How to boost your SEO thanks to the Pillar-Cluster method?

Recently, I discovered a new SEO strategy that has proven itself in recent times: the Pillar-Cluster method also known as Topic Cluster or Thematic Cluster! 

Having trouble creating engaging content that puts you in the top Google positions?

Every day, I hear project leaders tell me:

"I don't know what subject to deal with today, it will penalize my natural referencing ..."

“I have to write lots of articles to be well referenced. "

"I have no more keyword ideas for my next articles!" "

"I only have a dozen articles on my blog, I will never be well placed on Google ..."

"I'm afraid of making duplicate content, my keywords are very close!" "

I reassure you right away: all these questions, I asked myself for a very long time! I was lost in the middle of the SEO jungle myself.

I was wondering all the time, the same thing: Why doesn't Google want to put my blog articles on the first page when I try to write lots of them, with all of them full of keywords?

By working on the SEO of the Cybexo Inc and following the advice of experts, we discovered that there is no need to write a ton of articles to improve its SEO .

There is a very simple way to solve this problem and create content appreciated by Google, while building a library of articles super useful for your visitors: The technique of Pillar-Cluster SEO. 

Using the SEO pillar page method, I'm going to show you why you don't need to write 1,000 articles on your blog to succeed in your content strategy and develop the natural referencing of your site or blog.

If you are looking to increase your SEO and have new visitors for free on your site without bothering with the keywords and the number of articles to have, this article should interest you!

In this article, we will see how the Pillar-Cluster strategy works, but also how to implement it on your blog or on your site:

1. Choose your pillar pages

2. Define the supporting articles (Cluster) to be treated for each pillar

3. Write the Cluster articles

4. Write the pillar page

5. Add internal links between pillar articles and supporting articles

I. How does the Pillar-Cluster SEO strategy work?

Let’s not forget, Google’s number one goal is to make its users happy by providing them with useful content that addresses their issues.

A large part of Google's algorithm consists in making available to its users, search results which it believes will be most useful to them.

The Pillar-Cluster's SEO strategy is different from what we are used to hearing or reading about natural referencing.

It is an approach based on  the intentions of users (users intents) and not on keywords.

Pillar articles represent the main topics that you cover on your blog. Depending on the overall theme of your blog, you will be able to identify 4-5 subjects to write your pillar articles . These feature articles should be more than 3,000 words.

Support articles (Cluster) will support the pillar articles. I advise you to write between 5 and 10 per pillar article . These mini-articles focus on more specific topics that all touch on one aspect of the main pillar. They come to provide details on certain points of the pillar article.

In this way, you set up content libraries for each subject covered. This brings a lot of value to your users and justifies your image as a specialist . This new SEO strategy from Topic Cluster promotes your natural SEO. It allows you to cover different user intentions on the blog part of your site.

If we apply this method for the case of LiveMentor, the main theme of our blog is entrepreneurship . Our pillars are Digital Marketing, Dropshipping, Instagram, Facebook, WordPress…

For each of these pillars, we have support articles. For example, for the “Digital Marketing” category , our pillar page is our Digital Marketing training page .

Using this method requires treating your blog configuration differently, since it does not follow the traditional approach of articles published one after the other. Using the Pillar-Cluster SEO strategy, your articles are organized by categories.

But above all, you have to think about writing your supporting articles before the pillar article!

Why ?

Firstly, because you do not yet know how many sub-topics you will cover in your pillar page. Secondly, it is only after writing your support articles that you can adopt a clear plan and create links  in your pillar page to your support articles (cluster).

II / How to set up a “Pillar-Cluster” on your blog?

1. Choose your pillar pages

These different categories underline the foundations of your project. The themes covered must respond to the problems of your personas .

If you have a blog about Digital Marketing , your pillar pages can be for example:

• SEO
• Copywrinting
• The video content strategy
• Etc…

2. Define the supporting articles (Cluster) to be treated for each pillar

Start by brainstorming first . To do this, we recommend starting from a simple table with two columns ( personas on the left and problematics on the right). This allows you to identify the different issues facing your personas.

You can also use another type of table, always in two columns, but this time with motivation on the left and content on the right. Identify all the motivations that drive your customers to buy from you and think of content ideas that highlight those motivations.

By filling in these tables, you will already see ideas of interesting topics to be discussed!

But don't stop there! You  need to dig and compile a longer list of content that you can create. 

Another way is to use the Answer The Public tool and type in  one of your main topics. This tool will automatically generate different queries that users search for on Google , which enriches your first list. 

Then a list of related topics appears in the form of questions. Excellent when talking about user intentions!

A final option to find interesting topics for your main articles is to go directly to the main interested party: Google.

The only thing you have to do is type a word or a phrase into the search bar. Next, Google will provide you with a list of suggested keywords related to what you typed.

These suggestions are great!

Why?

Because these are terms that people actually type on Google. So there is no need to ask if they are popular or not, they are 100%!

There are other free SEO tools that are very useful for small budgets!

3. Write the Cluster articles

Now that you've found your categories and article ideas, you can move on to the funniest part: creating content!

As I said above, you have to write the supporting articles before the pillar pages.

The process of writing support articles is quite similar to that of a classic blog article with one ready exception:

Do not stay in the general approach , but dive into the heart of the sub-subject with detail and examples.

4. Write the pillar page

After writing your supporting articles, you can now start writing your pillar page, which represents the overview of the subject covered.

Once again, writing is also similar to that of a classic blog post, but this time with 2 differences:

• As I said above, these pillar pages must contain more content than the supporting articles (more than 3000 words)
• These pages must remain general (do not go into the details of an aspect, create a support article in this case)

Whether for a pillar article or a support article, we must not forget the basic best practices of quality content:

• Teacher article
• Long content
• Examples
• Images / video content / GIF
• Testimonials / stories
• Bringing value, something unique
• Don't make the terms more complex to appear smart
• Ask questions, engage your reader, have a conversation with them
• Avoid long sentences
• Keep a guideline
• Etc…

Also make sure that each article is well optimized for natural referencing by including your target query in your:

• Title + subtitles
• Meta-description
• URL
• Paragraphs
• Image text attribute

5. Add internal links between pillar articles and supporting articles

The last thing you have to do after writing everything is to add internal links on each article. This is the purpose of the Topic Cluster after all!

To do this, go back to each of your support articles and create a link to your main article.

Then go back to your main article and create all the links to your supporting articles.

Thus all the supporting articles will give juice to the pillar page. And the power of the pillar page will fall on the various support articles of the semantic cocoon concerned.

This is not over, you should also think about creating links between your support articles.

Minimize internal links that point to a different semantic cocoon. For example in this article which belongs to our semantic cocoon Digital Marketing, I will not make a link to an article apartment in the Facebook cocoon, it makes sense.

This organized structure shows Google that the articles in your different sections have a semantic relationship, which is favorable for your natural referencing because it facilitates the indexing of your articles.

Besides, doing so has another great advantage!

A visitor who comes across one of your articles (whether pillar or support) will be able to consult other articles on the same subject. This increases the time spent on the site by users and therefore naturally your SEO score.

Here are 2 beginners mistakes not to reproduce in its internal networking strategy:

1. Please note: to do well, the anchor of the links (underlined words) must be placed on target requests (for example, "WordPress extensions" for our article on the best WordPress extensions).

Avoid the "click here" or the links on groups of words that are too long. Give priority to the queries (keywords) on which your articles are positioned and on which Internet users find you.

These internal links make it easier for Google robots to analyze and index your subject groups. This strengthens the SEO power of your pillar page.

2. Another mistake that I made a lot when I started… Whenever I wrote new content, I made sure to link to my old articles when it made sense.

But I made a big mistake… I was not going to my old content and then adding links to my new content….

I know, it's ant work, especially if you have a lot of blog posts. But it's a job that pays.

And don't forget the external links to other blogs / sites!

For these external links, choose to point to content that:

1. Are related to the subject you are dealing with in your article.
2. Have a rather powerful domain authority in the domain concerned.

For example, linking to the Hubspot blog for email marketing content is a good source!

To better understand the principle of the Pillar-Cluster method, I advise you to browse the pillar page "Customer Success" on the TypeForm blog . Well, this is an example in English, but I find the page very well constructed!

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It is therefore more interesting for your SEO to focus on a small collection of articles that are written intelligently, well put forward, optimized and updated every 3 to 6 months .

In marketing jargon, we talk about "evergreen content" , that is to say articles that are imperishable and that will last over time, if we update them, of course. Besides, one of Google's SEO rules recommends updating its content regularly.

Writing this type of article will take you a little time, but your articles will be enormously valuable and you won't have to write tons of them. You are doing what is called a "semantic cluster" . It's very powerful, you will see  ?  !

After a few months, you will see in your Google Search Console (where you search for your keywords) that you begin to position yourself on keywords that are relevant and targeted to your audience. You don't waste yourself on useless keywords, bingo!

With a little work, marketing content can be very powerful. We see a lot of students approaching SEO over quantity rather than quality, while by changing perspectives, you will be more efficient and be able to focus on other subjects.

Google says it itself, it is better to focus on a small quantity of articles but of quality rather than full of mediocre articles.

If you have articles which are not useful and which do not bring any traffic to your blog , then they are probably not useful. Deleting them can therefore be a good solution, unless of course you can transform them into useful content for your audience.

This semantic cluster model is a great way to organize your content, while helping users and search engines to easily navigate your site's content.

This will save you time, improve your SEO and make sure you focus on one of the most useful content strategies: user intent.

This method notably allowed this article to position itself in first position Google on the keyword "  Pillar-Cluster  "!

III. An exercise to do on the Pillar-Cluster

I suggest you tell me in the comments:

• 1 pillar article idea that you can have on your blog as well as 3 supporting articles that go with it.

Do not hesitate to give us your feedback or ask us questions in the comments  on this new Pillar-Cluster SEO strategy, we are here for that!

And if you want to discuss SEO more generally with Cybexo Digital marketing agency, do not hesitate to tell me about it in the comments , I will be happy to answer you.😀