The SEO Cluster Strategy + a real quick on-page seo crash course

About Me Tom De Spiegelaere MangoMatter mangomattermedia.com

On-page SEO 101  Keyword in title tag – start with the keyword  Title tag should be your H1 – if not, add H1 with related keyword  Other headings -> related keywords  A LOT of content – 500+ words  Add multimedia  Add alt tags to your images (geo-tag them if you want to go the extra mile)  Interlink to other pages on-site  Page speed – caching plugin, optimise images, etc.

On-page SEO 101  Nice url – with keyword if not already in root domain name  Use of main keyword in the first 100 words  Add a decent meta description for optimal CTR (doesn’t help you rank)  Don’t need meta tags (been outdated for a loooooong time, though I’d mention it anyway in case people still stuff keywords in their meta-tags)  For local ->  Add schema, def if you’re a local biz -> or basic  Off-page must: Create your google+ local page!

Keyword research  keyword-planner-for-local-seo-keyword-research keyword-planner-for-local-seo-keyword-research  kwfinder.com

SEO cluster strategy  It’s free  Works best on med to high competition keywords that you’ve been targeting with off-page SEO, but they seem to be stuck.  Also works on low competition keywords, if your site already has a bit of link-juice coming in.  Can boost a LOT of long tail keywords!

Requirements  Website is optimised as much as possible <- on-page SEO  You have a list of keywords related to the services you offer <- keyword research  Each of your services has a dedicated page on your site  Each service page interlinks with the homepage and at least 1 other service page  Each service page is targeting a main keyword in the url and page title/h1, + a few other related keywords in- content and other headings  At least 300 words, ideally 500+

The Strategy  For each service you offer, take your related keywords, and create individual pages for each related keyword.  I recommend at least 3 pages per service page (ideally 5 or more)  we're calling these 5 new pages a cluster  interlink the cluster, so each cluster page randomly links to maybe 2 others in the same cluster, then also link each page to its parent service page.  do this for every service page

The Strategy  do not interlink separate clusters, only link within a cluster and to its parent service page.  these new page don't have to be anywhere in the nav menu, their sole purpose is to create more topical relevance (I did not invent this word).  The only issue might be how to get them indexed by google as no page links to a cluster, clusters link to other pages but nothing links to them. You can solve this by having a services overview page that links to both all the services and 1 cluster page per service (google will follow the trail and index those pages as they all interlink)

The Strategy

If done correctly, you now have topical clusters of pages talking about a specific subject/topic, all linking to 1 service page (boosting its topical relevance in a big way), which in turn forwards that (now stacked) topical relevance to the homepage (you can imagine the amount of topical relevance all pointed to the homepage if you have multiple services). And that's it, can be very powerful!