<b>Hub-and-spoke, but the spokes have to link sideways</b>

<b>Hub-and-spoke, but the spokes have to link sideways</b>

Everyone builds a pillar page linking to 10 cluster posts. Half do it wrong: the hub links down to spokes, spokes link back up to the hub, and that's it. Dead-end star.

What actually moves the cluster:
— Hub links to every spoke (the easy part)
— Every spoke links back to the hub
— AND each spoke links to 2-3 sibling spokes in the same cluster

The sideways links are what make Google read it as a tight topical unit. A star with no cross-links is just a list.

Ship it with descriptive anchors, not 'click here.' The anchor is the relevance signal between siblings. One caveat: keep spoke-to-spoke links contextual, inside the body copy, not a dumped footer block.