What usually goes by the name of “content SEO” means, for a niche publication, less writing of new articles and more looking after the existing ones. A blog that has been publishing for a few years has hundreds of pieces: some bring in readers every day, many are no longer read by anyone, and a few get in each other’s way.
The pattern is familiar: people write as inspiration or the news dictates, each article lives on its own, and good subjects are revisited without anyone remembering the earlier version.
Content SEO by topic: clusters of articles around a pillar page
A topic cluster has at its centre a broad page about the subject (the pillar page) and, around it, articles that each deal with one question. The pillar links to every article, and every article links back. For a gardening publication, “Growing tomatoes” would be the pillar, with seedlings, diseases and varieties as the articles around it.
The reader finds the next step easily, and the search engine understands that the site covers the subject in depth. We choose topics by three criteria: they fit the publication’s profile, they have enough real questions behind them and there is someone on the editorial team who really knows them. We then track impressions and clicks by cluster too, not just in total, without promising traffic figures.
WordPress categories and tags are no substitute for clusters: hundreds of tags used only once produce near-empty archive pages, which we take out of the index.
Old articles: updated, merged or retired
We start with an inventory: every article, with its date, its topic and its figures from Google Search Console (impressions, clicks and average position for each page). We do the inventory; the decisions are taken together with the editorial team, who know their field and their readers.
One rule goes with all of them: an article’s date changes only when the content has changed too. Moving the date forward with no changes is a trick that Google discourages, and the reader notices it at the first outdated paragraph. Each piece gets one of these decisions:
- Keep: it brings in readers and is up to date.
- Update: a good subject, outdated information; we redo the figures and examples and answer the new questions.
- Merge: several short pieces become one complete article, and the old URLs are redirected to it.
- Retire: an expired news item, or a piece with no readers and no purpose.
Cannibalisation: two articles on the same keyword
Cannibalisation means that two or more pages on the same site answer the same search. Google may alternate between them, and often none of them gets as far as a single, complete page would. It is easy to see in Search Console: several URLs appear for the same search.
Not every overlap is a problem: a beginner’s guide and a product comparison can target the same keyword with different intents. When the intent is the same, we keep the better article, move into it whatever is valuable from the other and redirect the URL that is left over. A simple record (subject, main keyword, URL), checked before every new article, stops it happening again.
Internal links placed with judgement
Internal links are the links between pages of the same site. They are how the bot reaches articles, and they also show which pages are important. We place them in the text, on words that describe the destination page, not on “click here”.
We look for orphan articles, which nothing links to, and for strong articles that link nowhere. Automatic “related articles” blocks help, but they do not replace a link placed in the right paragraph.
Real authors, each with a page of their own
In a niche, who writes matters as much as what they write. Articles signed “Editorial team” or “admin” lose the very proof that there is someone behind them who knows the subject.
We mark up articles with structured data, code in the page that tells the search engine, in a standard format, who the author is and when the text was reviewed. For subjects that touch on health, money or safety, we add the name of the specialist who checked the text. An AI assistant can help with structure and drafts, but the facts are checked by a person, and the byline stays with whoever answers for the content.
Each author gets a page of their own, which shows:
- Real name and photograph.
- Training and experience relevant to the subjects they write about.
- Links to professional profiles.
- The list of articles under their name.
Frequently asked questions
How often do I need to publish?
Google does not require any particular frequency. What matters is being able to keep up the pace you choose without quality slipping.
Will I lose traffic if I delete old articles?
If you delete without analysis, yes. That is why we first check each article’s figures and the links that point to it. Whatever has value is updated or merged, with a redirect.
Can I publish articles written with AI?
Google assesses how useful the text is, not the tool it was written with. The risk comes with publishing unchecked texts in bulk. In a niche publication, the author’s experience is precisely what cannot be copied.
This is a typical project description: it shows how we usually approach this kind of work and does not present a project carried out for a particular client. Every real project starts from your company’s situation, and the stages, timescales and price are agreed after the initial discussion.