What a topic cluster is
A topic cluster is one broad pillar page plus articles that each answer one narrower question, all linked together. “Pillar” and “cluster” are marketing terms, not Google concepts. What Google does use is what the pattern produces: crawlable internal links, descriptive anchor text and pages that each cover one thing well. Google’s link guidance says anchor text should be “descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page that it’s on and to the page it links to”, and that “every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site.”
What the generator gives you
Enter a seed topic and an audience. You get one pillar page and 8 to 15 cluster articles. Each article has a working title, the main search phrase to check, its intent, its angle (what it covers that the others don’t) and how it links to the pillar: the anchor text and where the link sits. The link map lists every internal link the plan needs, and the table exports as CSV.
Treat the phrases as ideas to verify
A language model proposes the search phrases, so they carry no volume or difficulty. Check each one before you write: the keyword generator for variations, the SERP checker to see who ranks and which kind of page wins, and keyword clustering to merge phrases that mean the same thing. If two articles would answer the same search, merge them into one.
Don’t publish a page for every variation
A cluster is a plan for distinct jobs, not a way to make near-copies. Google’s guide to generative AI features warns against separate content for every variation of how people search, done mainly to manipulate rankings, and says “a high quantity of pages doesn’t make a website higher quality or more relevant to users.” Our rule of thumb: publish the pillar and the few articles with the clearest demand first, then add more where Search Console shows impressions.
Link it up
- Link the pillar to every article.
- Link every article back to the pillar with descriptive anchor text, not “click here”.
- Link articles to each other where a reader would want the next step.
- After publishing, look for orphans with the internal link checker. Our internal linking guide for small sites has a simple routine.