You will be able to plan a cluster of related pages linked around one main page.
A parent reads Priya's guide to PSLE heuristics and gets to the section on the model method. She wants to know more about the mistakes children make with it, then about how to time herself in the exam, then whether her child should be doing practice papers already. If the guide links to pages that answer each of those, she keeps reading Priya's site. If it does not, she goes back to Google and finds them somewhere else.
A topic cluster is a way of planning pages so the next question always has an answer nearby. This lesson covers how to build one around the topics you know best.
A topic cluster is a group of pages on one subject: one broad main page and several detailed pages, each on a subtopic, all linked to each other. The main page gives an overview of the whole subject and links out to each detailed page. Each detailed page goes deep on its subtopic and links back to the main page, and to sibling pages where it helps.
This is different from the keyword clusters in lesson 2.4, Choose and group keywords by business value. A keyword cluster is a set of searches that one page can win. A topic cluster is a set of pages, each winning its own keyword cluster, that together cover a subject.
For Priya, the subject is PSLE maths. Her main page is a guide to PSLE maths for parents, covering what the exam tests, how it is structured and how children can prepare, written at overview level. Her detailed pages might be the guide to heuristics from lesson 5.1, Match the format and depth the searcher needs, a page on exam timing, a page on the most common errors in Paper 2, and a page on how to use practice papers at home.
It helps readers first. Each page answers one question well and offers a clear route to the next one. A parent who arrives on the exam timing page from Google can see at once that there is a heuristics guide and an overview, without searching again.
It helps Google too. Lesson 3.3, Internal links, images and URLs, explained that Google uses internal links and their anchor text to discover pages and understand how they relate. A main page that links to four detailed pages with clear anchor text, and four pages that link back, gives Google a clear picture of what each page covers and how the subject fits together. It also means a new detailed page is found quickly, because it is linked from a page Google already crawls.
Google does not describe "topic clusters" as a ranking system. The benefit comes from the things it does document: helpful pages that answer the searcher's question, descriptive internal links and a site structure that makes sense.
The links should read naturally inside the text. On the main page, each section that touches a subtopic links to the detailed page: "Most children lose marks in Paper 2 through a handful of avoidable errors, which our guide to common Paper 2 mistakes covers one by one." On a detailed page, an early sentence links back to the overview, and sections link sideways to siblings where the reader would want them.
Link to service pages where it fits, too. The heuristics guide can end with a short note that Priya's P5 and P6 classes practise these strategies every week, linking to the class pages. That is the bridge from the informational searches at the awareness stage to the commercial ones at consideration, the journey you mapped in lesson 2.1, Search intent: what the searcher is trying to do.
Keyword tools will happily suggest dozens of subtopics for any subject. "PSLE maths" could spawn pages on every topic in the syllabus, every school's preliminary paper, study timetables, stationery lists and more. Building all of them would take months and produce many thin pages, the kind lesson 1.4, What gets a site demoted or removed, warned about.
Choose clusters where you can write every page from real experience, and choose subtopics your customers actually ask about. Priya teaches upper primary maths, so PSLE maths is a natural cluster. A cluster on secondary school science would be guesswork. Mei Ling's natural cluster is custom cakes, with pages on ordering timelines, flavours and fillings, storing and transporting cakes, and dietary needs she can actually meet. A cluster on wedding catering would take her far from what she knows.
Start small. One main page and four detailed pages is a good first cluster, and it is better to build that well than to sketch twenty pages you will never finish.
Draw the cluster on paper or in a simple diagram. Put the main page in the middle with its main search beneath it. Around it, place four detailed pages, each with its own main search. Draw a line for every link: main to each detail, each detail back to main, and the sideways links that make sense. Mark which pages exist and which need writing, and check each one against your keyword map so no two pages aim at the same search.
The activity below asks you to sketch one cluster for your own site in exactly this way.
Sketch one topic cluster for your site with a main page, four supporting pages and the links between them.
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