Boost Content Marketing: Easy Keyword Clustering Steps

WE ALL KNOW THE POWER THAT RANKING HIGHLY ON SERPS HAS TO BOOST TRAFFIC TO A BUSINESS AND BRING CUSTOMERS FLOCKING TO YOUR SITE, BUT ACHIEVING THOSE GAINS CAN BE TRICKY, TO SAY THE LEAST. IF YOU WANT TO TURBOCHARGE THE ORGANIC VISIBILITY OF YOUR CONTENT, KEYWORD CLUSTERING COULD HOLD THE KEY TO REALISING YOUR CONTENT MARKETING DREAMS. BY CREATING GROUPS OF RELATED KEYWORDS AND PRODUCING ARTICLES TAILORED TO THESE CLUSTERS, YOU CAN MORE EFFICIENTLY PLAN AND WRITE YOUR BLOGS. EVEN BETTER, IT IMPROVES THE RELEVANCE OF YOUR SITE AND, CONSEQUENTLY, YOUR AUTHORITY AND RANKING ON SERPS. READ ON FOR SOME EASY STEPS TOWARDS EFFECTIVE CLUSTERING AND ACHIEVING YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING GOALS.

WHAT IS KEYWORD CLUSTERING?

Digital marketers have realised that keyword clustering can significantly enhance their content strategy. The idea is simple: by grouping related keywords, you can organise your blogs to cover all aspects of a topic, making your content more comprehensive and valuable. This approach helps your articles rank for a wide range of relevant searches, turning them into authoritative resources. By covering all angles and addressing related questions, your content becomes more appealing to Google, which rewards such thoroughness with better rankings. In short, keyword clustering makes your content more effective and visible. 

Now you’re probably wondering how to nail this clustering lark so your SEO strategy reaps the benefits. Settle in, get comfy, and let our straightforward how-to guide show you the way.

STEP ONE: GATHER THOSE KEYWORDS

Once you have your primary keyword – let’s say it’s ‘haircuts’ (if you’re a hairdresser or barber) – input it into your preferred keyword research tool. Whether you use Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google Keyword Planner, cast a wide net and gather a comprehensive collection of related keywords.

Everything relevant or related to that original topic should be input into a spreadsheet, where you can begin to organise it and form your clusters. Take a moment to check out Google auto suggestions and ‘people also asked’ questions relating to your primary keyword. These long-tail keywords and questions are of importance to your target audience, so by prioritising them in your clusters you’re sure to be providing content of value.

It’s worth collating plenty of long-tail keywords and questions, as well as broad ones, to get a comprehensive overview of all the searches people are doing into your chosen topic. While those broad keywords most likely attract more clicks, competition to rank for them is typically fierce. By tailoring your articles and blog posts towards long-tail keywords as well, you’ll be catering directly to more specific search intents- and so facing less of a fight for users’ attention- good news for everyone!

STEP TWO: GET TO SORTING

By creating a cluster column in your spreadsheet, you can start wrangling some order from the keyword chaos. Each cluster heading should be a broad topic pertinent to your business and industry. Start grouping and labelling the keywords under these headings according to shared intent and similarity. This might mean ‘long ponytails’, ‘long hair cut’, ‘long hairstyles’, ‘styling long hair’, ‘best styles for long hair’, and ‘how to style long hair’ all get grouped into a ‘long hair styles’ cluster. The exact headings don’t matter, so long as the keywords within each cluster are all related, coming from similar user intent, and make sense as a collection.

If you’re really struggling to see the forest for the trees – or clusters for the keywords – there are tools out there that will do most of the heavy lifting for you. Keyword Cupid and Keyword Insights have dedicated keyword clustering tools, and SEMrush has features to help you along the way. Or get ChatGPT on the job (if you’re really desperate) by asking it to collate keywords into clusters based on semantic similarity. You can then provide a list of keywords, separated by commas, and the AI will section them up under appropriate headings.

Using these tools can give you a clearer idea of how to go about the process, boost your clustering confidence, and give you a head start in sorting before you tweak your clusters to fit your needs. They’re worth giving a try just to get a feel for the process if you’re at all unsure starting out.

STEP THREE: UNDERSTAND SEARCHER INTENT

Identifying cohesive clusters is only half the task; your job now is understanding exactly what searchers are after when they type in those keywords. Are they looking for advice or information? Trying to find products or services? With this knowledge in hand, you can create blogs directly tailored to your audience’s wants and needs.

By analysing the motivations of searchers, you can anticipate any related desires or interests they may have too (and offer to help fulfil those, of course!). If they’re looking up long hairstyles, they’ll likely be in the market for hair care products for long hair too. The perfect opportunity to come to their aid and suggest just the products for the job! And perhaps linking to a piece written about long hair trends for the coming season elsewhere on your site might appeal, too- very helpful! You get the idea.

STEP FOUR: CREATE ATTENTION-GRABBING, OPTMISED CONTENT TO CATER TO THEIR NEEDS

Use each cluster heading as the kicking-off point for an article, then optimise for all of the keywords within that cluster. Google’s SGE (Search Generative Experience) rollout is pushing organic results further down the SERPs, so creating content that sparks interest and enthusiasm in the people searching those keywords is becoming even more important for generating those clicks. Covering all angles of the cluster topic makes your work a valuable and informative read, and has the most to offer prospective users. 

Different related clusters can then be collated into topic clusters, with pieces of content all internally linking and offering a cohesive overview of a broader subject. Not only is this kind of coverage really valuable to your site’s visitors, but it demonstrates your authority and depth of knowledge in your area(s) of expertise. Happily, Google tends to be a big fan of this kind of stuff too.

Just because your blog is hitting the mark for a whole juicy cluster of keywords doesn’t mean you can slack off on best SEO practices, though. All the usual boxes need ticking: meta titles and descriptions optimised, header tags properly used, keywords all naturally incorporated within the text, high-quality backlinks and internal linking, ensuring the information is refreshed and kept up to date and accurate, the full works.

STEP FIVE: KEEPS TABS ON PERFORMANCE, TWEAK AND REFINE FROM THERE

It’s not a question of optimise for the cluster, post the article, then forget all about it and wait for the rewards to roll in. Performance of each piece needs tracking: use analytics tools like Search Console or Google Analytics to monitor metrics like organic traffic, conversion rates, and bounce rates. If any cluster isn’t delivering the results you expected, this data can give valuable insights into why.

For any piece that isn’t performing well, you may need to take a closer look at the keywords grouped into that cluster, or perhaps incorporate new relevant keywords into the piece. Or perhaps you aren’t delivering what users are actually looking for when they search those terms, and closer analysis of searcher intent is needed. By continuously optimising and refining your content strategy based on how your clusters are doing, you’ll be able to keep improving upon your SEO strategy and yield great results.

The clustering of keywords is a smart and considered approach to SEO and content marketing. It delivers more value to customers and boosts site visibility on those all-important SERPs, so really, what’s not to like? 

And if you’d like a bit of the cluster action but still aren’t sure where to begin? Well, as luck would have it, creating content that caters to high-value, informative keyword clusters and boosting SEO results is our bread and butter at Tidal. And a chat with us is just a click away!