Everyone in marketing seems to be talking about pillar pages. Creating a pillar page can be a lot of work, but it really pays off with search engines and customers by establishing expertise, building trust, and making your website more user-friendly.
What Are Pillar Pages?
Basically, a pillar page is a guide to one topic that has a lot of sub-topics. A pillar page touches on everything someone would need to know about a broad topic and links to other posts and pages that go into more depth (with those posts or pages linking back to the pillar).
For example, a wedding planner might have a pillar page that goes through the steps of planning a wedding with sections on choosing a venue, finding a caterer, hiring a band, etc. Each section would have a broad overview and then link to more specific information. For example, the catering section might link to posts about accommodating food allergies, whether alcohol is included, current wedding meal trends, etc. Each of these would then link back to the comprehensive wedding planning guide. The pillar page acts as the directory for clusters of related content.
How Do Pillar Pages Help With SEO?
Pillar pages improve your site’s architecture. By serving as a directory with internal linking, your pillar page makes it easier for search engines to crawl your pages and determine which pieces of content are relevant to which users. Pillar pages also provide high value to actual people, and when people stay on your site longer, search engines notice. People who stay on your site longer are also more likely to link to your content; back links help search engines determine your site’s value. Additionally, search engines at least initially perceive longer form content as more useful. If your content actually is more useful, that will remain the perception. Remember that search engines want to rank the best content the highest so that people don’t lose trust in them. Providing quality truly does more for your search results in the long term than any keyword stuffing or gimmicks.
How Do Pillar Pages Help With Customers?
Ultimately, customers care about most of the same things that search engines do. Pillar pages give people the information they’re looking for. They establish you as an expert and build trust with customers. They make your site easier to navigate and less frustrating than sites where information is hard to find. People stay longer and are more likely to buy from websites that are easy to use and provide high quality information.
How Do I Create A Good Pillar Page?
- Choose a good topic. You should be an expert, it should be relevant to your audience, and you should be able to create at least 20 articles or posts on your sub-topics. Your focus should be on providing something useful, so make sure you can write something different or better than what’s already out there. Your topic should also be related to your overall business.
- Choose subtopics (topic cluster), and do a content inventory. Figure out what posts you have on hand and what content you will need to create. Again, make sure you will be able to link out to at least 20 other posts or pages from your pillar page.
- Research keywords. Keyword research is always essential. You always need to know what your audience is searching for so you can make sure you’re found. For your pillar page, you should research the main topic so you can narrow or broaden it in order to optimize your chances of being found. In general, aim for something with no fewer than 500 or no more than 25,000 searches per month.
- Outline. Save yourself a lot of time and trouble by creating a comprehensive outline of your pillar and all linked content before starting to write. This will help you find any gaps you need to address and make sure you’re organizing your content in a logical way.
- Write your content. As always, your content should be targeted, relevant, helpful, and free of errors. Define your topic in the introductory section. Provide an overview of each topic and link to your in-depth posts and pages. Include keywords in your headings and subheadings. Include graphics and video throughout to keep interest and attention.
- Edit your pillar page and all linked content. Try to look at your content through the audience’s eyes. Are you leaving them with unanswered questions? Are you being clear? Are your posts well organized, easily understood, well researched, and well written? Do all your links work? Look for anything that might inconvenience the reader, and get rid of it.
- Do basic optimization for search. Make sure you’ve linked between all posts and your pillar page in both directions. Make sure your titles and headings have keywords and that you’ve included them in the meta descriptions. Use alt tags for all images.
- Build a table of contents to help your readers and search engines. Anything that makes it easier on the reader makes it better.
- Launch and Promote!
Substance and Style 