If you’ve searched for anything around content on the internet, you’ll have probably seen the term ‘pillar content’. This is usually used in relation to SEO and website copywriting.
Not sure about what exactly pillar content is, why you should include it in your marketing strategy and how to create it? Read on for tips on how to make the most of your pillar pages.
What is Pillar Content?
Pillar content is content that gives a complete answer to a question that a user might be searching on a given topic. It’s created to rank in search and also be useful for the reader, but shouldn’t be confused with category descriptions which are also important for search.
It organises more niche content into clusters and covers all of the important parts of a topic, so feels like a mini-encyclopedia of the topic at hand. This means that you can make serious gains when it comes to ranking for search and organically reach people using specific search terms.
Why Do You Need Pillar Content?
Pillar pages provide structure and helps your audience to find your content. It’s also great for search and SEO, as well as reputation and authority. Here’s why you should be using pillar pages on your website:
- Longer, keyword-rich content has SEO benefits
- Allows you to organise your content into meaningful clusters so that you can get more specific and indepth when you need to
- Useful to your target audience
- Allows you to build your content out
- Builds trust, expertise and authority with your audience
- Create backlinks, social shares and can be broken down into social content that you can repurpose
What Makes a Good Pillar Page?
A good pillar page should be informative, useful and provide high-quality content that answer the questions your target audience have. We’re not talking about a single blog post that runs through the latest nail trends here, it tends to be longer-form guides that discuss a topic more broadly.
Longer content that’s more comprehensive means more content for search engines to crawl through and index, making it more likely that they’ll find a match for specific search terms. It shouldn’t just be written with search in mind, you need to write for the end user (aka real people) too.
With pillar content, you need to use a title. You’ll usually use titles that show off how comprehensive your content is, like:
- Guide to ___”
- “What Is___”
- “Why ___ Matters”
- “How to ___”
- “Best of ___”
Break your pillar page down into sections and chapters with proper headers and internal navigation so that your content is organised and the search engine crawlers can easily read the page. It also improves the experience for your reader as they can find what they’re looking for more easily.
Your pillar page should also be rich with relevant, researched keywords that add to the content and help with traffic. Make it interesting, engaging and comprehensive. Bonus points if you signpost visitors to sign up to your newsletter or move towards a specific call to action.
If you’re a beauty retailer that sells multiple types of product then your pillar pages will probably focus on broader categories like hair, nails, makeup and skincare. You can write in-depth about these topics (and subcategories of them), making this your pillar content. These are examples of product or service pillar pages.
End your content with a strong call to action that signposts the reader to do something with your brand.