Topic Cluster: URL Best Practices

[dkellyagile]

I'm trying to be mature and employ the Topic Cluster strategy to my content. In doing so I realized there are a few URL options. Some more difficult to execute than others.

-Is it important to call out the Pillar Topic in your subtopic URL?
-Does the Pillar Topic need to have its own landing page? (As opposed to just being part of the blog.)

Here's an Example:

My Pillar is: Inbound vs. Outbound
My subtopic is: Marketing Platforms

Here are the URL options I can think of...

Option 1: https://pipelineinbound.com/blog/inbound-vs-outbound-marketing-platforms/

Option 2: https://pipelineinbound.com/blog/which-marketing-platforms/

Option 3: https://pipelineinbound.com/blog/marketing-platforms-inbound-vs-outbound/

Option 4 (Hardest): https://pipelineinbound.com/inbound-vs-outbound/marketing-platforms/

Are there some fundamental best practices for URL structure and Link Building as it pertains to Topic Clusters?

Thanks!

[Andrew-SEO]

Have a page for the pillar topic and one for the sub topic if you have the word count to justify it.

Otherwise sub topics can be H2s

if you have two separate pages I would avoid keyword cannibalization were possible. Keep your keywords on the page that target them.

However it may be necessary to talk in the context of pillar content. If you do mention the Pillar keyword, make it a text link to the pillar page. That way google will attribute the use of that word to the pillar page when ranking - and it will in fact strengthen the pillar page.

Does that make sense?