Topic clusters

What a topic cluster is

A topic cluster is a structure, not a page. It is one pillar page covering a whole subject, a set of narrower pages each answering one part of that subject completely, and a deliberate pattern of links: every narrow page points up to the pillar, the pillar points down to each narrow page, and the narrow pages point sideways to each other where a reader would genuinely want to go next.

So this service sits between two others, and it is worth being exact about which one you need. A pillar page is the single definitive page in the middle. A supporting article is one of the narrow pages. A topic cluster is the plan for the whole set and the linking that makes them behave as one thing rather than nine separate things. If you have neither yet, buy the pillar first. If you already have a pillar and a pile of old posts, buy the cluster, because the job is mostly deciding what to keep, what to merge and what to write.

When you need one

You need a cluster when one subject carries most of your revenue and your site says a little about it in a dozen places. Search engines and AI assistants both work out what a site is authoritative on by looking at how thoroughly and how coherently it covers a subject. A dozen scattered posts read as a dozen opinions. A pillar with eight linked supporting pages reads as a body of work.

The second case is a site where two or three pages quietly compete for the same search, so none of them wins it. Clustering forces the decision: one page becomes the answer and the others either become genuinely different pages or stop existing.

You do not need a cluster if you only need one page. A single commercial search with a buyer behind it wants an SEO landing page, not nine pages and a map. You also do not need one before the research is done. Which subject is worth this much work is a question for keyword and topic research, and building a cluster around the wrong subject is the most expensive mistake available here.

What goes in it

The deliverable is a plan plus the writing that plan calls for. The plan is the part people underestimate.

• The subject boundary. What this cluster covers and, more usefully, what it does not, so the next cluster has somewhere to start and the two do not overlap.
• The pillar brief. The sections the pillar must carry, taken from what people actually search for, in the order they ask.
• The supporting page list. One line per page: the question it answers, the search it is built for, and whether it exists, needs a refresh, needs merging into another, or needs writing from nothing.
• The link map. Which page links to which, with the anchor text written out, so nobody has to guess later and no two links describe the same destination differently.
• The build order. Which three pages to do first, because almost nobody funds nine at once.

What a cluster is not is a keyword list with folders. If two pages on the list would answer the same question, one of them should not be on the list.

What you get

The cluster plan. One document: the boundary, the pillar brief, the page list with a brief for each, the link map and the build order. Usable by any writer, including yours.

The pages themselves, if you want them written rather than briefed. Pillar and supporting pages as editable documents, with title tags, meta descriptions and the internal links marked in place. Written over months, in the build order, or entered for you as CMS content entry.

The disposal list. The existing pages that get merged, redirected or removed, with what happens to each. A cluster that leaves the old overlapping posts live has not finished the job.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A Saskatoon firm selling and servicing commercial espresso machines has 31 pages, 19 of them blog posts written over six years. Most of the revenue is service contracts. Four posts touch on descaling, three on grinder calibration, two on choosing a machine, and two of those contradict each other on water hardness.

The cluster is built around one pillar, “Looking after a commercial espresso machine”, with nine supporting pages beneath it. Of the 19 posts, three are already good supporting pages and get a refresh and a link, six merge in pairs into three pages, five are redirected to the pillar, and five belong to a different subject and are left alone. Four pages are written from nothing. The build order puts the pillar and the two service-contract pages first, because those sit closest to money. The link map is the part the owner refers to most, because it tells whoever writes the next post where to link it.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. What subject you want to own, what you already have on it, and who would write the pages. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. Plan only, or plan plus pages, agreed before anything starts.
3. Research and inventory. What people search on the subject, and what every existing page of yours does about it. Read-only access to your site analytics and search data helps.
4. The plan. Ten working days for the plan, link map and disposal list. You approve the page list before a word is written.
5. The writing, in build order. The pillar first, then supporting pages in batches, each delivered with its links already marked.

What it costs

Quoted as a fixed price in CAD after the half-hour call, because a cluster of four pages and a cluster of fourteen are not the same job. The number depends on how many pages the subject needs, how many already exist in some form, and whether you want the plan alone or the pages as well. The pricing page shows how fixed pricing works here and the published bands for the services that have them.

What happens next

Most people write the remaining supporting articles in batches over the following months, working down the build order. An internal linking pass then points the rest of the site at the pillar, which is a separate job from linking within the cluster. A year on, refreshing the pages that have aged keeps the set current. The plan is finished work on its own, and nothing further is assumed.