Using topic clusters for content optimisation

We wanted to give you, our audience, more articles, and broader insights on all things digital, while passing on our expert knowledge to help your digital real estate grow.

We wanted to get away from the 'as and when' content creation approach. Structure and purpose were the key. We needed to generate engaging content around our three key pillars: Digital, Design and Experience. Plus, our output had to reflect our ethos of 'delivering digital experiences that matter'.

So our teams got busy. They performed keyword research. They looked at our keyword rankings in comparison to our competitors. They determined that although our positions were okay, they weren’t great. Let’s just say that ‘smashing it out of the park’ didn’t come to mind.

After identifying our target keywords and aligning them to our personas it was time to add more meat to the bone. And so our journey towards topic clusters began.

For the uninitiated, a topic cluster focuses on a group of related content pages that link together. They have three key elements: Pillar content, cluster content and the hyperlinks that connect them.

Using this approach, we broke down which topics had value from an SEO and engagement perspective. From there we got busy and created the content that you can read today. In fact, this article itself is part of a cluster. But that's not surprising, is it?

The progress of our content (so far)

Our overall performance has increased significantly. As you’ll see in the graphs below, we're now outranking our competitors (we’re the blue line at the top) in the following areas:

• Share of voice

• Average position

• Visibility

• Estimated traffic

We’ve also seen a threefold increase in our website traffic. Plus, we even have some Google snippets. Five in fact! (At the time of writing).

Right now, we have a total of 16 clusters on specific topics, each aligned to a persona and its dedicated keyword bucket. But we’re not done! We’ve extended this approach to our customers, offering a Content Optimisation service that includes defining topic clusters, copywriting, measurement and more.

This shows that with an effective and structured approach, your content will sing, and your visitor numbers will soar. We'll be continuing our efforts on ours, and our customers’ topic clusters, to ensure audiences have something interesting to read.

Watch this space…

Working with Codehouse

If you want a tried and tested approach to quality content and improved organic ranking, our Content Optimisation service is ideal for you. Get in touch to find out more.