Building Branded, Generic, and Local Keyword Clusters

Building branded, generic, and local keyword clusters involves grouping related keywords by type and intent to improve SEO relevance and topical authority.

• Branded keyword clusters focus on keywords that include a specific business or product name combined with location or service terms, such as “Osha Thai San Francisco” or “Osha Thai near me.” These clusters target users explicitly searching for a brand and its local presence.

• Generic keyword clusters consist of broader, non-branded terms that describe products or services without mentioning a brand, like “tennis shoes” or “local SEO services.” These are often grouped by user intent (informational, transactional) and semantic relevance to cover broader search demand.

• Local keyword clusters organize keywords around specific geographic locations combined with services or products, e.g., “Boston local SEO services” or “plumbing maintenance in New England.” These clusters help target users searching for services in particular areas and often include service + location combinations.

How to build these clusters effectively:

1. Keyword Research: Start with a large list of keywords from tools like Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, or Google Search Console. Include branded, generic, and local keywords relevant to your business and market.

2. Group by Semantic Relevance and Intent: Use semantic analysis to group keywords that share user intent and contextual meaning. For example, separate clusters for “buying coffee beans” vs. “brewing coffee beans” help address different user needs.

3. Create Thematic Clusters: For local SEO, build clusters around service-location combinations, with a central hub page (pillar) and supporting cluster pages targeting long-tail keywords and specific subtopics.

4. Optimize Content and Internal Linking: Each cluster page should target a distinct intent with optimized titles, headings, and schema. Use internal links with descriptive anchor text to connect cluster pages to the pillar, distributing SEO value and improving user navigation.

5. Analyze Competitors and Keyword Gaps: Use competitor analysis tools to identify missed keyword opportunities and refine your clusters accordingly.

6. Evolve Clusters into Hub-and-Spoke Models: Use search volume and semantic relationships to determine head terms (hubs) and organize clusters hierarchically for topical authority.

By combining branded, generic, and local keywords into well-structured clusters, you can improve your site’s topical relevance, user experience, and rankings for a variety of search intents and geographic queries.