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The Future of Content Strategy

How to Win at SEO in 2020

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Hi 👋

I’m Jose Martins, Veteran HubSpotter and Head of HubSpot for Startups in the NorthEast.

I’m a former founder and my mission is to help startups change the world.

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Let’s go back…

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The three pillars of Google Hummingbird

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Semantic

Uses Natural Language Processing to look at the whole phrase rather than individual keywords

Customized

Conversational

Answers questions

From Keywords to Topics

Looks at searcher intent and context

Hummingbird had a huge impact on anyone producing content and trying to get it to rank. It was the start of Google moving from keywords to topics.

Google used to process each individual word in your query separately and look for pages that had the closest phrasing. If you searched “customer acquisition cost formula,” it looked for “customer” “acquisition” “cost” and “formula” individually instead of the entire string. After Hummingbird, it started using natural language processing to look at the entire string and factor in synonyms as well.
After Hummingbird, Google now factored in the reason behind your query as well as its context. If you’re searching for, say, “weather,” you’re probably not looking for an explanation of what “weather” is. You’re probably looking for a weather forecast. And Google can also show you, based on your location, the local weather forecast.
This laid the groundwork for voice search. Now you have people posing questions to Google -- the way they talked to their friends and coworkers. And you also have Google looking at their intent and customizing the answers, so it’s a lot easier to get the information you need.

The TL;DR? Before you could dominate by targeting 10-20 keywords for a given topic. Now, those keywords exploded into thousands of long-tail variations. Using the right terms was starting to become a less and less feasible option.

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Source: Matt Barby

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Source: Matt Barby

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Zooming in:

Each topic cluster is made up of a pillar page, which is a long-form guide to the topic, and a bunch of “satellite” blog posts, which each dive into more specific aspects of that topic. Every blog post links back to the pillar page, which tells Google that pillar page is the most important piece of content we have on the subject.

This makes it much easier to differentiate each post from each other, so we’re not cannibalizing our own search topics. Having both breadth and depth across a topic gives us a “sphere of influence” -- our domain is recognized as an authority on that subject, meaning each individual post has a better chance of ranking. It also means our name will look familiar on the SERPs to anyone running a number of different queries.

Finally, the topic-cluster model means we don’t have to match the exact query a searcher used -- our content simply needs to answer their question. And since each blog post takes on a different aspect of the topic cluster’s theme, there’s a good chance we’ll have a blog post that answers the searcher’s question.

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Us

You

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Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Identify your product keywords

Map those product keywords to topic clusters

Identify keywords for blog posts

3-Step Process to Creating Topic Clusters

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Topic cluster MVP

1 pillar page + 3-6 blog posts

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The first layer: Product keywords

Product keywords = the bottom-of-the-funnel keywords you want product pages to rank for.
They’re usually lower-traffic but higher-intent.

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Product page

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Examples of product pages

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Match each product/feature page to a topic cluster

A product page tells a potential customer how to implement a concept or strategy. Blog content tells a customer what concept or strategy they should implement, when, where, and why.
Every product should map to (at least) one topic cluster.

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Product page

Topic cluster

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Match each product/feature page to a topic cluster

The pillar page and product page should target related but separate keywords.

“SEO tool” (product page) vs. “SEO strategy” (pillar page)
“Free form builder software” (product page) vs. “Survey creation” (pillar page)
“Live chat solution” (product page) vs. “Live chat program” (pillar page)

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Example: SEO product --> topic cluster

Product page: SEO & Content Strategy

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The how

The what

Blog post: What Is SEO?

The why ...

The who ...

The when ...

Blog post: 19 Awesome SEO Blogs and Websites You'll Want to Bookmark

Pillar page: The Ultimate Guide to SEO in 2018

Blog post: Your Google Rank Doesn’t Matter Anymore

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Fill out this chart:

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Product Page Keyword	Pillar Page Keyword

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Longer-tail keywords

Once you’ve identified the cluster’s head keyword -- i.e. the broad, high-level keyword your pillar page is targeting -- identify the longer-tail keywords for your cluster content.
Each blog post should target 1-3 longer-tail keywords. (That means if you’re creating a basic topic cluster, you’ll need one head keyword for the pillar page and at least 9 longer-tail ones.)

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If your pillar page is “Content Marketing”...

Here’s what some of your blog posts might cover:

Content Marketing Strategy
Brainstorming Techniques
Blogging
Blogging Mistakes
Buyer Personas
Writing Skills
Writing Productivity

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Is it a pillar page or a blog post?

Is the MSV for the head search term equal or greater to 15,000?

(If yes, that's 1 point.)

Can you identify 5+ potential cluster blog posts, each targeting a KW with 2,000+ MSV?

(If yes, that's 2 points.)

Does this topic align with one or more of your products?

(If yes, that's 1 point.)

Is it an emerging topic? (in other words, will search volume increase exponentially over time? Examples include "blockchain," "IoT," and "augmented reality.")

(If yes, that's 1 point.)

3 points or more —> pillar page

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Strategies for finding keywords

Recommended tools: Ahrefs, SEMrush, Keywords Everywhere (free!)

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Strategy #1: Search for your head keyword (the one your pillar page is targeting). Scroll down to the Related Searches section.

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Strategies for finding keywords (cont.)

Keywords Everywhere now has a cool “People Also Search For” feature that’s very helpful.

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Strategies for finding keywords (cont.)

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Strategy #2: Identify the highest-traffic/most authoritative publications for the specific topic you’re going after.

Pay attention to the sites that repeatedly come up in the SERPs for related keywords.

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Strategies for finding keywords (cont.)

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Strategy #2: Identify the highest-traffic/most authoritative publications for the specific topic you’re going after.

Pay attention to the sites that repeatedly come up in the SERPs for related keywords.
Once you have several sites, plug their URLs into a competitive keyword research tool (like SEMrush or Ahrefs) and see which terms they’re ranking for.

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Strategies for finding keywords (cont.)

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Strategy #2: Identify the highest-traffic/most authoritative publications for the specific topic you’re going after.

Use Ahref’s “traffic share” feature to see which domains are getting the most traffic for the head keyword.

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Organize your research

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Map out title, URL, headers, featured snippets, and anything else you want to include to make your content more competitive on the SERPs (multimedia assets, a particular post you want to beat, etc.)
This format also makes it easier to see which posts you need to link together and to the pillar page

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Track your results

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Pillar page

Rank for head keyword
Number of backlinks
Organic views/month
Total views/month
Conversion rate

Blog posts

Rank for target keyword (and longer-tail keywords)
Organic views/month
Total views/month
Conversion rate (if applicable)

Cluster

Percentage MSV captured

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More resources

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Strategy:

HubSpot-specific

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Questions?