A first topic cluster, step 3: link the cluster
Numbers from 140 small business blogs, free to read.
You picked a subject in step 1 and planned the posts in step 2. The posts are written. Now the links turn a pile of posts into one topic cluster that readers and search engines can follow.
The links every post in a topic cluster needs #
Each short post links to the Pillar post near the top, in a sentence that says why the reader might want the whole picture. The main post links to every short post from the section that covers its part.
Then link the short posts to each other where one leads to the next. A post on finding a fault should point to the post on fixing it. Do not link everything to everything: each link should be one a reader would click.
Words that say where a link goes #
The words of a link tell a reader what they will find. "Read more" says nothing. "How to bleed a radiator" says exactly what is on the other side. Use the words of the post's question where they fit the sentence.
Vary the words a little across posts. Twenty links with the very same words look made for machines, not for people.
Check the links before you publish #
Read each post as a stranger would. Click every link. Each one should work, land on the right post and make sense where it sits.
Khalid checks the rest for you: it warns when a post in the cluster does not link to its main post, when a post has no links in, and when two links use the same words for different pages. The Ahrefs guide to internal links explains why these checks matter.
What comes after #
A cluster is never quite done. Each quarter, look at which short posts readers find and which they skip. Refresh the weak ones with our content refresh playbook, and add a new short post when readers ask a question the cluster does not answer yet.
About the author
Head of content at Larkspur Studio
Experience Twelve years as a newspaper sub-editor and content lead, MA in Journalism
Maren runs the writing desk at Larkspur. Before that she spent eight years cutting other people's copy to fit a newspaper page, which is where she learned that every sentence has to earn its place. She writes about planning posts, structuring them and editing them until a busy reader can act on them.
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