Keyword Clustering in a Flash with the Keyword Strategy Builder

Building an SEO content strategy comes with many challenges. 

Knowing which keywords, topics, and pages to prioritize in your plan isn’t easy. And keyword clusters can help you target more traffic but creating those clusters takes time.

The Keyword Strategy Builder tool makes this easy. Powered by AI, it quickly transforms your manual clustering efforts from a complex, data-heavy task into a streamlined, insight-driven strategy.

With the Keyword Strategy Builder, you can group your keywords into topically related clusters, which helps:

• Speed up content production by organizing keywords into actionable clusters.
• Cover topics more deeply to create more well-rounded content.
• Enhance SEO by strategically targeting keyword groups that improve site visibility and authority.

Let’s see how you can streamline keyword clustering and generate ready-to-use lists of topics and pages in minutes.

Note: If you don’t have a paid subscription, consider a free 7-day trial.

What Is a Keyword Cluster?

A keyword cluster is a group of keywords that covers a specific topic and can be targeted by a single webpage.

Building clusters is a vital part of making a content strategy that targets the most potential organic traffic.

Depending on the size of your keyword list, clustering every keyword in your semantic core could take up a lot of your time. 

But you can use Semrush as a keyword clustering tool that does this step for you automatically.

Why Should You Cluster Keywords?

Keyword or topic clusters break down a big keyword list into digestible topics from which a content team can start working immediately. 

In our guide on topic clusters, we list some of the benefits of using a clustering strategy:

• More organized content
• Improved SEO
• Increased content production speed
• More comprehensive content

Using keyword clusters helps you create related but distinct pillar pages and plan internal links across them. Adding these internal links is a simple way to improve your website’s SEO.

Turning a long list of keywords into a more digestible set of clusters will help you create a strategy that will be more effective, easier to organize, and establish your site as an authority on your topic.

For example, here’s a webpage that ranks for 717 keywords (and an estimated 562 monthly visits from organic search).

So, if you’re planning a blog post to target “vegetable delivery box,” you could also target a cluster of related keywords (like produce delivery service, organic meat and vegetable delivery, organic product delivery, etc.). 

With keyword clustering, you’re better equipped to develop a content strategy that targets a broader range of keywords, thereby increasing potential traffic.

Now, let’s explore how the Keyword Strategy Builder makes this process easier.

What Can You Do With Keyword Strategy Builder?

This AI-powered keyword research tool makes it easy to plan a content strategy based on keywords for a new or existing website in any niche. 

The best part is that you don’t need to be an SEO expert. The tool automatically filters the topics and pages based on your best starting points and opportunities, using preset filters designed for different goals.

These smart filters help you find just what you need:

• Best for Strategy – Creates a balanced selection for comprehensive SEO
• Easy Start – Focuses on low-difficulty, quick-win keywords
• Quick Conversions – Targets commercial and transactional keywords
• More Potential Traffic – Prioritizes higher search volume opportunities for the most authoritative domains

If you’re already an SEO pro, you’ll appreciate how the tool saves you hours of manual analysis by streamlining your workflow by automatically prioritizing keywords based on your goals.

The tool even analyzes SERP features and identifies brand-dominated search results, helping you avoid keywords dominated by brands or SERP features that could limit organic traffic potential.

Whether you’re starting out, a jack of all trades, or a seasoned pro, Keyword Strategy Builder lets you:

• Enter a few seed keywords and automatically get groups of related keywords
• Receive a comprehensive list of topics broken down by pillar pages and subpages
• Paste an existing keyword list and cluster the list into pillar page and subpage topics
• Apply preset filters to match your specific goals
• Evaluate each topic and subpage topic by keyword difficulty 
• Send topics straight to the SEO Writing Assistant and ContentShake AI to start writing optimized content

How to Get Started with Keyword Strategy Builder

To automatically cluster keywords and generate your ready-made strategy, just enter a few seed keywords to get started. 

For example, we entered: 

1. meal plan 
2. budget meal plan 
3. family meal plan
4. healthy meal plan 
5. easy meal plans for the week

Once entered, the Keyword Strategy Builder will quickly organize these keywords into related topics in the new Topics and pages tab.

Each topic has key metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty (KD%), and search intent to help you prioritize.

Need to focus on specific goals? Use the preset filters under Page Details to find the right opportunities quickly. 

This interactive table of topics and pages lets you assess the collective value of topics rather than evaluating keywords individually. 

You can then target topics based on their search intent. 

For example, if the topic has informational intent, you could create an informational resource to match that intent. 

Alternatively, with a transactional cluster, you could provide clear pathways for users to make a purchase or take a specific action.

If you expand one of the clusters, you’ll see all of the keywords within it:

The summary on the right of the keywords tells you the primary intent of these keywords and also gives you a SERP analysis. 

This tells you if there are any SERP features to beware of – image packs telling you to include images in your content or instant answers telling you that the topic may not have much SEO value after all

Next Steps: Content Production

Once you’ve established your keyword clusters and understood their potential, the next step is to incorporate these insights into your content plan. 

The Keyword Strategy Builder, with its integrations with ContentShake AI and SEO Writing Assistant, simplifies the content production process.

Here’s what you can do:

• Generate Content Briefs: Use ContentShake AI to create detailed briefs for each topic, incorporating the list of target keywords and the topic’s intent.
• Send Briefs Externally: Work closely with writers and content creators to ensure thorough coverage of each topic.
• Create Initial Drafts: You can also send each cluster to ContentShake AI to generate AI-crafted drafts.
• Optimize Content: Refine these drafts using the SEO Writing Assistant to optimize for search engines.

And that’s just the start. A clustered strategy makes it easier to create relevant internal links throughout your website, boosting your SEO in the process.

For more information on your account limits, read our Knowledge Base article.

In addition to generating a structured keyword strategy from scratch, you can also upload an existing list and “cluster” it in the tool.

Let’s go through three ways to use the keyword clustering part of this tool: 

1. Starting a list from scratch
2. Uploading an existing list
3. Clustering your competitor’s keywords

Cluster a New List from Scratch

Clustering a list of keywords from scratch only takes a few clicks, and we showed you how to do this earlier in the article.

Just go to Keyword Strategy Builder and enter your seed keywords. 

Then, create a new list by clicking the green button.

The tool uses these seed keywords to generate related keywords and organize them into groups. 

Once the tool has found clusters, check out the Topics and pages tab. The Topical Overview shows how the pillar topics and subtopics are related.

Note: Creating a new list from scratch is the only way to get these topics and pages view with the Topical Overview map. 

Cluster an Existing Keyword List

If you already have an existing keyword research list, you can upload it manually to the tool and cluster it into topics and subpages. 

Here’s how:

Select “create a regular list with your own keywords” from the tool’s main page.

Name your list and find the blue “Add keywords” button at the top right.

Once you add your keywords, you can organize them by topics and pages with the “Cluster this list” button.

Your keywords will be automatically grouped using the same improved algorithm that considers relevance, metrics, and SERP features. 

You can then:

• Review metrics and search intent for each group
• Identify high-ranking potential opportunities
• Send keywords to SEO Writing Assistant or ContentShakeAI

You can also export your organized list as a spreadsheet.

Cluster Your Competitor’s Keywords

Want to find gaps in your competitor’s strategy?

With the ability to cluster up to 2,000 keywords, you can analyze your competitor’s keyword rankings to find opportunities. 

One easy way to do this is to query your competitor’s domain in Organic Research (or Keyword Gap) and add two filters:

• Position Filter: Choose the filter for position 11+ 
• Keyword Difficulty: Specify keyword difficulty less than 49%

The results show keywords your competitor’s site ranks for but hasn’t fully optimized. 

Next, export the top 1,000 of these keywords.

Then, bring these keywords into Keyword Strategy Builder by:

• Starting a new list
• Adding your exported keywords

You’ll now have organized clusters of low-difficulty keywords where you can potentially outrank your competitor with well-optimized content.

FAQs about Keyword Strategy Builder

Here are some frequently asked questions to help you understand the mechanics and benefits of using the Keyword Strategy Builder for your SEO strategies.

How does Keyword Strategy Builder create clusters?

When we see two keywords that have similar SERP results (in the top 10 organic URLs), we combine them into a cluster for a pillar page or subpage. This indicates that Google wants to serve similar content to both queries, so they would be appropriate in a cluster

Can I share my keyword lists?

Yes, if you have a paid subscription, you can:

• Share lists with Editor access to other paid users
• Share lists with Viewer access to all users (including Free users)
• Share with multiple users using comma-separated email addresses

What metrics can I analyze in the Table view?

The Table view shows comprehensive data for each keyword, including:

• Search intent 
• Volume
• Keyword difficulty 
• CPC
• SERP features 
• Top competitors
• Search trends

What are the keyword limits?

To use the Keyword Strategy Builder, you need a paid subscription. 

• There is no limit to the number of lists you can have on your account.
• The limit of keywords per list is 2,000.
• The total number of keywords you can keep in lists under one account is 100,000.

For more information on limits, visit our Knowledge Base

Ready to Start Your Strategy?

Start using Keyword Strategy Builder today to streamline your keyword clustering and develop more effective content strategies.

If you don’t have a paid account, you can always sign up for a free trial.