What is Keyword Clustering

Understanding Keyword Clustering

Keyword clustering is the process of clustering keywords into themes that are relevant to your website pages.

A single cluster includes a core topic and several related subtopics, which support and point back to the core topic.

Keyword clustering allows you to target many keywords per page, rather than only one or two keywords, creating additional opportunities for content to be found online.

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How is Keyword Clustering Used?

In Cluster 1 example above, the core topic is “What is SEO.” This should be your longer, in-depth content covering a broad range of information about SEO.

The five subtopics connected to “What is SEO” are more specific but are still highly relevant to the core topic. The pieces are also in-depth, yet they are more specific than the core topic and likely target some long-tail keywords.

Each subtopic links back to the core topic, with the idea being when one piece of content from the cluster does well, all content within that cluster does well. This boosts your SEO in a big way, so you can see why learning what keyword clustering is – and putting it into action – can be highly valuable.

How Do Search Engines View Keyword Clusters?

Search engines look very favorably upon websites using keyword clustering because it allows them to:

• Make connections between pages, or detect semantic relationships between pieces of content
• Recognize your content as a trusted authority, worthy of a top spot.

When you take the time to organize your keywords into clusters, it makes it easier for search engines to discover related content, too. This is because you improve your site architecture with clusters, which in turn allows you to boost your search engine visibility.

What about Multiple Keywords?

This part truly stumps a lot of people, because traditionally we’ve been focused on assigning only two to three keywords per piece of content.

Times have changed, though, and today we’re more focused on targeting user intent than keywords.

So why am I even talking about keyword clustering then? Because when we group keywords into clusters, we can put related keywords together and we more naturally write content that targets intent.

The whole idea of creating clusters is based on how people search for and consume information. Since there are so many different reasons people look for information online, these clusters of topics allow us to cover all our bases.

When you’re assigning multiple keywords to a single piece of content, you want to make sure they are closely related to each other, such as:

•     Digital marketing
•     Digital marketing tips
•     Digital content marketing
•     Digital marketing tools
•     Online marketing for beginners

You get the idea. As long as your keywords are very similar, and you work them into every single piece of content, you can rank for multiple keywords – giving you more opportunities to be found in search engines.

Final Note

Aside from improving SEO, keyword clustering is also helpful because it helps you make the most of your time. Once you’ve conducted keyword research to find the best ones for your business, you can organize them into groups by different themes. Instead of picking keywords and content at random, you’ll have a well-defined plan that makes more sense for your readers and your search engine performance.