Table of Contents
Why are content pillars important?
You should use content pillars for better content organization. It’s essential for the user experience and search engines that related articles are linked within a structure that’s easy to navigate.
Content pillars are also necessary for avoiding overwhelm among your audience. You want your readers to not only find the information they need, but also digest it. Search engine results pages (SERPs) prioritize the user experience, making this a cornerstone of your strategy.
What makes a pillar page impactful?
Several elements form crucial parts of your pillar pages. Some of the most important ones you’ll need to keep in mind are:
- Coverage: You need to cover broad topics on your pillar pages. However, you must also do this at an expert level if you wish to gain the trust of your audience.
- Internal Links: As you build out your content, pillar pages should become a central hub. In essence, it’s the same as a train station serving trains across a country. Make sure that you link internally to your content clusters within your pillar page. Doing so is vital for website navigation.
- Authority: Your pillar pages must help you be viewed by others as a reputable resource. Make sure that all of your content is factually correct, and ideally, it should be written by people with expertise within your niche.
- User Experience: Make complex topics easier for your audience to understand. Moreover, you should ensure that they can navigate without issues.
Besides knowing about what contributes to a good content pillar page, it’s also important to look at some real-life examples. Consider the following applications:
- Website Builder: A website builder could create a pillar page on “Web Design Basics”. Here, they could link to articles about branding, plugins, and on-page elements.
- Travel Blog: A travel blog might have a pillar page on “Rail Travel in Japan”, with destination guides, tips on traveling with a rail pass, and other related pages.
How can pillar pages help your SEO?
Ways that pillar pages might impact your website’s search engine rankings are:
- User Experience: Search engines prioritize websites that make it easy for users to navigate, and you should consider using pillar pages as part of your strategy here.
- Dwell Time: This involves how long users stay on your website. If you write pillar pages and content clusters that engage users while answering their audience, you might increase dwell time.
- Structure: As you build out your website, things can get complex; use pillar pages and cluster content to create hierarchies. This is not just important for user experience; it’s also necessary for assisting with crawling and indexing.
- Keyword Optimization: Think about where you place your keywords so that search engines know what your page topic is about.
How should a pillar page be structured?
Pillar pages might differ in terms of branding and the like, but in general, they include the following characteristics:
- Introduction: Introduce the topic that your pillar page is about. Explain to the reader why they should care; you can include statistics if you feel it’s necessary.
- Subtopic: Create subtopics and add new sections for each of these.
- Internal Linking: Add links to your cluster content within the pillar page. These should be placed where it makes sense on your page.
- Call-to-Action (CTA): Finish off the article with a CTA. Provide clear and concise instructions for users, outlining the next steps they should take.
How long should a pillar page be?
Pillar pages are somewhat flexible in terms of word count, but they should be quite comprehensive. As a minimum, you should try to reach 2,000 words. Do keyword research and understand what your audience is looking for if you feel like you’re short on information.
How do you develop a pillar content strategy for a website?
Developing your pillar strategy requires thinking about multiple aspects. Research is essential, and so is knowing how to appeal to your audience. For improved effectiveness and alignment with goals, consider these refinements to your pillar content strategy.
- Identify Your Core Topics: Pick topics that your target audience will be interested in learning about. These should also be consistent with your business objectives; make sure that you’ve figured these out in advance.
- Create Your Pillar Pages: Start by creating pillar pages for each of your topics. Once you’ve done that, you should start thinking about what you’ll interlink.
- Plan Your Cluster Content: Determine which topics would be consistent with your pillar content. These are often blog posts, but they don’t just have to be; videos, podcasts, and infographics might also form part of your content. Create this content once you know what you want to make.
- Internal Links: Once you’ve created your cluster content, link to your pillar pages; think about your internal linking structure before doing this.
- Promotion: After creating your pillar pages and linking internally, promote them. Notify your newsletter subscribers and use social media where it makes sense to. Consider other marketing channels if needed.
Consider visuals, SEO, and updating your content.
- Visuals: Images, videos, and/or infographics are important; however, these need to relate to your content.
- SEO: Use SEO to get your pillar pages ready for search engines. Use keywords that your audience is looking for, along with optimizing your titles, meta tags, alt titles, and more.
- Updates: Make sure that you regularly refresh the content and update when needed. This is particularly important if you use statistics.
Conclusion
Content pillar pages might seem like normal web pages if you’ve never created them before, but they’re much more than that. If you want to improve internal linking and site navigation, you may consider including them in your content strategy.
Since pillar pages can impact your SEO visibility, paying attention to them is crucial. Learn about the fundamentals and think carefully about which topics you wish to cover. Make sure that these also meet your goals, and be patient when waiting for them to deliver results.
