Content clusters: what they are, why you need them and how to create them [2025]

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Content clusters can boost your rankings, increase traffic, and even turn casual readers into loyal fans. But what exactly are content clusters, and how do you create them? Here’s everything you need to know about content clusters…

When it comes to blogging success in 2025, showing Google and your readers that you’re an authority on your topic is essential. One of the best ways to demonstrate this is by creating content clusters.

Done right, building content clusters can boost your rankings, increase your traffic, and help you turn casual readers into loyal fans.

But what exactly are content clusters, and how do you create them effectively?

In this post, I’ll break down everything you need to know about content clusters – what they are, why you need them and how to create them…

Woman typing on a laptop which shows a colour coded spreadsheet

What is a content cluster?

A content cluster is a collection of blog posts focused around a specific topic within your niche.

At the heart of each cluster is a hub post – the main article that acts as a comprehensive guide to the topic. This hub post typically covers the big picture, and is often called something like ‘The Ultimate Guide to [Topic]’ or ‘A Beginner’s Guide to [Topic]’.

Supporting the hub are spoke posts – these are more detailed articles that cover specific subtopics. These spoke posts link back to the hub, and the hub links out to the spoke posts, creating a strong internal linking structure.

Why do you need to build content clusters?

Content clusters aren’t just a nice way to organize your blog – they can also have a significant impact on SEO and user experience.

Here’s why…

Topical authority

Google prioritizes websites with topical authority in search results. By publishing a series of high-quality posts on a specific sub-topic in your niche, you show both Google and your readers that you have expertise and authority in that sub-topic.

Recent Google updates

With Google’s focus on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) and updates like the Helpful Content Update, creating content clusters is more important than ever. It ensures your blog doesn’t fall into the trap of creating scattered, unrelated content that lacks depth – something Google seems to have penalized in recent core updates.

Improved user experience

Content clusters make it easier for your readers to navigate your site and find all the information they need on a topic in one place.

Rankings and traffic

Because content clusters help you demonstrate topical authority, as well as improve user experience and average session duration, content clusters can significantly improve your search rankings and Google traffic.

Sell more products

Readers who see you as an authority on a specific topic are more likely to trust you and buy your digital products on that topic.

Mini shopping trolley with folded up dollar bills inside.

How to create content clusters

Ready to build your content clusters? Here’s my step-by-step guide…

Step 1: Identify Your Content Clusters

Start by defining the main topics you want to cover. These should align with your blog’s main categories and reflect your expertise. Ideally, you should aim for 3–8 content clusters.

On Productive Blogging, for example, my clusters are:

Start a Blog
Blog Content
Grow Your Blog
Email Marketing
Monetize Your Blog
Productivity Tips

(If your categories are a hot mess right now, you need to sort that out first before you can focus on building content clusters.)

Step 2: Choose your hub pages

For each cluster, you first need to decide what your hub post will be. This should be a comprehensive guide that gives readers an overview of the topic, while linking to your spoke posts for more in depth information on the main points mentioned in the hub post. You should have one hub page for each content cluster.

For example:

Cluster: Email Marketing

Hub Post: A beginner’s guide to email marketing for bloggers

Spoke Posts:

You can use keyword research to help you with your hub post titles, but don’t be afraid to target higher volume keywords that you would normally consider too competitive.

Initially, you may not be able to rank for your hub posts, but they are important in conveying your topical authority on that subject to Google.

In the long run, as Google sees you as more and more of an authority on the topics of your content clusters, you should also start ranking for your hub posts

Step 3: Plan your spoke topics

Spoke posts are where you dive into the details. To figure out what your spoke topics are, you should definitely conduct proper proper keyword research.

Take 1 content cluster at a time, and do thorough keyword research on that topic. Typically spoke posts will focus on lower competition keywords, where you may get less search volume, but you stand much more chance of ranking.

However, you may also need to target a few higher competition keywords in order to fully display your topical authority on a subject.

Step 4: Create a content plan

Once you have decided on what your hub and spoke articles will be for each content cluster, you need to write a content plan. Or in other words, you need to decide on what order you will write each blog post and exactly when you will write them.

You have 3 options here…

Option 1: Focus on one cluster at a time

This will usually deliver the fastest results. You can quickly show Google you have authority in one small topic. However, it can be a little boring and repetitive for you as the writer… and also your audience if you send out a regular weekly newsletter that typically highlights your new post(s) that week.

If you go for this approach, I recommend you write your ‘hub’ post first and then your ‘spoke’ posts – ideally 20-30 spoke posts, but it does depend on your topic. Some topics may need a lot more depth.

Do this for Content Cluster 1, then repeat for Content Cluster 2, then repeat for Content Cluster 3, and so on.

Option 2: Rotate round your clusters

With this option, you would typically start by writing all your hub articles, then all your spoke articles, rotating round and round the clusters.

So, if you were to write 3 blog posts per week, your content plan might look like this:

Week 1: Hub 1, Hub 2, Hub 3

Week 2: Hub 4, Hub 5, Hub 6

Week 3: Spoke 1a, Spoke 2a, Spoke 3a

Week 4: Spoke 4a, Spoke 5a, Spoke 6a

Week 5: Spoke 1b, Spoke 2b, Spoke 3b

Week 6: Spoke 4b, Spoke 5b, Spoke 6b

And so on.

This approach will typically take longer than option 1 to gain topical authority, but can be a good option if you already have an established blog and you are filling in gaps in your content clusters rather than starting from scratch.

Option 3: the hybrid approach

A good middle point would be to focus on 2 or 3 content clusters to start with, rotating round them, as above. Then, once you have written 20-30 posts for each of those content clusters you would start branching out to 2 or 3 more content clusters.

Step 5: Start writing!

When you know what your content clusters will look like, it’s time to start writing.

Before you start writing take time to read Google’s guidelines on the type of posts they have said they want to rank.

I also recommend you read my post on how to write the perfect blog post.

When writing your hub posts, I also recommend you focus on the specific guidelines for Cornerstone Content. (Cornerstone content is another word for hub posts.)

Make sure all your posts are well-researched, engaging, and easy to read.

Step 6: Don’t forget your internal linking

An essential part of this strategy is the internal linking. Internal linking means adding a link to one page on your website from another. This is how you form your content clusters.

Here are a few things you should keep in mind:

Always link to your hub page from the spoke pages in the same content cluster
Always link to your spoke pages from the hub pages in the same content cluster

Internal linking is how your readers navigate your content. It’s also how search engines determine how each blog post is related to all the other posts on your site and what the hierarchy is.

If you handle this properly, Google will understand that your hub pages are the most important content on your site. Google sees the content with the most links pointing TO it as the most important content on your site. If you do this well, the content with the most links pointing TO it will be your hub posts. And this will help boost your hub posts in the search results.

Of course, other spoke pages can and should link to other spoke pages in the same cluster, where appropriate, and your posts can even link to content in other clusters. (Though I recommend you do the latter sparingly.)

It is very important thought that you don’t go completely overboard with this – do not link everything to everything! And always bear in mind ‘what would be most helpful to my intended reader’ when adding internal links.

Dark grey metal chain on a light grey background

Step 7: Rinse and repeat

Unfortunately, there won’t be a moment when you’re done with your content clusters.

Once you have done your initial batch of content, it’s time to go again.

Start by checking your spoke pages and updating them if necessary
Then do another batch of keyword research to identify more spoke posts for each content cluster
Then write a new content plan.
Then write your new spoke posts.

Periodically, you will also want to check your spoke articles and improve them to keep your content up-to date.

Step 8: Add more content clusters

Once you are ranking well for your initial content clusters, you may wish to add entirely new content clusters to your website. But don’t do this until you have good topical depth in your initial content clusters.

Conclusion: Ready to boost your traffic with content clusters?

Content clusters are a powerful tool for bloggers who want to rank higher on Google, attract more traffic, and build trust with their audience.

By organizing your content into clear clusters and creating high-quality, interlinked posts, you’ll not only improve your SEO but also provide a better experience for your readers.

Ready to take the next step? Join my 30 Day Blog Traffic Booster Challenge and start building content clusters that drive real results for your blog!

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2 Comments

Ann Drake says:

7th March 2025 at 3:20 pm

Hi! One of the recommendations after a recent SEO audit was to build out my category pages. Previously, they were just the basic pages that came with my theme. I used Kadence elements to build them out, and it took what seemed like forever. Would these work as content clusters or do they need to be blog posts?

1. Eb Gargano says:
  
  10th March 2025 at 8:11 am
  
  Having good, helpful category pages is important too, but they are not a substitute for a hub post. A hub post should be a blog post that gives a comprehensive overview of the main topic and which links to your spoke pages for more detail on each sub-topic. This kind of blog post is often called a ‘cornerstone’ or ‘pillar’ post and should be like an ‘ultimate guide’ to the main topic.