What is Keyword Clustering How to Do it Right?
A few months ago, when Google launched its March 5th update, thousands of websites were affected by it. Some bloggers were not even sure why their websites were de-ranked and penalized. Unfortunately, we experienced it as well.
From that point, we worked on updating our blog deeply and managed to get it back into the game by performing several techniques. One of our main techniques in this process was Keyword Clustering.
This technique helped us manage the site content in an organized way. In this article, I aim to share our secrets related to this technique with you. I will discuss what it actually is and how you can implement it as well. Let’s start.
What is Keyword Clustering?
Keyword clustering is a process that refers to making a cluster of relevant keywords into a theme on website pages. The main objective of keyword clustering is to help customers in finding their preferred product.
Keeping all of them in mind and working on them can help you gain more traffic. You first perform thorough research to get relevant keywords. Then, they are organized into different sections such as search intent, meaning, etc. Finally, you focus on creating valuable content that addresses these keywords and this approach increases the SEO performance.
Why Keyword Clustering is Important?
Before I get into explaining how to do it, you need to know why it is important. There are different things that we noticed during our process that explain this importance well. Here are their details:
Increased Topic Relevancy:
Performing this technique can help you increase topic relevancy. This factor matters when it comes to ranking the content. When you group your keywords, you have a better chance of explaining them on a broader scale. In this way, the content might show up for different types of search queries.
Increased User Experience:
Writing content based on Keyword Clustering can help you increase user experience. It makes the content relevant and helps users find what they’re looking for easily. In this way, their multiple questions are answered at the same place improving your content’s worth.
Good for Search Intent:
This technique can be used to optimize your content according to the search intent of users. Grouped keywords let you create content accordingly. For example, if the intent is informational, you will add topics accordingly in it.
Better Internal Linking:
Keyword grouping is useful for internal linking. There might be different topics that you have covered in your blog already. Clustering will help you out link to their web pages. In this way, you will give the users a chance to check out more of your blog’s work.
How To Perform Keyword Clustering the Right Way?
It is essential for companies or businesses to find out the right way to make a keyword cluster to provide comfort to their customers. Here you will get to know about the effective way of making keyword clusters:
Keyword Research
Firstly, knowing which keyword is relevant to other keywords is crucial to make a cluster of all relevant keywords. You are allowed to conduct research by using some of the effective keyword searching tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, and more to identify similar keywords.
Choose the keywords that share similar intent, content, and topic and design a group of these keywords. This group will help you to save money on blogging on the same topic twice or thrice.
Grouping Keywords
Organize the researched keywords into logical groups or clusters. Your computer enables you to use spreadsheets and mind-mapping tools such as MindNode and Ayoa.
Instead, you are also allowed to utilize specialized SEO platforms to group them in an accurate and efficient manner. The cluster of similar keywords should have five to fifteen keywords to showcase the relevancy.
Identify the main topic
Now it is time to identify the main topic they share to head on content creation. Conduct thorough research on your made clusters of similar keywords and find out the main intent or topic they share.
In addition, research the topic and gain information about the topic from experts. Here, you are free to craft quality content.
Craft Content
Craft high-quality content around each keyword cluster. While making content, It should be considered that each piece of content should cover various aspects of the main topic.
This will address different angles and questions that users might have in their minds. You need to produce strong matches and engaging content that should have the ability to catch the attention of the audience. Aim for in-depth, credible resources that can provide genuine value.
Assign a Pillar Page
After crafting content within the cluster, you should choose one topic to be the pillar page. The pillar page needs to cover the main topic broadly and accurately.
Now, you should link this out to the other pages within the same cluster that cover specific subtopics in more detail. The pillar page helps you to maintain relevancy in your topics to aid you in delivering relevant content to establish yourself as an authority.
Optimize On-page Elements
It is essential for you to optimize each and every piece of content within a cluster for its respective keyword. The optimization of on-page elements includes meta titles, meta descriptions and headers.
It also incorporating the keywords naturally into the content. This optimization makes your website effective in attracting organic traffic to your site. Also, you should ensure keyword stuffing to make your content more attractive.
Internal Linking
You should interlink the content strategically within each cluster. Link the subtopics to the pillar page and vice versa. This approach helps users to navigate through related content and signals to search engines the interconnectedness of your content. It assists search engines to decide which rank your website deserves.
Avoid Keyword Cannibalization
This term refers to an SEO problem where different web pages of a site vie for the same Google rankings. This can lead to reduced organic traffic.
Therefore, ensure that different pages within a cluster target different long-tail keywords or variations of the main keyword. This prevents keyword cannibalization, where multiple pages compete for the same keyword.
Monitoring and Adjusting Regularly
Keep a close eye on the performance of your keyword clusters using analytics tools. Monitor rankings, organic traffic, and user engagement metrics.
If certain clusters are not performing as expected, consider adjusting your content or keyword targeting. This approach may aid you in maintaining your existing ranking or gaining a high ranking as well.
Final Thoughts
Keyword clustering requires patience and ongoing effort, but the rewards in terms of improved SEO and user engagement are well worth it. This can help you improve your site’s ranking and offer valuable resources to your audience as well. You can perform this strategy by following some simple guidelines. We have discussed them in detail in the data shared above.
FAQs:
How to find keywords for clustering?
You can use the traditional keyword research methods in order to find them for clustering.
Is this a lengthy process?
Keyword Clustering can be a lengthy process since it involves dealing with multiple keywords.
Is this strategy compulsory for SEO?
No. Using this strategy can be a lot useful but it’s not compulsory.