In this article, we are going to talk about thematic clustering and blog optimization. It is a content strategy that drives significant traffic to your business site. You attract more leads and therefore increase your conversion rate. But to set up a thematic cluster, you need to be able to identify your pages with the most traffic.
Why identify your pages with the most traffic?
To attract traffic to their website and increase their visibility, companies ask web editors to create content, a lot of content. Except that this profusion of blog articles has two negative consequences on your natural referencing:
- The articles end up competing with each other, identical subjects are treated X times, we then speak of cannibalization .
- The reader gets lost in the meanders of a badly structured site, which becomes a real catch-all. Your bounce rate is exploding and the user experience is at an all-time low.
On the other hand, setting up an editorial strategy with a thematic cluster , will allow you to build a blog that really meets the search intentions of Internet users. The articles are grouped by thematic groups around a pillar page, the reading is simplified, more logical and therefore offers a better experience to your audience.
It is therefore to create this pillar page that you will have to identify your most visited pages.
What is the pillar page of a thematic cluster?
The pillar page of a thematic cluster is a central page that groups together all the articles that deal with the same subject that we will classify by thematic groups.
In a thematic cluster, keywords are no longer the central elements of your ranking, it is the theme that takes precedence.
The pillar page thus has several sections, each a short summary of the related articles, with links to the articles in question. Said articles themselves contain links of course to their associated pillar page.
The structure of your pages becomes more logical, it allows readers to delve deeper into the subject if they wish and return to the pillar page in search of additional information. Your internal networking is more fluid, more organized and you thus improve your referencing on the search engines at the same time.
How to identify your pillar pages?
For your SEO strategy to be optimal, you will have to identify the thematic groups of your pillar pages.
1. Identify the theme of your pillar page
After a thorough study of your buyer personas , find the topics in which they are interested. Your pillar page should respond to the requests of your target audience, without addressing too broad a topic. Typically, a pillar page has between 5 and 20 related articles.
Let’s take an example: you sell shoes, a good pillar page theme might be “How to Maintain Your Shoes”. You will thus be able to deal with the theme from different aspects: “How to maintain your city shoes”, “How to clean your runnings” …
2. Define your pillar pages
You can start from the existing to create your pillar pages. If you’ve already covered a fairly large topic in one of your old posts, it can become a pillar page. Otherwise, you will have to create your central page.
To identify your pages with the most traffic, use the Google Analytics tool. In the left tab, click on the “Behavior” menu, then on “Site content” and finally on “All pages”. The statistics that will then be displayed will allow you to define the most visited pages.
List the topics that meet the search intentions of your personas, categorize your articles by topic, identify those that can become a pillar page, and note the untreated topics.
Also Read: SEO: 10 tips to manage your online reputation
3. Find the associated keywords
In a thematic cluster, the selection of keywords comes after the definition of the themes. Each article will thus be written according to a long tail keyword, as in our example “clean your runnings” which is a very precise keyword.
4. Write your related articles
When you have identified the topics not covered, do not delay to integrate them into your editorial calendar. Ask your team of web editors to write on several themes at the same time to flesh out each of your pillar pages. Thus, your prospects will have the opportunity to learn about your product as a whole with quality and relevant articles.
Don’t forget to optimize your internal networking so that Internet users can cover the whole subject if they wish.