How do you know an SEO is into topic clusters? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you. Lots of SEOs seem to be raving about the benefits of topic clusters at the moment. But do topic clusters live up to the hype, or are they just another buzzword? In this guide, you’ll learn the following: What are topic clusters? Topic clusters are interlinked pages about a particular subject. People often get confused by the name variations. If there’s one thing SEOs love to do, How to Build it’s to create multiple terms for the same thing: Topic clusters, content hubs, pillar pages, hub and spoke.
Whatever you call them
They are all essentially the same thing: topically grouped pages designed to cover a subject and rank. Simply put, a topic cluster consists of three components: A page focused executive data on a topic. A “cluster” of pages covering related subtopics in more depth. Internal linking between all of the pages. If you nail those three elements, you have a topic cluster. Most people’s first encounter with topic clusters is via this graphic from Hubspot that illustrates the setup of a cluster: Why do topic clusters matter for SEO? Topic clusters help search engines better understand the hierarchy of your website. As such, they may help search engines see your site as an authority on a specific subject.
Basically a topic cluster
Is just another way of laying out your website’s architecture. However, it’s worth pointing out here that Google has never specifically said to use topic clusters TG Numbers or mentioned anything about their benefits. The closest SEOs get to an official comment on topic clusters is this part from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines: Design your site to have a clear conceptual page hierarchy. This is open to interpretation.
Like most things in SEO, topic clusters are a framework created by How to Build SEOs (not Google) to help get stuff done. Topic clusters are effective for SEO because they: Group relevant content together so that it is easier to find (for users and search engines). May help to build topical relevance/authority for your site by fully covering a topic. Help to create relevant internal links naturally. So what do topic clusters actually look like? Below you will find three examples of topic clusters across different niches.
