There are over a billion websites out there, and they’re all clawing to be number one on the search engine results page. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re looking for ways to level up your own website’s rank on search engines like Google and Bing. The good news is that your concern is well-placed. The bad news is SEO isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do. 

Search engines measure all websites’ quality and relevance based on a variety of factors. And they do this with the intent to match ideal, qualitative content with a user’s search query. Your goal as an SEO is to equip your website pages with the right material, demonstrating your brand’s authority and helpfulness.

Like all things related to marketing, improving your SEO requires an actionable, measurable strategy. If you neglect to have a plan, you’ll likely find yourself pursuing random initiatives that don’t work together toward a collective goal. In short, every keystroke, every page, every question, and every answer derived to and from your website needs to be symbiotic.

So, how do you get your site to this level of excellence? How do you make it into something that creates staying power at the top of the SERP? Well, you’ll have to keep reading.

1. Implement Programmatic SEO

One of the most important new-age SEO strategies to keep top-of-mind is programmatic SEO. Programmatic SEO involves automating the production of large volumes of pages using templates and data-driven strategies. This is great for helping build out content based on a content cluster, which we’ll cover more in-depth shortly. In addition to that, it’s often very effective at scaling the volume of pages on a site based on personalization and localization. 

For example, you might already have a productive group of pages on your site but lack the time and resources to scale them. Through the help of AI tools, you can scale the creation of pages while maintaining brand identity. To that end, you might have a group of service pages on your site that you can duplicate and modify. This allows you to include query-specific keywords that better align with user search intent. Another example could be taking that same batch of service pages and translating them into other languages.

You can use automation to scale your pages, but you’ll want a human in the loop to ensure your material is infused with uniqueness and usefulness. That way, you can gain speed from AI by injecting brand expertise from a human. Partnering with a growth marketing agency is a great way to access quicker automated workflows that won’t backfire on your domain. 

Backfire? You read that right. Programmatic SEO, though it can help proliferate your site content, is a double-edged sword. Once you’ve developed all of this procedurally generated content, you’ll want to be diligent with updating it and humanizing it. Google’s March 2024 helpful content update called attention to this specifically, discouraging the abuse of overly automated content. While their objective with this is completely valid, it doesn’t mean aspects of automatically scaled SEO pages can’t have merit. All it requires is maintaining a certain standard of quality driven by helpfulness. 

2. Cluster Your Content Into Pillars

Often, brands that publish content on their website will do well at demonstrating their topical expertise on a subject in their industry. However, being able to prove competency and be helpful is only one piece of the puzzle. 

Search engines like to see abundant themes of topically similar content on sites. The sites that curate helpful and focused content that supports each other will often rank highly. One of the most effective systems for compartmentalizing content in a way that helps users and appeases search engines is content clusters. 

In this model, each topic is built around a main pillar, which is the ultimate, in-depth guide covering a subject. From that stems multiple pieces of sub-pillar content and then even more pieces of supporting content. Here’s a way to visualize it, assuming you’re in the fitness space: 

• Main Pillar: “The Ultimate Guide to Building a Sustainable Fitness Routine”
  • Sub-pillar 1: “How to Create a Personalized Workout Plan”
    • Supporting Pieces for Sub-Pillar 1:
      • “5 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a New Workout Routine”
      • “How to Measure Progress in Your Fitness Journey”
      • “Best Home Workouts for Busy Professionals”
      • “Strength Training vs. Cardio: What’s Best for Your Goals?”
      • “The Role of Flexibility in Your Workout Routine”
  • Sub-pillar 2: “Nutrition and Fitness: Tips for Fueling Your Workouts” 
    • Supporting Pieces for Sub-Pillar 2:
      • “Top 10 High-Protein Meals for Muscle Gain”
      • “How to Maintain Energy Levels During Intense Workouts”
      • “The Truth About Supplements: What You Really Need”
      • “Understanding the Role of Hydration in Fitness Performance”
      • “The Best Foods to Eat Before and After a Workout

Other pillars would follow this pattern. The typical number of sub-pillars in a pillar strategy can vary depending on the depth of the topic and the goals of the content. However, most content strategies include 3-5 sub-pillars for each main pillar. This allows for comprehensive coverage of a topic without overwhelming the audience. The word count for each article typically follows this structure: pillars are 3000-5000 words, sub-pillars are 1500-3000 words, and supporting content is 500-1000 words.

Structuring content this way allows search engines to build more context around your domain’s competency in a given area. That, in turn, will give both search engines and users more confidence in your content. A big part of clustering content is also creating natural segues and references to topically related pages. You accomplish that by devising a strong linking strategy. 

3. Leverage Internal and External Links

Tragically, 25% of all web pages on the internet have zero inbound internal links. This means that a quarter of all web pages in a given domain are not linked to by any other pages within the same domain. In other words, these pages are “orphan pages,” as no internal links from other pages on the same site point to them. 

This is bad. Too often, brands produce great content but fail to connect it with other pages. They either don’t link to other content or don’t have other pages link back to it. Consequently, they miss the chance to build topical authority.

One reason content clusters work is because they create the opportunity for highly relevant internal links. Search engines gauge the topical relevance of any single page of content by evaluating sources that link to and from it. For this reason, it’s important that all of your content in a single cluster is linked together.

Here’s the rubric to follow: 

1. Main pillars should link to sub-pillars and supporting content. 
2. Sub-pillars should link to the main pillar and respective supporting content. 
3. Supporting content should link to their respective sub-pillar and the main pillar.

Similarly, obtaining external backlinks from reputable sources can significantly boost your domain authority. Backlinks still remain a huge component of SEO and act as endorsements from other websites that your content is trustworthy.

Strong SEO Starts With a Smart Strategy

Building a strong SEO strategy takes time and a thoughtful approach, but the reward for your diligence will be worth it. If you focus on executing a strategy built on helping users solve their needs first, search engines will quickly pick up on that by propelling your site content to page one of the SERP. 

Scale your efforts in areas where it makes sense to, but don’t be solely reliant on automation to do so. Cluster your content into topics your business professes in. In those areas, you will likely see the most impact on your SEO results. And finally, don’t neglect internal linking. If you prioritize these three things, you’ll be set up for rampant organic growth before long.