Pillars & Clusters - How to optimize your content for SEO in 2019

The SEO discipline is changing all the time, and that is why it is essential you always keep yourself updated - also when it comes to text content on your site.

When you write text for your website is has been best practice to have your search term in the URL, the main headline, in one or two subheadlines and of course in the main text a number of times. In this way, you have told Google that your site is vital if a specific search term is searched for.

It has also been crucial to write landing pages for the different long tail search terms so Google would know which searches was essential for you. If you wanted to be found on 'used car,' 'good used car,' 'good blue used car,' it would require three targeted landing pages even though the content would be more or less the same.

However, these best practices are now under construction.

What is Pillars and Clusters?

Googles search robots are in these years getting more and more intelligent, and they are continually trying to understand the intention behind each search instead of trying to answer a question. In other words, Google is getting better and better to understand what your site is all about. Do the users want general information about a subject? Do they want to compare products? Do they want an offer? Or something else? This has a significant impact on how you should write text today and in the future.

However, let's get to it! This is how you should optimize your content for SEO in 2019.

It is all about having websites that tell Google's robots which search intentions a site can help to answer and still get the interest of the users about a subject. Let us introduce the term Pillars and Clusters. The main site (Pillar) must be longer and way more informative than you have been used to. The main site does not need to cover every aspect of a subject. That is what your subpages (Clusters) are for.

Your subpages can be blogs, articles, and similar content that covers related subjects or more specific aspects of the subjects you are writing about. You link these blogs and articles to the main page which creates an interconnected network of pieces of information and insights that combined shows Google that you have vast knowledge and authority about the subjects you are writing about. Your main page will also get many links of great value that revolves about different aspects of the same subject.

Every time one of your subpages are found on Google and are visited SEO-value will flow to your main page meaning your subpages are now working for your main page. This will affect your position positively on Google because you tell Google you have vast knowledge in the specific area. With the main page and a number of subpages, you, not only "own" a page but an overall search area.

Forget all possible (and impossible) long tail search terms

In the future, you should think about subjects instead of search terms. It is the subjects that you must rank on, and your subpages should support the main pages. In other words, you do not have to rely on whether you can nail every possible - and impossible - search terms. All of your subpages within a subject will work for your main page. When you do not have to focus on ranging on a specific word, but rather an overall subject, a new world of opportunities will arise.

Heyday has given advise and implemented Pillars and Clusters for many different clients - of course with significant improvements as a result.

We are always ready to advise you on how to improve your SEO. 

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