Content clusters: what they are and how to set them up

A content cluster is a group of pages that together cover a single topic: one overview page that covers the theme broadly, and in-depth articles that each answer a sub-question, interconnected with internal links. For Google and for AI search engines, that structure makes visible where your expertise lies.

Writing one-off blogs yields one-off results. Below is what a cluster does achieve, how to set one up in five steps, and a worked example: our very own knowledge base, which we recently reduced from thirteen categories to six.

What a content cluster yields

Three things, and they reinforce each other.

Google sees where your authority lies. Authority is not built with a single strong page, but with a series of pages that together cover a theme. The overview page shows what the main topic is, while the in-depth articles show that you truly master the subject.

Your pages no longer compete with each other. This is the problem that most websites have underestimated. If you write without structure, you naturally end up with multiple pages about the same topic. Google then doesn't know which one is the most important and has them all perform moderately.

You become visible on many more search queries. A cluster covers the main keyword via the overview page, and the long, specific questions via the in-depth articles. The latter is becoming more important: people are increasingly asking full questions instead of using loose keywords, especially since they are also asking those questions to an AI.

How to set up a cluster in five steps

1. Choose a theme that is large enough

A cluster needs at least four to five articles to function as a whole. If you can only think of two, it is not a theme but a subtopic of something larger. In that case, choose that larger theme.

2. Determine the overview page

That is the page that covers the subject broadly and links through to the in-depth content. Often that is a category page or an extensive guide. This page aims for the broad main keyword.

3. Split the theme into investigative questions, not search words

This is where it most frequently goes wrong. Anyone who creates an article per keyword ends up with ten pages that say the same thing in different words. Anyone who creates an article per sub-question ends up with ten pages that complement each other.

Ask yourself: which questions does someone ask one after another when delving into this subject? Every question that deserves its own, complete answer is an article.

4. Connect everything with meaningful internal links

Each in-depth article links back to the overview page, and the overview page links to all articles. In addition, articles link to each other where it makes sense content-wise, rather than just because they have to.

Use what the article is about in the link text, not “read more”. That text tells Google what the target page is about.

5. Clear internal competition before expanding

Before you add new articles, check whether there are already pages that cover the same topic. Merge them into one stronger article and put a redirect from the old ones to the new one. Two half-articles about the same subject perform worse together than one good article.

A worked example: our own knowledge base

Theory is easy, so here is what we did ourselves with 93 articles.

The initial situation was messy. There were thirteen categories. Two of them together contained almost all the articles, while the remaining eleven had two to seven. A category page with three articles is too thin to rank anywhere, and for a visitor, a list of thirteen choices is not an overview but a problem.

There was internal competition. Whilst clearing up, we found five pairs of items with the exact same title. Two pairs turned out to be completely identical, and three pairs covered the same subject with different text. That is precisely the situation in which Google cannot choose and therefore lets neither of them rank well.

What we have done:

• Condensed down into six categories that align with what we do, rather than how the items originally came about.
• Each article was given exactly one category, so there is no doubt about where something belongs.
• Articles whose content was a better fit elsewhere have been moved. For example, our articles on measurement and tracking were in the web development category; they now form their own theme.
• The exact duplicates have been removed with a redirect, and the partial duplicates have been merged into a single longer article with its own title.
• The thinnest category has been supplemented with new items until it stands on its own as a theme.

The breakdown is now: recruitment marketing 50 articles, websites and conversion 14, marketing psychology 9, advertising and campaigns 8, measurement and data 7, and SEO and findability 5. Six themes, each strong enough to support its own overview page.

The four most common mistakes we see

• One article per keyword instead of per question. That results in pages that cannibalise each other rather than complement one another.
• An index page that is just a list. If that page itself explains nothing, there is no reason to show it in the search results. Give it its own, fully-fledged answer to the main question.
• One-way internal links. A floor that links upwards but never the other way round leaves half the effect behind.
• Keep publishing without cleaning up. Every new article on a topic that has already been covered weakens the existing article. Merging usually yields more than adding.

When a cluster is not the solution

If you do not yet have ten articles, clustering is premature. Write content first that is good enough on its own; structure does not make weak articles strong.

And if your traffic is already coming in to one strong page, don't just move it. Build around it: let that page become the hub page and add depth, instead of replacing it.

How to know if it works

Not to the positions of a single page, but to three things together:

• The number of search queries you are visible for. A working cluster broadens that number, even if the positions per keyword remain the same.
• The position of the overview page for the broad keyword. That is the most difficult keyword, and therefore the best gauge.
• Whether visitors click through within the cluster. If they don't do that, your articles won't connect properly in terms of content.

Count on months, not weeks. A cluster becomes stronger the more components there are, and Google needs time to recognise the coherence.