Rank In Competitive Markets With Topical Clusters – Module 2 – Lesson 2 – Content Marketing Unlocked

Today, we're going to be discussing topic clusters. Topic clusters work. What they are is, think of a book. You may have a book on the subject like SEO, and then there's multiple chapters.

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Ubersuggest:

Action Items:

Playlist – Content Marketing Unlocked:
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So online, the way a topic cluster would work is you have a main page about the overall topic, like SEO, and then it goes into multiple sections, like link-building, on-page SEO, how to rank on Google really fast, how to create a site map.

That's an example of a topic cluster. And if it works for me and other people in some of the most competitive niches, like SEO, it will work for any other niche out there.

And I'm going to go into it step-by-step. So how does it work? Well, you need one main page on that subject and you may cover what is that topic, how it works, why it's important, and then you link out to other subpages that are more detailed, that cover specific topics within that niche.

So here's what you need to do. First, you go to Ubersuggest and you type in a keyword like how to trade stocks or whatever sector you're in, and then you want to click on the Content Ideas report in the left-hand navigation side. You'll see all the popular pages, content around that topic based on social shares, like Facebook shares, Pinterest shares, backlinks, how many people are linking to that site, and how many estimated visits is that article getting from Google organic traffic.

Then from there, you want to click through, go to some of those articles and see, all right, here's what this page is on. And look for themes. Do you see how many of the different topics cover different aspects of that subject? And if so, you can bring a lot of that content in, rewrite it, make it better versions of it, and create multiple subtopics around that main topic and bring it back up into the main article.

You want to be seen as an expert, you want to be authoritative, you want that trust. By using topic clusters, what you're going to end up finding is it'll help with your expertise, authority, and trust. Now here's another example for you.

Typically my guides on, like, what is SEO, what is content marketing, some of those have clusters in them. Here's some more, like, beerbrand.com/blogs/urbanbeardsman. And you can just go to a few of these places because some of these websites have topic clusters and you can check them out, and from these URLs, you can find quite a few of them.

As I mentioned, right, my one on SEO, that's an example of one of them. I even have things like within this article on what is SEO, on topics like link-building and on-page SEO, which then allows my on-page SEO article or my link-building article to rank higher as well.

So let's play a little fun game. What is the basic theme of your topic cluster, right? You should have a theme. If you don't, you're not going to do well. What resources can back up your theme? So, what places can you cite, source? This gives you the authority. Remember EAT, expertise, authority, trust. Who do you have as expert quotes? This is, again, citing sources. This makes you more credible. Can you back up your data? And, who's your demographic? This will all give you ideas on how you should be creating your content clusters out there.

Of course, when you're creating these, you need to have the optimal link structure. You should, from your main page, you should link to the internal pages. And then from the internal pages, you should link back up to the main page. Your anchor texts could contain the keywords, but also make sure it's natural as well. When you're creating these pages, make sure you also optimize for SEO from your metadata to including the keywords within your body, to using all tags for images, to technical code, to schema markup.

If you're not sure on how to get the most out of SEO, check out neilpatel.com/training and click on SEO Unlocked. I have a whole course that breaks down how to do SEO and even videos and cheat sheets and PDFs that teach you how to do on-page SEO as well.

So, next up for you, I want you to download the Pillar & Cluster Pages Workbook. You can find this at neilpatel.com/training. Click on Content Marketing Unlocked, go to week two, video two, where you can download that.

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29 Responses to Rank In Competitive Markets With Topical Clusters – Module 2 – Lesson 2 – Content Marketing Unlocked

  1. Linda James Bennett August 2, 2020 at 7:12 pm #

    these pdf aren’t on the training site 🙁

    • Neil Patel August 3, 2020 at 3:27 pm #

      Yes if you click on the week number and then the course name they will pop up. neilpatel.com/training

    • Linda James Bennett August 3, 2020 at 6:21 pm #

      @Neil Patel great stuff – thanks

  2. Sher Khan August 6, 2020 at 2:02 pm #

    Hey sir u really admire me a lot

    • Hau Yao Hui August 6, 2020 at 3:51 pm #

      You’re sure that’s not what I meant

  3. Raghav Singhal August 6, 2020 at 2:10 pm #

    waited for your content yesterday 🙂

    • Neil Patel August 6, 2020 at 4:31 pm #

      Hope you enjoyed it!

  4. Amrit Ramakrishnan August 6, 2020 at 2:11 pm #

    Hey Neil, thank you so much for this unlocked course! It is an absolute life saver 🙂 One feedback, however, the playlist doesn’t seem to be in lesson (chronological?) order. Module 1, Lesson 3 is at the bottom of the playlist, below Module 2

    • Neil Patel August 6, 2020 at 4:32 pm #

      Thanks I’ll check that out, friend 🙂

  5. Abdul-wasi O. Make Money Online August 6, 2020 at 2:12 pm #

    Thanks for this info

    • Neil Patel August 6, 2020 at 4:31 pm #

      No problem!

  6. Manoj Chand August 6, 2020 at 2:16 pm #

    Thank you Neil for that relevent and important information.

    • Neil Patel August 6, 2020 at 4:32 pm #

      My pleasure!

  7. Trendy Commodities August 6, 2020 at 2:18 pm #

    Hi, Neil, great info as always, however, this is a bit confusing to me. Although I am still going to give it a try. Thank you!

    • Neil Patel August 6, 2020 at 4:32 pm #

      Let me know if you have any questions 🙂

    • Trendy Commodities August 6, 2020 at 4:55 pm #

      @Neil Patel Ok, I will let you know, thanks!

  8. COLOMBIAFRANK August 6, 2020 at 2:22 pm #

    Hey Neil
    I am happy that you talk about EAT. After my observation Google seems to have a different approach now. With its last update big comercial sites and newspapers seem to outrank even the best sites and content at least in tourism, even with low value content.

    This tells me that Google is more and more shifting to a “big bucks rank higher” business model and give privilege to companies that also send a big paycheck to Google at the end of the months.

    The most obvious example I found, search for “kolumbien reiseführer”. That is german and means “colombia travel guide”. Postitions 1-3 = Amazon
    And this is just the top of the iceberg.
    Do you have an opinion about that?

  9. الزهراء Azahra TV August 6, 2020 at 2:27 pm #

    Bon courage et bonne continuation

    • Neil Patel August 6, 2020 at 4:34 pm #

      Thank you!

  10. Brad Gudim August 6, 2020 at 2:28 pm #

    Clusters would also be like… “A Series” right?

    • Neil Patel August 6, 2020 at 4:33 pm #

      Correct

  11. Prateek Rawat August 6, 2020 at 3:24 pm #

    Hey Neil,
    The sound of your volume is very low. Even taking my device sound full, it’s still very low.
    It will be great to have it increased

    • Neil Patel August 6, 2020 at 4:36 pm #

      Noted! Thanks for the feedback, friend

  12. Adedayo Adeniran August 6, 2020 at 3:31 pm #

    Hello, Neil thanks for this content. I follow them every time.

    Pls do anyone know how to break videos on YouTube. I saw video with different sessions. Is it in the description section?

  13. Sk Sohel August 6, 2020 at 3:33 pm #

    Hey Neil,
    Thanks for sharing this great info. I read about ‘topic clusters’ before but it was not so clear as you make it. You make it more easy to understand. Thanks again….

    • Neil Patel August 6, 2020 at 4:34 pm #

      Glad it was helpful!

  14. Jules Life August 6, 2020 at 4:41 pm #

    I’ve been doing this for years and it does work. I was just never clear on if I should link from the little pages back to the main page and main page to little pages. I have always been linking only from little pages to the main one but it works locally very well.

  15. nandabk 3 August 6, 2020 at 5:39 pm #

    i have a small doubt , what basic design skills needed for seo or digital marketing

  16. Nagendra Singh August 6, 2020 at 6:45 pm #

    Well topic cluster then contradict to a strategy where we create a detailed single page and try to cover everything on that page…

    If we follow this cluster strategy then the content will be thin…

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