A Guide to Content Pillars Part 2: Topic Clusters
Why Your Brand Needs Content Pillars
If you’re new here, it might be helpful to start with our first article in this series: A Guide to Content Pillars: Getting Started.
If you’re already familiar with the idea of content pillars, welcome to part 2! As always, content creation is essential to your overall marketing strategy. Being able to identify your audience’s needs and how your brand speaks into those needs will set you apart from your competitors.
And while it is still important to consider SEO as you create content for your website, it is more important that you are creating quality content that is relevant to your audience.
It is vital to create content in topic-related groups so that you can have a better chance of standing out from the competition.
In this article, we’ll dive deeper into creating topic clusters. As a reminder, a topic cluster is made up of one overarching topic and 8-12 subtopics (reference part 1 for more detailed definitions within content pillars).
SERPs: Topics > Keywords
The ever-evolving intelligence of search engines makes it more challenging to rank for specific keywords in SERPs.
A search engine’s entire goal is to connect the most relevant content to the right audience at the right time. Your brand’s content appearing in those rankings relies heavily on the authority and quality of your content. It is vital to create content in topic-related groups so that you can have a better chance of standing out from the competition.
Businesses need to identify the topics they want to be known for so they can begin building authoritative content as it relates to their brand and their end customer. From awareness to consideration to decision, these content pillars should meet their users in any part of their journey helping them make an educated decision.
So how do businesses identify these topics? Keep reading for some practical tips.
Topic Cluster Example: Topics + Subtopics
Before jumping in to create your own topic clusters, take a look at this example.
Let’s say a dog breeder identifies one of their main topics as potty training—it’s something every dog owner will need to know for their new puppy and it usually evokes several questions on a successful method.
In this example, the topic (potty training a dog) is used to find relevant, long-tail keyword searches to support the user’s intent (finding a potty training method). These long-tail keyword searches become the topic cluster’s main subtopics.
Once a topic cluster is formed, you can set out creating content that supports the audience’s main goal—in this case: finding a helpful solution to potty train a dog.
The organization of your topics and subtopics helps to ensure you are keeping your audience in mind, solving their needs, and accurately representing your brand and the story you want to tell.
From awareness to consideration to decision, these content pillars should meet their users in any part of their journey helping them make an educated decision.
Building Your Own Topic Clusters
In part one, we shared three things to consider when choosing your content topics:
Consider your audience
Consider your business
Consider your current content
As you build your own topic clusters, here are some practical steps to include in your process.
Brainstorm
Spend time thinking about the main categories that make up your business — these could be product or service offerings, business goals, audience needs, or a combination of these.
Try to come up with 3–5 different topics that represent a well-rounded view of your brand.
→ Pro Tip: If you’re having a hard time determining overall topics, consider doing a “brain dump” exercise where you write down everything your audience is interested in from your brand. It can range from general topics or questions they have related to a product or service.
Once you see everything written down on paper, you can begin to see patterns and group items together that make sense. Eventually, topics and subtopics will emerge.
Research
You know your topics and subtopics, but prioritizing based on relevancy and intent is essential if you want to stand out in an online search and make the most of your time. This involves research to understand how your audience is actually searching for these topics. A keyword research tool like some mentioned in our latest SEO article will help.
→ Pro Tip: Your main topic should contain broad, high-level keywords with a monthly search volume (MSV) of at least 1,000 searches.
Your supporting subtopic keywords are going to be more specific, so the MSV is likely going to be much lower—somewhere around 50 searches or more.
Plan
Finally, create an actionable plan to put these topic clusters in motion. While your main topics will likely warrant an entire pillar page (coming in part three), your subtopics are perfect for creating blog content. If your related keywords are questions, consider writing content that provides the answers.
→ Pro Tip: Organize your ideas in a simple spreadsheet to keep track of keyword search volume, subtopics, and content ideas. Get started with Reusser’s Topic Cluster Planner! Just add in your topics and subtopic keywords to start planning. With everything in one place, you will begin to see how the MSV of all the semantically related subtopics will come together and help you rank higher.
Plan ahead & stay tuned in!
Now that you have some practical steps to move forward, start brainstorming, researching, and planning. With your ideas organized, you’ll be ready for our final post in the series where we’ll walk you through building a pillar page to put all the pieces together.
If you need to refresh your memory on the basics, go back and read part one in this series: A Guide to Content Pillars: Getting Started. For more information on Reusser’s approach to content strategy, take a look at our process.
If you want more information on Reusser’s approach to content strategy, take a look at our process.
