MarketMuse can cluster topics/keywords and provide explicit recommendations based on a robust range of prioritization options. To do this, you’ll need to make two decisions, (1) what you want analyzed and (2) the order in which you want them displayed.
Choose the Scope of Your Analysis
First, choose the scope from the list of available options. Scope influences what MarketMuse analyzes and what it recommends, so it’s an important choice.
- Page: Use this when you need insights on how to build out a cluster of content to support a specific page. Topics with high Personalized Difficulty benefit highly from this as they require more than just on-page optimization.
- Pages: An ideal scope to use when you have multiple related pages and need to build out a cluster to support them.
- Site level: Great when you’re new to the site and it has a lot of content. Or you just need a fresh set of eyes.
- Topic: This scope provides recommendations for building out a cluster around a specific topic. Used primarily for brand new sites.
- Topic with site: Get recommendations for building out a cluster, taking advantage of your existing content. Perfect for an existing site that has some authority on the topic.
- Topic with page: This scope restricts the analysis, prioritization, and recommendations to a topic and a single page. Typically used when you need recommendations for additional content to support a powerful page.
- Topic with pages: Unlike the previous scope, this one provides recommendations supporting multiple pages. Useful for when you’ve built out a partial cluster and want recommendations to complete your work.
- Word list: Use this for turning a list of keywords into clusters along with recommendations on building out the content.
- Word list with site: Turn a list of keywords into clusters. Get recommendations based on your existing content.
Choose the Prioritization
MarketMuse provides recommendations for your best opportunities. Choosing the prioritization is where you define what “best” means. You have multiple options, depending on your chosen scope. Here are all the available ones:
- Highest Coverage Clusters: This approach focuses on the depth and breadth of your topical coverage within specific clusters. Identifying high coverage clusters can serve as a starting point for expanding into related subtopics and creating new content pillars.
- Highest Market Share Clusters: Shows those with the most market share, using a combination of both percentage and total traffic. A more nuanced perspective that just sorting by traffic. This reveals which thematic areas have the highest concentration of audience interest within your niche. It allows you to create a more strategic content plan by considering both audience concentration and overall market size. This can help you reach a wider audience within your niche, establishing yourself in under-served areas.
- Highest Opportunity Clusters Inventory: Shows those with the highest total traffic gain potential, using inventory data. It offers a future-oriented approach to your content strategy, allowing you to capitalize on untapped potential. By identifying these areas, you can prioritize content creation efforts offering the greatest chance of attracting a larger audience and boosting overall website traffic.
- Highest Total Traffic Potential Clusters: A forward-looking approach that focuses on optimizing for future growth. It considers both your current traffic and the potential to attract more visitors. By focusing on these clusters, you can optimize your resources (time, budget, etc.) for maximum impact.
- Highest Traffic Clusters: This lets you see which thematic areas of your website are already attracting the most audience. You can then focus your content creation efforts on these clusters to potentially maximize traffic growth.
- Most Relevant Clusters: Based on similarity and authority, it’s a powerful method for identifying the core thematic areas of your website. This approach goes beyond simple traffic metrics and focuses on the intrinsic relationships between your content.
- Quick Win Clusters: Ideal for identifying areas where you can achieve rapid and significant traffic gains with relatively low effort. Shows the clusters that have the highest total traffic gain potential, presence of rankings between 3-20 in the cluster and low Personalized Difficulty. If no inventory data, keyword difficulty will be used.
Modify the Document Subtype (Optional)
The default (All Topics) will be suitable for most situations. To capture specific nuances, you can set the subtype for one of these common content situations: New/Events, Local or Geo Targeting, Product/eCommerce.
In the case of Local, you’ll also need to identify the specific location you’re targeting. For example, Athens, Georgia is specific while Athens is not.
What’s in a Cluster Analysis
A cluster analysis document includes a list of the top 10 clusters along with a detailed analysis of each one, including:
- the terms that make up the cluster
- monthly search volume for each term
- intent match
- ranking
- URL
- Topic Authority
- Personalized Difficulty
- Parent term
- A competitive overview which is used in determining the optimum number of pages in the cluster.
- Recommendations for optimizing existing pages
- Recommendations for creating new content
Review the Recommendations
Recommendations are provided on the right-rail (coming soon). Choose the ones you wish to accept, turning that into a Planning Document.