6 Best Keyword Clustering Tools To Build Topic Cluster Strategy

We live in the age of search engines. 

Anytime a potential customer wants to know about your products or services, they are invariably going to search on a search engine like Google. 

From finding a product to buying it, search engines are a key way for customers to connect with businesses and vice versa. 

But you already knew that. 

And chances are you have already hopped on the content marketing bandwagon, creating content, but are lacking the awesome results you thought you’d get once you started targeting keywords one by one. 

Finding profitable keywords that can help you rank at the top is the first step to making a good content strategy. But the traditional methods of focusing on one keyword with each piece won't work in the hyper-competitive internet landscape. 

A better way to increase your chances of ranking is to focus on groups of keywords that are related. Doing so will improve how effectively search engines index your content and show it for different variations of the same keyword. 

In this blog, we will help you understand the concept of keyword clusters and how they can help you build a topic cluster strategy for your company. 

What is keyword clustering, and why is it important?

Keyword clustering is the act of grouping similar and related keywords. For example, let’s say you want to create a keyword cluster for the topic “website development.”

A keyword cluster for website development would look something like this: 

All of these keywords are related to each other in the sense that they ask for information about different aspects of website development. 

Keyphrase clustering helps you target all the keywords related to a broad topic. Now, a marketer who wants to write content about "website development" can increase their chances of ranking as a website development company by focusing on the above keywords. 

Creating such clusters will help you: 

• Find ranking opportunities with a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords.
• Establish topical authority in your industry niche.
• Enhance on-page SEO by including groups of keywords. 
• Improve search engine indexing of content with a solid interlinking strategy.
• Generate more organic traffic to your website. 
• Produce measurable results from your content creation efforts. 

Whether you are a content strategist, writer, editor, or SEO professional, creating keyword clusters will help you get value for your efforts. 

Glossary: Key terms you need to know

Before you get started with creating keyword clusters, there are a few important terms that you need to know  —

• Topic cluster: A topic cluster is a group of keywords that are related to each other and can be targeted as a single keyword campaign. It allows you to broaden your reach by targeting multiple keywords at once.
  For a deep dive into topic clusters, refer to this Scalenut blog, “What are Topic Clusters & How to Use it to Improve SEO?”
• Pillar page or Content Hub: A pillar page is a unique and well-written piece of content that specifically targets ranking for a keyword cluster. It provides the visitors with a comprehensive overview of the broad topic with links to get in-depth knowledge via individual cluster blog posts.
  Want to know more about pillar pages? Refer to this comprehensive Scalenut blog on what is a pillar page and how it can help boost SEO rankings.
• Cluster blogs or spoke content: Cluster blogs are content pieces that target a specific keyword cluster. They can be long-form, multipart articles with lots of information and links to related content.
• Anchor text: Anchor text is the keyword phrase that links back from your website to a particular cluster blog post on your topic of interest. It’s important for linking to other related keywords so they show up as search results when people search for those topics.
• 10X content: 10X content is any piece of content that can help improve your website’s ranking for a keyword cluster by 10 times or more. 

This means that if you have a cluster targeted towards “content marketing,” the 10X content could include blog posts with insights on SEO best practices and articles on how to drive traffic to your site from social media channels.
Check out this detailed Scalenut blog, “10X Content Pillar Page: What is it and How to Create One,” for more information.

• Parent topic: The parent topic is the central subject of your keyword cluster and the resultant topic cluster.

Creating a keyword cluster by doing manual keyword research is a time-consuming task.

Marketers need to streamline the process, and that's where keyword clustering tools come in. They use advanced technologies such as AI, NLP, and machine learning to find keyword variations and group them based on their relevance to the main keyword.

However, selecting the right keyword tool can be confusing.

Don't worry! Below, we have curated a list of 6 great keyword clustering tools to help you build a comprehensive topic cluster for your company.

6 Best Keyword Clustering Tools To Build Topic Cluster Strategy

Scout Suggest: Free Keyword Research Tool by SEO Scout

This nifty tool by SEO Scout is a free keyword grouping tool that produces keyword lists for a selected topic.

As you can see, the tool produces groups of keywords for the term you enter, which is "website development" in the above example. Here is a link to the CSV file of keyword clusters from SEO Scout for your reference. 

Pricing:

Free

Pros:

• It's free!
• Ease of use and simple UI/UX.
• Multiple language options.
• Location-based keyword grouping.

Cons:

• Does not offer search volume of the keywords or the clusters.
• The keyword clusters are sometimes off-topic. 

Keyword Cupid

Keyword cupid is another useful tool that helps you with keyword research and keyword grouping. It uses information from Ahrefs, Semrush, and Google Search, among other platforms, to group keywords.

You can also add your own keyword data to the tool, and it will help you group keywords from your keyword list.

Pricing: 

Starter Plan: $9.99/month 

Freelancer Plan: $49.99/month

Agency: $149.99/month

Enterprise: $499.99/month

Pros: 

• Ease of use.
• Flexible pricing plans.
• Device-based filtering of keywords.
• Interactive mind map for keywords.

Cons:

• Limited keyword credits in cheaper plans.
• Does not include search intent while grouping. 

Cluster.ai

Cluster.ai is a popular keyword clustering tool that helps marketers group SERP queries from Ahrefs, Google Search Console, Semrush, and custom lists.

However, the tool does not offer much information about the keywords if you also use the tool to search for keywords.

Pricing:

Hobbyist: $39/month

Consultant: $89/month

Team: $179/month

Agency: $389/month

Enterprise+: $699/month

Team+: $249/month

Pros:

• Offers international SERP analysis. 
• Easy-to-use UI/UX.

Cons:

• Costly pricing plans.
• Needs a user to have an account on third-party research tools.

SE Ranking Keyword Grouper

The Keyword Grouper tool from SE Ranking is an easy-to-use keyword research platform that gives users a list of related keywords with their search volumes and the top 10 SERP websites for each.

Pricing:

Essential: $39/month

Pro: $89/month

Business: $189/month

Pros: 

• Intuitive UI/UX.
• Works for multiple languages.
• Location-based grouping is available.

Cons:

• Costly pricing.
• Does not consider search intent.

Keyword Clustering by Zenbrief

This free keyword grouping tool is an easy-to-use platform that requires users to share their list of keywords in a ".txt" file format with one keyword per line. The tool then produces groups of keywords after analyzing them.

Here is what the tool produced for a list of keywords on the topic "organic digital marketing." As you can see, the tool created 10 keyword clusters from a total submission of 138 keywords. Here is a link to this keyword cluster output by Zenbrief for your reference. 

Pricing:

Free

Pros:

• An easy-to-use keyword grouping tool. 
• Filters for minimum and maximum cluster size. 
• Consider the search intent of keywords.

Cons:

• Requires users to share keywords. 
• Does not offer search volume of keywords. 

Scalenut Topic Cluster Generator

Scalenut's topic cluster generator is a great way to quickly create keyword clusters in a few simple steps. Instead of feeding keywords in a .csv or .txt file, users only need to type in the main keyword and the location they want the keyword clusters for. 

This keyword clustering tool is a two -in-one tool that does both keyword research and grouping. It will produce several keyword clusters on its own in a couple of minutes after analyzing the SERPs. 

Here is what the tool produced for "website development services" targeting the United States.

As you can see, the tool produced multiple keyword clusters, searching them based on the search intent of the queries. Here is the .csv file of the keyword clusters generated using Scalenut’s Topic Cluster Generator. 

Pricing:

Individual: $29/month

Growth: $79/month

Pro: $149/month

Pros:

• Fastest keyword cluster generator. 
• Does not require users to share keywords. 
• Offers search volumes of cluster keywords. 
• Presents multiple options of keyword clusters. 
• Location-based targeting of keyword clusters. 
• Considers the search intent of users.
• Users can deep dive into research for every cluster by creating an SEO report for every cluster.  

Cons:

• It isn’t free, but it’s definitely worth the price. 

How to use Scalenut's Keyword Clustering tool?

To create keyword clusters using the Topic Clusters generator by Scalenut tool, follow these simple steps.

1. Enter the primary keyword you want to rank for.
2. Select the target location of your potential customers.
3. Click on ‘Create Cluster,’ and the tool will do the rest.

Within a few seconds, the tool will do a SERP analysis, look for the most popular keywords related to your main search term, and make lists of keywords like the ones above. 

Ready to start with keyword clustering?

At Scalenut, we understand the importance of making informed decisions in content marketing and SEO. The Scalenut topic cluster generator gives you detailed lists of keywords with their search volumes so that you can select the best keyword cluster for your content pillar strategy.

Sign up and start creating keyword clusters today.