPs.

8. Check your cluster articles for duplicate content. Sometimes rich copy offers the same information as new or archived content.

9. When producing your content, think about educational, practical, relevant, shareable, and helpful content. This production strategy will help define your online voice for users to be thankful and inspired.

10. Write cluster articles with content that answers questions. In addition, ask your audience a question and tell them to leave a comment on your blog. Creating a buzz around published content that allows users to interact will give you a big push for organic ranking. Create a relationship with your readers and potential clients.

11. With cluster articles, you can create an Author for each post. Assign content to sales agents or service representatives specialising in their particular field of expertise. Their bio should state a little about them and their contact details. This little trick can help readers gain the trust of the person behind the information and gives your brand authority in the industry. 

12. Following the cluster article rules should put your online brand in an excellent position for SERPs. Your short-term goal should be wealth while combining authority with your long-term expectations.