Building a Content Clusters Strategy From Scratch

By 2017, a lot of company blogs had the same underlying problem: hundreds of posts, each optimized for its own narrow keyword, competing against each other for the same search intent instead of reinforcing one another. HubSpot’s own research team had been writing about a fix since late 2016, a model they called topic clusters, built around one comprehensive pillar page supported by a cluster of related posts, all linked back to it. Here’s how to build one.

Why the old model stopped working

Search had changed underneath the old keyword-per-post approach. Google’s 2013 Hummingbird update rewrote the algorithm to interpret whole queries and their intent rather than matching strings of keywords. RankBrain, which Google confirmed in 2015 as a machine-learning component of ranking, pushed this further, letting the algorithm infer what a searcher wanted even from queries it had never seen before. A site with fifty posts all lightly touching the same topic, each trying to rank for its own keyword variant, was now often competing against itself rather than against outside competitors. Consolidating that scattered authority into a clear structure was the direct response.

Step 1: Choose your pillar topics

A pillar topic needs to be broad enough to support ten or more subtopics, and specific enough that you can credibly claim expertise on it. If you’re a project management software company, “project management” is a plausible pillar; “how to format a Gantt chart” is a cluster topic underneath it, not a pillar on its own. Most sites can support two to five real pillars to start. Trying to launch ten at once spreads the linking equity too thin to build real authority in any of them.

Step 2: Map the cluster content

For each pillar, list every specific question, subtopic and use case a real customer would search for. This becomes your cluster: individual posts, each narrow and specific, each answering one piece of the broader topic. A pillar page on “project management” might support cluster posts on Gantt charts, agile sprints, resource allocation and remote team coordination, each targeting a distinct, more specific search.

Step 3: Build the pillar page itself

The pillar page is a comprehensive overview of the whole topic, broad rather than deep on any one piece, built to rank for the head-term search and to serve as the hub. It should read well as a standalone resource, not just as a table of contents, while still linking out to each cluster post for anyone who wants more depth on a specific piece.

Step 4: Link everything together deliberately

This is the step teams skip, and it’s the one that makes the model work. Every cluster post links back to its pillar page, and the pillar page links out to every cluster post. That hyperlink structure does two things: it tells search engines the pillar page is the authoritative hub for the topic, and it keeps a reader who lands on one narrow post moving deeper into your site rather than bouncing back to search.

Step 5: Audit what you already have

Most established sites don’t need to start from zero. Go through existing posts and sort them into pillars and clusters retroactively, then add the missing internal links. A post from two years ago on “resource allocation” may already function as a cluster piece; it just needs a link to the pillar and, if the pillar doesn’t exist yet, that gap tells you what to write first.

Step 6: Maintain the structure as you grow

A cluster isn’t a one-time project. As you publish new posts, decide up front which pillar each belongs under and add the link immediately, rather than leaving it as an orphaned page hoping to rank on its own. Revisit pillar pages periodically to fold in new cluster content and keep the overview current.

What changes once it’s built

The immediate effect is usually improved rankings for the broader, higher-volume pillar terms, since the model consolidates authority that used to be split across competing pages. The longer-term effect is a site that’s easier to navigate, where a reader interested in one narrow question can find the adjacent questions they didn’t know to ask yet. That’s the actual point of the structure: it mirrors how someone researching a topic thinks, rather than how a keyword list is organized.

Building it from scratch takes longer than writing another standalone post, and it’s worth it. A pile of unconnected articles is just inventory. A pillar with a real cluster around it is an asset that gets stronger every time you add to it.