Disclosure: When you buy something through one of the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. We only recommend products we use and/or believe will deliver value to you.
You’ve heard that creating topic clusters beats targeting individual keywords.
And you’re ready to create topic clusters that rank for hundreds of keywords.
But are topic clusters worth all the hype?
We’ll find out in a few minutes.
I’ve created a few topic clusters on this blog and seen them on many SaaS websites.
You’ll see what topic clusters are, how to create them for your SaaS website, and inspiring examples to follow.
What are SaaS topic clusters?
A SaaS topic cluster is a group of content pieces that provide vast information about a particular topic. In other words, a topic cluster for your SaaS company should answer most of the questions potential product users have about that topic.
People also refer to topic clusters as content clusters or hub and spoke.
A SaaS topic cluster consists of 3 basic parts:
- The pillar page
- Cluster pages
- Internal links between pillar and cluster pages
The pillar page is the page that gives a summary of this topic. So, any reader should have an overview of the topic just from reading the page.
Source: HubSpot
But what if the reader wants deeper knowledge about the subtopics on your pillar page?
This is where the cluster pages come in.
Cluster pages dive into subtopics to provide details absent on the pillar page.
Lastly, a topic cluster only happens when there’s interlinking between the pillar and cluster pages.
Why go through all this stress?
It’s simple.
Some topics are just too wide to cover in a single blog post.
I’ve written guides longer than 5,000 words about various topics in digital marketing. But even with long-form content, you still can’t cover some topics on your SaaS blog with a single post.
That’s why creating topic clusters for your SaaS company is a necessity.
You may also be asking:
How many pages should I have in my SaaS topic cluster?
It depends on the topic.
It can range from 5 to even 100 pages. But I’d say your content topic cluster should have at least 5 pages.
Sometimes, predicting an exact number of topic cluster pages is difficult until you start.
As you learn how to create a topic cluster, you’ll understand what number of pages makes sense for your topic and brand.
Why create topic clusters?
You may have to research and create content pieces for a few weeks to have a single topic cluster.
But before doing that, you should understand why going through that stress is worth it.
Topic clusters boost EEAT signals
EEAT simply means Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust. These are traits Google uses to judge the quality of pages on search results.
EEAT is an important aspect of the Google Search Evaluator Guidelines.
In other words, Google wants to rank the best page possible for searchers.
Having a comprehensive topic cluster on your website can show that you have expertise and experience in the topic. And as the topic clusters pile up, your website will become an authority in your industry and build trust with your audience.
This is the foundation your SaaS content strategy should stand on.
Because without that, your audience won’t try and buy your product.
“But what if I’m an expert with a lot of experience but don’t know how to write?” you may ask.
In that case, get an expert SaaS writer and tell them what they need to know about a topic. From your chat or interview, they can create unique content your audience and Google will love.
I won’t pretend to be an expert at everything, but I’ve written about some complex marketing topics after online research and chats with the right experts.
Help to organize your content pages
If I’m reading a page on your website about social media management, I may see a section about social media monitoring and want to read more about it.
If you have a blog post on social media monitoring and have not linked to it, I may have to go back to Google for that. Unfortunately, your post about “social media monitoring” may not rank on the first page for that keyword.
So, you’ve just lost a reader to a competitor.
Well-built topic clusters ensure visitors can find these pages easily and learn more from your website.
This means your audience will have a better experience on your website and find the information they’re looking for.
At the same time, topic clusters ensure search bots can crawl your pages easily.
Boost website dwell time and reduce bounce rates
We all like to check our Google Analytics dashboard and see time on site shooting to 11 minutes or even higher.
This tells us that your audience loves your content and gets the information they’re looking for.
After all, when your content solves problems for people, they’re likely to try out your product to reciprocate.
Topic clusters keep people longer on your pages.
But beyond that, they reduce your bounce rates. Your website bounce rate will fall when people follow links to other pages in your cluster.
Apart from satisfying your audience and boosting your confidence, this also sends Google a positive signal.
It means your website is delivering value to searchers. The obvious benefits from that are higher search rankings and organic traffic.
Now, let’s see how to create effective topic clusters for your SaaS blog.
How to create effective topic clusters for your SaaS blog
Extract core topics from product features and benefits
As a SaaS company, your content strategy should ultimately promote your product.
In other words, you want to create product-led content that shows your audience how your product solves problems.
That means you have to create topic clusters around topics relevant to your product.
How do you extract these core topics?
It can be as easy as looking at your features page.
When you go through your features page, list important features and see which topic cluster can be built around features.
Here’s a part of VWO’s features page:
From this page, you can extract some core topics, such as:
- A/B testing
- Web personalization
- Website experimentation
- Mobile app optimization
- Landing page optimization
- Heatmapping
Another way to get topics is to look at customer reviews. Most times, customers will love certain features.
You can focus on creating more clusters around features that customers already love.
This will help you attract even more customers who want to solve similar problems.
Here’s a review from an Agorapulse user on Capterra:
It’s obvious that this user loves the collaboration features on Agorapulse. For agencies, this is an important feature that you can create content around.
Another thing to see here is the tool a user switched from. If many users switch from that tool, then you can create content for that tool’s alternatives.
In Agorapulse’s case, that will be Hootsuite alternatives.
Once you have your list of a few core topics, you can now dive deeper into each topic cluster.
Uncover subtopics related to core topics
Once you pick your main topics, you have to uncover subtopics for cluster pages.
If you create content about topics you understand deeply, you can easily come up with subtopics.
Here’s an example.
You want to create a topic cluster about social media management. First, you have to create a pillar page for it.
What are the possible subheadings you’ll have on a pillar page about social media management?
They include social media scheduling, social media calendar, social media monitoring, and more.
These subheadings can easily become separate cluster pages.
So, thinking for 5 minutes can help you uncover at least 4 to 5 subtopics you can use for cluster pages.
But you can uncover even more subtopics by using a tool like Semrush.
Semrush lets you create a keyword cluster through its Keyword Manager.
All you have to do is choose a topic and enter a few seed keywords. Then, Semrush will deliver content clusters and keyword suggestions for each cluster.
The clusters here are not perfect, as you still need to refine them. But you can get tens of cluster page ideas just by using the Semrush Keyword Manager.
Overall, think more about the problems your audience has when searching for a topic. Doing this will help you generate more relevant cluster pages.
Use Google Suggest and keyword research tools to confirm long-tail keyword variations
This step will let you uncover more keywords and determine if you should target them.
You can enter your topic cluster into Google Search as if you want to search it.
After typing your topic, Google will show up long-tail variations of this topic. These are keywords that searchers have used in the past.
So, through Google Suggest, you can uncover more subtopics for your cluster pages.
Another thing I like to do is Google these keywords and see the pages that show up.
I do this to know if the results match the intent I have in mind.
For instance, keywords like “powerful speaker” and “confident speaker” will deliver totally different results, even though they look similar.
After collating your topic cluster keywords and confirming their intent, use a keyword research tool to check each keyword.
Whatever keyword research tool you use, you’ll get information about a keyword such as:
- Keyword search volume
- Keyword difficulty
- Cost-per-click (CPC)
- Similar keywords
These details show you keywords you can target to get quick results.
For example, keywords with lower difficulty will give you the best opportunity to rank high if your website has a low domain authority (30 or below).
Even though you want to rank for a topic through a comprehensive topic cluster, you should ensure every cluster page also has the best chance to rank for its target keyword.
This way, your cluster pages will get traffic from your pillar page and search engines.
Use Quora for topic and audience research
Quora is a question-and-answer platform for various topics.
But what makes Quora so popular is that the company made the platform conducive and attractive to expert contributors.
So, you can see many industry experts answering questions related to their industry.
Because of this, many decision-makers (i.e., your ideal audience) ask questions on the platforms since they expect comprehensive and valuable answers.
However, these questions can also show your audience’s pain points. From the questions, you can understand the answers to provide in your content pieces.
In fact, some of these questions can become blog post ideas.
For example, if you search for a keyword like “social media management,” you’ll find questions like:
- What are the best social media management tools?
- Why should we hire professionals for social media management?
- What are the best social media management tools for personal use?
- How does one find a good social media manager?
- How can social media management help to drive a business?
- What’s better than Hootsuite for social media management stuff? (i.e., Hootsuite alternatives)
- How much should a social media manager charge clients?
- What are the daily tasks of a social media marketing manager?
From these questions, you can find some ideas that are absent in Google and keyword research tools.
For instance, if you want to promote a social media management tool, you may think of focusing on just aspects of social media management.
But the questions show you should also create content specifically for social media managers. After all, they’ll represent the highest percentage of your customers.
So, you can create content for freelance and in-house social media managers and show how your tool can help them do their jobs better.
Quora can help you create content that eliminates your audience’s pain points.
Focus first on the BOFU component of topic clusters
Most topic clusters have cluster pages at the top, middle, and bottom of the sales funnel.
But to get results faster from your topic clusters, create cluster pages for subtopics at the bottom of the sales funnel before moving up the sales funnel.
This is because people searching for the bottom-of-the-funnel keywords are close to buying your product. These are people you can convert to customers within a few weeks.
For a topic cluster like social media management, cluster pages at different stages of the sales funnel can be:
- Benefits of social media management (top)
- How to create a social media calendar (middle)
- Best social media management tools (bottom)
See an example from Sprout Social:
This is one of its cluster pages for the topic cluster “social media management.”
Even though this topic is about social media management, it’s more relevant to people who are closer to buying a social media tool.
After exhausting the bottom of the funnel pages in your cluster, you can create content for the other stages of the sales funnel.
You can read my blog post about creating long-form content for your SaaS company to learn more about this.
Create link opportunities within your content pieces
Have you ever read a post where the writer is trying hard to put a link where it doesn’t belong?
It seems they have to meet a link quota even if the reader hates it.
Your audience won’t click a link if they feel you’re forcing it down their throats.
So, links to cluster pages (or the pillar page) have to look natural to your audience.
The best way to do this is to identify possible internal links even before writing a blog post.
Before creating your post outline, list all the pages you’ve already created in your topic cluster.
Then, after creating your outline, check which subheadings the links will fit into.
Remember to provide the context to insert the link. This way, your links will look natural to readers.
Without understanding how to link your content pieces together, you can’t build a robust content cluster. So, this is an important aspect of creating a topic cluster for your SaaS website.
Audit your current blog posts to form topic clusters
If you’re reading this, you probably have some content pieces on your blog.
Instead of creating topic clusters from scratch, you can edit some of your blog posts to form clusters.
How do you do this?
Follow the previous steps in this guide to determine your core topics.
Once you do that, you can list your current blog posts that fit into each topic.
If you have pages that qualify as pillar pages, you can edit them to make them more comprehensive.
Then, you also need to edit pages that can serve as cluster pages. In that case, you’ll edit them to focus more on their subtopics.
While editing your pages, you should link between them naturally to create a topic cluster.
This is important because auditing your current blog posts will yield faster results. After all, those pages have already built some authority over time.
SaaS topic cluster examples
Sprout Social
Topic: Social Media Management
Sprout Social is a social media management tool. Naturally, social media management is a vital topic for the company.
So, Sprout Social has a mega guide on the topic “social media management.”
But beyond that, it links to many cluster pages that fall under social media management.
Generally, Sprout Social is an excellent example of SaaS content marketing.
Pillar page
[Full Guide] Social Media Management
Cluster pages
A Guide to Creating a Social Media Calendar
How to Build Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
Top 18 Social Media Management Tools in 2023
UserGuiding
Topic: User Onboarding
UserGuiding is an onboarding tool for SaaS platforms. So, user onboarding is a critical topic for UserGuiding.
Unsurprisingly, the company has a long-form guide about user onboarding.
But even on that page, it links out to many subtopics related to user onboarding.
This way, a visitor on the pillar page can click through to cluster pages to learn more about user onboarding subtopics.
Pillar page
Everything You Need To Know About User Onboarding – The Ultimate Guide
Cluster pages
What is Customer Churn and How to Reduce It
A Guide to Product Adoption: Everything you need to know
Hotjar
Topic: conversion rate optimization
Hotjar is a heat mapping tool for websites. Since heat mapping is a way to optimize and improve conversions, Hotjar is interested in the topic “conversion rate optimization.”
Hotjar is not only interested in the topic but also has a comprehensive topic cluster that covers most aspects of the topic.
Hotjar also has a unique approach to its pillar page. The pillar page serves as the category page, meaning that cluster pages for this topic are under that category.
Pillar page
Conversion rate optimization (CRO): the user-centric approach
Cluster pages
How to perform a successful CRO audit of your website in 9 steps
10 key CRO metrics you need to measure to increase website conversions
9 proven strategies to increase website conversions
Conclusion
Creating topic clusters for your SaaS website can benefit most parties relevant to your business success.
Your customers get full knowledge about topics and trust your brand as an authority.
Search engine bots can crawl your organized website more efficiently.
Your website pages rank higher in search results and attract potential customers.
This content approach can bring in paying customers without wasting years creating content.
But what if you need help creating topic clusters that build authority with your audience?
Please reach out to me and let me know your needs.
Samuel writes long-form guides to help businesses and entrepreneurs achieve better results from their marketing activities. He also writes for marketing and SaaS companies that want more leads and customers. Get in touch with him to discuss your content needs.