In the ever-evolving landscape of content marketing, staying ahead requires innovative strategies to boost visibility, authority, and user engagement. Enter the concept of Pillar Pages—a revolutionary approach to content organization that not only enhances SEO but also aligns with the user’s search intent. This comprehensive guide aims to demystify the essence of Pillar Pages, elucidating what they are, their significance in content marketing, and how businesses can leverage them to strengthen their online presence.

Table of Contents:

• Unveiling the Pillar Page Concept: Understanding the Basics
• The SEO Imperative: Why Pillar Pages Matter
• The Anatomy of a Pillar Page: Components and Characteristics
• User-Centric Design: Catering to Search Intent
• Strategic Topic Selection: Identifying Pillar Page Opportunities
• Content Creation Best Practices: Crafting Pillar Content
• Implementing Internal Linking: Building the Content Network
• Optimizing for Search Engines: Technical Aspects of Pillar Pages
• Measuring Success: Analytics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Challenges and Considerations: Navigating Pillar Page Implementation
• Future Trends: The Evolution of Pillar Pages in Content Marketing

Unveiling the Pillar Page Concept: Understanding the Basics

Pillar pages, or pillar posts, are pieces of content that serve as the cornerstone of a topic cluster. They provide a comprehensive overview of a broad topic and link to related content pieces. For example, say you want to create a topic cluster on SEO. Your pillar page could be a complete article covering SEO basics. Among other topics, you’d mention technical SEO, link building, and local SEO.

From your pillar page, you would add links to cluster pages. These would dive deeper into the topics mentioned on your pillar page. Your pillar page acts as a content hub. And guides users to more specific content pieces. 

Pillar pages benefit your SEO rankings by:

• Building topical authority: Clusters cover all aspects of a particular topic, which helps improve your site’s authority for that topic 
• Simplifying navigation for users and search engines: Well-structured content improves user experience and helps Google understand your site’s purpose 
• Avoiding keyword cannibalization: With topic clusters, it’s easier to organize your content and avoid keyword cannibalization issues
• Improving your site’s interlinking: Using pillar pages and topic clusters makes it easier to define an effective internal linking strategy
• Generating backlinks: Pillar pages are useful resources that tend to attract more backlinks than regular blog posts

What Makes an Effective Pillar Page?

The quality of your pillar page is critical. It can be tempting to dump all your resources into one document. But the pillar page is a gateway to all your content about a particular topic. Thus, pillar pages should keep readers interested and inspire curiosity.

A pillar page is a gateway to all your content about a particular topic. Pillar pages should keep readers interested and inspire curiosity.

A pillar page should include the following elements:

• Ungated: Pillar content should be accessible. A pillar page is an opportunity to highlight your resources related to a specific topic. If you require visitors to provide an email or phone number to unlock a pillar page, they will likely leave the site.
• Includes an introduction: Some companies skip the introduction and start sharing resources. An effective pillar page should establish why the topic is essential and its intended audience.
• Long: Since pillar pages provide an overview of a broad topic, they should be comprehensive. Many pillar pages are over 2,000 words long.
• Easy to scan: Pillar pages will contain a lot of information, so companies should format them to be easy to read. Provide a table of contents and break up large text sections with images and related resources.
• Uses a short-tail keyword: When creating a pillar page, choose a broad keyword. Use long-tail keywords in your topic cluster content.
• Includes links in a way that makes sense: While a pillar page should direct readers to related content, avoid stuffing it with hyperlinks. Use appropriate anchor text or highlight additional resources at the end of a chapter. You can also showcase related content with a callout box.

Pillar pages vs. landing pages

When defining a pillar page, it can be helpful to compare it to other content types. Landing pages are web pages designed to convert visitors into leads or sales. Visitors usually “land” on the page by clicking on an ad or a call to action. The text is concise, and there is a space to sign-up for a newsletter, demo, or service.

In contrast, pillar pages are educational. A pillar page encourages visitors to explore your site and learn more about your products and services.

Pillar pages vs. blog posts

Blog posts and pillar pages do not have as clear a distinction. Sometimes companies place a pillar page on their blog. However, pillar pages are long, broad pieces of content that serve as a gateway to other resources.

The Significance of Pillar Pages in SEO

• 1. Enhanced User Experience:

Pillar pages offer a user-friendly experience by providing all-encompassing information on a particular subject. This keeps visitors engaged, reduces bounce rates, and increases the chances of them spending more time on your website.

• 2. Improved Search Rankings:

Search engines favor comprehensive and well-organized content. A pillar page’s structure and depth of information signal search engines that your page is an authoritative source on the topic. This can lead to higher rankings in search results.

• 3. Supports Topic Clusters:

As search engines become more sophisticated, traditional keyword-based SEO strategies are evolving into more context-focused approaches. Content Clusters are a prime example of this evolution.

Topic clusters involve creating a network of interlinked content that revolves around a central pillar page. The pillar page covers the overarching topic broadly, while the cluster content delves deeper into specific subtopics. This approach signals search engines that your website offers comprehensive and valuable insights on a subject.

Topic clusters enhance your website’s authority and relevance in the eyes of search engines. When the pillar page is well-optimized and supported by relevant cluster content, it can lead to improved rankings for both the pillar page and cluster content.

The SEO Imperative: Why Pillar Pages Matter

Pillar pages are critical for a law firm’s SEO strategy for several reasons. First, they enable law firms to organize their content in a way that enhances their website’s overall architecture. By creating a central hub that links to related subtopics, law firms can improve their website’s navigation and usability, making it easier for visitors to find the information they need. They can also improve their website’s overall structure and indexing by interlinking pages and creating a clear hierarchy of content.

Pillar pages also help law firms establish authority and expertise in a particular area of practice or industry. By providing comprehensive and up-to-date information on a specific topic, law firms can demonstrate their knowledge and experience to potential clients. They can also attract more traffic from search engines, as pillar pages often rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) than short-form content pieces.

Finally, pillar pages allow law firms to target long-tail keywords that may not be feasible in shorter pieces of content. By covering a broad topic in detail, law firms can include a variety of related long-tail keywords that align with their target audience’s search queries. This can help them rank higher on search engines for these keywords, ultimately improving their online visibility and attracting more potential clients.

Pillar pages aren’t just about organization. They’re also performance powerhouses when it comes to SEO. Let’s look at several ways pillar pages increase traffic to your site.

• Pillar pages improve site structure

In order to understand your content, Google’s algorithm doesn’t just look at individual web pages on your site. It considers many pieces of content together, including how each page is related. If you have a lot of content, pillar pages unify similar subjects and create a hierarchical map. This improves your site structure and makes it easier for Google to determine your expertise, as well as select the best URL for a given search query.

As a result, you’ll earn better rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

• It’s easier to rank for high-volume keywords

Pillar pages are more likely to rank for competitive keywords with high search volume because they cover broad topics. In other words, users who search more generally probably want an informational overview of a topic. As such, Google favors high-quality content that mirrors that intent.

As users become more familiar with a concept, they’ll narrow their searches to more specific long-tail keywords. Since pillar pages touch on many related themes and link to them through CTAs, users are more likely to remain on your website and consume your content.

Due to their comprehensive nature, pillar page content is primed to receive lots of trustworthy backlinks. That means they have more PageRank to pass along through internal links. As a result, other pages in the cluster begin to rank well, which earns them backlinks to further amplify PageRank within the cluster.

It’s a virtuous SEO circle.

• Pillar pages and topic clusters showcase your expertise

When you build an ecosystem of content around specific topics, your brand will be viewed as an expert — by customers, the media, stakeholders, and Google. And, when search engines recognize your website as a trusted source of information for a topic, they’ll be more likely to reward you with better rankings.

Ultimately, Google wants to give searchers the best, most relevant information. The pillar-cluster model allows you to cover a subject from many angles, demonstrating your expertise.

The Anatomy of a Pillar Page: Components and Characteristics

It’s beginning to sound really fantastic, pillar content! The three primary categories of pillar content that you ought to produce are listed below if you’re interested in developing your own pillar content strategy. We describe the specific attributes of each kind, explain when to utilize each one, and give instances of how each type might appear in real life.

1. The 10x Content Pillar Page

A Pillar Page is likely to be the highest-value pillar content you would create for your website because they are directly tied to the key problems that your business solves for your customers.

Pillar pages are usually going to be those things, those topics, that you want your company to be known for, because you can provide a solution related to that particular topic. Key characteristics that all  Pillar Pages include are:

Pillar pages are complete, authoritative resources/guides about a certain topic. They aim to answer all of the questions that a potential reader might have, can include visual or design elements, and tend to be very lengthy.

By necessity, these pages are often broken into sections or chapters, all located on one page.

Pillar Pages include all text on the page. Though you may pair a pillar page with some sort of downloadable resource, a defining characteristic is that all of the information is laid out on the page so that a reader can find it and access it without needing to fill out a form.

Placing all of the text on the pillar page not only improves user experience (by making your website a go-to resource) but also helps the page to rank for important keywords and phrases, boosting your SEO rankings. It is important not to hide the text behind a form or some kind of user interface.

Pillar pages include bi-directional links. Pillar pages answer a  question as completely as possible, but will still usually link to other pages on your website including blog posts, sub-pillars, and resources. It is very important that these other pages also link back to your pillar page, strengthening the connection between the two for both the reader and search engines.

Pillar pages are a part of the main, top-level navigation on a website. This makes it easy for your website visitors to find the pillar page and does not hide the resource under multiple layers or clicks.

Pillar Pages are closely aligned to the problems that your business solves. Because pillar pages live at such a high level on your website and in your navigation, they must be closely related to your business. Ideally, they are tied directly to your business’s core value proposition. They are focused on problems that are solved, not broad “topics” and definitely not around products or services.

Most businesses should limit themselves to 3 or 4 pillar pages. Because pillar pages are meant to be closely tied to your core value proposition, you will not have many of them. Some businesses will have one or two, some will have three or four. But not many businesses will have more than four pillar pages; at that point, your efforts and focus are likely too diluted to be helpful for the reader.

Pillar Pages tend to have a long shelf life. Whereas you might write a blog post to capture seasonal interest or some new consumer trend, a pillar page is designed to have a long shelf life. As a core part of your business, it should be relatively stable. This will also help your content to rank over time, as you gain links and brand awareness.

Additionally, it’s recommended that pillar pages include some kind of sticky navigation (either at the top of the screen or along the side) that helps the reader to orient themselves, see where in the topic they are, and jump ahead to other content. This increases user satisfaction, increasing the likelihood that the reader will link to your content and share it on social media.

Strategically pillar pages have the potential to be incredibly important to your business. By creating a pillar page around a high-value topic that is directly related to your business (especially if you are the first, or one of the first, websites to do so) allows you to become a resource, which can help you to attract visitors, convert them into leads, and eventually into customers.

2. The Sub-Topic Pillar Page

Sub-pillar pages are similar to pillar pages in that they dive deeply into a specific topic and aim to cover it fully so that your website becomes a trusted resource.

Where they differ, though, is their importance to your business. Whereas pillar pages are directly linked to the problems that your business solves (and are therefore included in the top-level navigation), sub-pillar pages are less directly related and are therefore not as elevated. These are also sometimes referred to as “long-form blog posts” or “blog post content pillars.”

Key characteristics of sub-pillar pages include:

Sub-Topic Pillar Pages are complete, authoritative resources/guides about a certain topic. They aim to answer all of the questions that a potential reader might have, can include visual or design elements, and tend to be very lengthy.

By necessity, these pages are often broken into sections or chapters, all located on one page. They serve virtually the same function as pillar pages in this regard

Sub-Topic Pillar Pages include all text on the page. Though you may pair a sub-pillar page with some sort of downloadable resource, a defining characteristic is that all of the information is laid out on the page so that a reader can find it and access it without needing to fill out a form.

Placing all of the text on the sub-pillar page not only improves user experience (by making your website a go-to resource) but also helps the page to rank for important keywords and phrases, boosting your SEO rankings. It is important not to hide the text behind a form or some kind of user interface.

Sub-Topic Pillar pages include bi-directional links. Sub-Pillar pages answer a  question as completely as possible, but will still usually link to other pages on your website including blog posts, main pillars, and resources. It is very important that these other pages also link back to your sub-pillar page, strengthening the connection between the two for both the reader and search engines.

Sub-Topic Pillar pages may be less closely tied to the main problems that your business solves. Whereas pillar pages are directly related to what your business does, sub-pillar pages are usually slightly less directly related. Because of this, sub-pillar pages are not included in the top-level navigation of your website.

There is no limit to how many sub-topic pillar pages your company might have. As long as a sub-pillar page links back to a pillar page and is related “enough” to your business offerings that it makes sense to produce, there are no limits to how many sub-pillars you might create. These sub-pillar pages will ultimately help your pillar pages get found by readers and search engines.

Just as with pillar pages, it’s recommended that sub-pillar pages include some kind of sticky navigation (either at the top of the screen or along the side) that helps the reader to orient themselves, see where in the topic they are, and jump ahead to other content. This increases user satisfaction, increasing the likelihood that the reader will link to your content and share it on social media. Otherwise, they will usually function and look just like a typical blog post on your website, only longer.

3. The Resource Pillar Page

Resource Pillars are fairly different from pillar pages and sub-pillar pages. They are essentially optimized versions of the typical Resource page that you see on websites today. By optimized, we mean that they are optimized for both increased user satisfaction, but also so that search engines have an easier time creating and understanding them.

Key characteristics of Resource Pillars include:

Resource Pillars live in the top-level navigation of your website. Just like pillar pages, you want a resource pillar to live in your top-level navigation. This makes it easy for your website visitors to find the resource pillar and does not hide it under multiple layers or clicks. Because website users are familiar with the words “Resources” and “Library,” your resource pillar should be called something along these lines.

Resource Pillars are NOT just regular resource pages. A traditional resources page will consist of a list of available resources, formatted as hyperlinked text, which will often be gated behind a form. Where resource pillars differ is the presentation. Resource Pillars include hyperlinked text and a thumbnail image, making them easier to spot on a busy page. Additionally, they include some short descriptive text, which allows the reader to know what the resource is before clicking on it. In addition to making the reader happier, this allows search engines to better understand your resource pillar, allowing it to potentially rank for a number of important keywords and phrases, boosting your overall SEO.

Resources Pillars present resources grouped by the problem they solve for the reader, NOT by products or services. If someone lands on your resource pillar through organic search, they might not know anything about your company or the products or services you offer. For that reason, you shouldn’t group resources under product type or product name. By grouping them by the problems they solve, instead, you make it easier for the reader to find what they are looking for and also to see the value that the resource will offer.

Resource Pillars do not include all of the content on the page. An important difference between pillar pages and resource pillars is that pillar pages include all of the content on the page (for user satisfaction and SEO purposes). Resource pillars do not do this. They rely on the short descriptive blurbs to inform the reader and convince them to advance forward. Including all of the text for all of your resources on a single resource pillar would make the resource pillar so unwieldy that it would be unhelpful (and likely frustrating) to the user.

Resource Pillars should include gated and ungated content. You should be sure to include any and all resources that you have, on your resource pillar. This will include both gated and ungated content. Because the content itself does not live on a resource pillar, it doesn’t matter that some of the content is gated.

Resource Pillars should include all of your pillar pages and sub-pillar pages. Doing this will help readers to find your pillar pages, and will strengthen the connection between the two for both the reader and search engines.

User-Centric Design: Catering to Search Intent

Before Google’s Penguin and Panda algorithm updates, optimizing purely for keywords worked. Today, to increase the effectiveness of your SEO tactics, you should also understand the why behind your keywords. In other words, you need to understand user intent and search intent.

Search intent, a foundational concept in SEO, involves deciphering the purpose behind users’ search queries on platforms like Google. Effective optimization for search intent is paramount for crafting content that resonates with user needs, leading to enhanced rankings and an enriched user experience.

Distinguishing between various types of search intent is crucial for aligning content with user expectations. The primary categories include:

1. Informational Intent: Users seek knowledge or answers to specific questions, such as searching for “benefits of green tea” to gather information.
2. Commercial Intent: This type of intent is characterized by users expressing interest in purchasing a product or service. Queries like “best budget smartphones” indicate a desire to compare and potentially make a purchase.
3. Navigational Intent: Users are searching for a particular website or online destination, as seen in queries like “Facebook login,” indicating a direct navigation intent.
4. Transactional Intent: Signifying an intention to complete a specific action, this includes searches like “buy iPhone 13 online,” indicating a desire to make a purchase or engage in a transaction.

Aligning Content with Search Intent

Illustrating the importance of catering to search intent, let’s consider a scenario where an individual wants to bake a carrot cake for the first time. After searching “easy carrot cake recipes,” the user clicks on the first result, only to find a complex recipe with advanced techniques and unfamiliar ingredients. Dissatisfied, the user returns to the search results and discovers a beginner-friendly recipe with step-by-step instructions in the second result.

In this example, if a significant number of users share a similar intent for a straightforward carrot cake recipe, Google is likely to rank the beginner-friendly recipe higher in the search results. This emphasizes the need to create content that not only addresses specific search queries but also aligns with the diverse intentions of online searchers.

Integrating Search Intent Into SEO

Here are a few simple tips on how to align your SEO strategy with searchers’ intent.

• 1. Your Content and Keywords should have the Same Intent

Google “social media monitoring tool” and you will see that all results are tools. However, search for “best social media monitoring tools” and you will find useful articles listing the best tools out there. Before you use a keyword on your website, you first need to know its intent is.

Navigational Queries – People with navigational intent already know what website they want to visit. For example, if someone googles “Ahrefs backlink checker,” they will directly click on the tool. Therefore, if you have written a guide on using Ahrefs ranks for that keyword, your page will probably rank high for this keyword, but its click-through rate will be poor.

Commercial Queries – Users with commercial intents don’t want to read guides and articles. They want to buy stuff. Google “drone cameras” and you will see that most pages are links to online stores selling this product. So, optimizing your blog content for this keyword would clearly be a mistake. When optimizing your commercial pages for such competitive keywords, you will need to focus on providing straightforward information, simple forms, and clear CTAs to boost users’ satisfaction.

• 2. Deal With Ambiguous Keywords

Some keywords have multiple intents. If you google “backlink audit,” you will see two types of results – links to backlink audit tools and guides to conducting backlink audits.

You need to decide what intent you will address and stick to it. For example, if you are blogging about SEO, you could create an ultimate guide to backlink audits that will help you beat similar posts and rank higher.

• 3. Update Existing Content

You wrote a killer piece of content that should rank high on Google, but it doesn’t. This probably means you have a user intent problem. To solve this problem, hire an SEO agency to help you reoptimize your article to meet the search intent better. Analyze similar content that ranks higher than yours and rewrite your article to meet users’ expectations. As you already have a solid foundation (useful tips, resources, keywords), you won’t need to write an article from scratch. To generate buzz around your updated content, create a catchier title and meta description, too.

• 4. Improve UX

Apart from traditional SEO ranking factors, Google also assesses how people interact with websites. If your traffic, user engagement, and conversions are low, while your bounce rates are high, Google will probably conclude that your page is not a good fit for a search phrase and downrank you.

In 2020 and beyond, user experience is critical for your SEO performance. Here are a few tips that will help you improve UX:

• Eliminate popups, as neither users nor search engines love them.
• Use large and legible fonts that make your content easy to follow.
• Always use subheadings to help users skim through the content faster.
• Implement visuals to make content easier to understand.
• Keep your content responsive across all devices.
• Use Google Analytics to measure website performance and update it accordingly.

• 5. Tools To Use To Understand Search Intent

Apart from traditional keyword research tools, you should also use tools to reveal more about searchers’ expectations. Some of them are:

• Answer The Public gives you a list of related search terms that will help you come up with relevant content.
• Google’s People Also Ask and Autosuggest tell you what similar keywords searchers use.
• Buzzsumo and Google Trends let you see the most shared content across the web.

Strategic Topic Selection: Identifying Pillar Page Opportunities

Selecting an appropriate subject for your pillar page is essential to the strategy’s success. Although subject targeting has grown in significance as search engines have modified their algorithms, keywords are still crucial to SEO. Content arranged by topic, as opposed to keywords, is rewarded by search engines.

These are the essential actions you must do to select an effective pillar page topic.

1. Choose a relevant solution

This may seem like an obvious one, but it cannot be stressed enough. Some SEOs get so stuck on finding the right keywords, that they forget about the big picture. Similar to how you would conduct keyword research, think about solutions and topics that your product solves.

This is where the buyer persona comes into play. What is your buyer searching for, and what questions might they have along the way?

Once you have a list of possible options, choose a topic that is broad enough to be able to create “cluster pages” around. A query that only poses a “yes” or “no” answer will not be suitable for this strategy.

For example, “What is communication?” is too broad of a topic, and “Communication between a coworker and boss” is too specific. However, the query “What is effective communication in the workplace?” is broad enough to write a long piece of content on, but also presents opportunities to link out to other areas of workplace communication that are more specific.

2. Analyze the SERP

Oftentimes, we can forget how helpful the SERP can be in identifying related queries. Enter your pillar page topic into the search bar and examine the results.

What sort of questions are being asked in the People Also Ask? Is there a featured snippet? Are there targeted ads on related topics? These are all great indicators that you’ve chosen the right topic. If your pillar page topic brings up none of these, perhaps it is better served as a cluster page, or maybe it isn’t the right topic for you at all.

People Also Ask queries can be great for your pillar page structure as well. Would these questions make sense to answer in your pillar page as H2s or H3s? Are you answering this question in any of your cluster pages? Search engines often give us the answer to our own questions, especially when it comes to related topics.

3. Evaluate your content

Auditing your content can seem like a daunting task, but it’s crucial in the pillar page strategy process. It’s difficult to start writing new content without knowing what content you already have — you wouldn’t want to end up with duplicate content competing against yourself.

Sort your existing content into topics. From there, you can identify pages that are similar. Can you re-prioritize any of the existing content to fit this strategy? Can you combine two pieces of content together? By the end of your content audit, you should be able to identify where your content gaps are.

This is where new content will come in. This process will also eradicate any duplicate content, so the reorganization of your content library will be primed for the best results. A Google Sheet with your library is a safe and easy way to map out this content.

For the pillar page strategy itself, I recommend a Google Sheet with tabs for existing content that needs to be optimized, new content that needs to be written, the structure of the pillar page, as well as current rankings.

This may seem like a lot of work, which poses the question, is a pillar page strategy actually worth it? The short answer is: yes.

Pillar page strategies force you to take a look at the buyer personas in your industry. If you combine those with topic clusters, you’re going to be answering top of funnel queries, like “what is?”, mid-funnel queries like “benefits of”, and bottom funnel queries like “the best of”. Not only are you creating content that search engines find relevant — you’re creating content for every stage of your buyer’s journey.

This allows your users to easily make their way through the sales funnel and bridge any gap you may have had in your sales process. This strategy can tie content creation to revenue, which is becoming increasingly important in B2B.

Content Creation Best Practices: Crafting Pillar Content

Content pillars are the foundation of a successful content strategy, acting as comprehensive, authoritative pieces of content that cover a problem your customer’s experience in-depth. They provide a strong base for sub-pillars and related content, significantly improving your search engine optimization (SEO) performance.

So, why should you invest in developing content pillars? The benefits are numerous, ranging from:

• Boosting SEO,
• Constructing a well-rounded content strategy,
• Ensuring that your content is comprehensive and authoritative, which helps establish your brand as a thought leader in your industry,
• Using content pillars to remain consistent in your messaging and tone makes it easier for your audience to recognize and connect with your brand and, of course,
• Get more leads.

Creating a content pillar strategy involves steps that focus on understanding your audience, identifying core topics and themes, crafting engaging pillar content, and developing supporting sub-pillars.

To get started, you must first define your social media content pillars, which serve as the foundation for your content strategy. Aim for 3-5 content pillars, never more than 10, and focus on the topics that resonate with your target audience and align with your brand’s goals and values.

Once you have your content pillars, it’s time to move on to the next step – crafting the content. Regularly posting content is essential for success, as most algorithms reward accounts that post consistently.

Developing a content pillar framework

To develop a content pillar framework, you must first gain insights into your audience and their needs. This can be achieved by:

1. Creating buyer personas
2. Conducting competitor research to identify the most essential topics, questions, and keywords to focus on
3. Utilizing social listening to stay ahead of the competition, track competitors, stay on top of trending topics, and be one step ahead.

Staying updated on industry trends is also essential, as it enables you to create content that resonates with your audience, keeping them engaged with the latest developments.

Identifying Your Core Topics and Themes

Identifying your core topics and themes is crucial for creating content pillars that resonate with your target audience and align with your brand’s goals and values. To do this, you must first understand your target audience’s pain points and needs. The Value Proposition Canvas is a handy tool from Strategyzer that helps you uncover your audience’s pain points and gain valuable insights.

Once you have identified your core topics, content buckets, and themes, you can focus on crafting engaging and valuable content that addresses your audience’s needs and aligns with your brand’s values. In this process, generating content ideas will be crucial for maintaining a fresh and relevant approach to the brand story.

Creating Engaging Pillar Content

Creating engaging pillar content involves crafting informative, valuable, and visually appealing content in various formats, such as blog posts, posts, videos, and infographics. By ensuring your content is tailored to your audience’s preferences and optimized for search engine visibility, you can maximize the impact of your content pillars and drive engagement.

Additionally, experimenting with different formats, channels, and platforms can help you discover the most effective ways to reach and connect with your target audience, leading to increased brand authority, traffic, and conversions.

Aligning your Content Pillars with your Brand

To ensure that your pillars align with your brand’s values, goals, and messaging, developing a content mission statement that embodies your brand’s values and goals is essential. This involves uncovering your brand’s core values, defining its mission and vision, and setting your brand’s voice and tone.

By aligning your pillars with your brand, you can create a cohesive and impactful content strategy that resonates with your audience and reflects your brand’s unique value proposition.

Using a Consistent Tone of Voice

Maintaining a consistent tone of voice across all content pieces is critical for establishing a solid brand identity and fostering trust with your audience. This involves using the same language, grammar, and vocabulary and maintaining a consistent level of formality or informality. Ensuring that your tone of voice suits your audience and the content can create a unified experience that leads to improved engagement and loyalty.

Additionally, reviewing your content regularly and creating a style guide can help guarantee consistency and alignment with your brand’s values and objectives.

Implementing Internal Linking: Building the Content Network

Internal linking plays a crucial role in enhancing your SEO strategy. It involves linking relevant pages and content within your own website. Here’s why it holds immense importance:

1. Improved Website Navigation: Internal links help users easily navigate through your website, making it more user-friendly. By guiding visitors from one page to another, you improve their overall experience and reduce bounce rates.
2. Distributing Authority: Internal links allow you to distribute the SEO authority of your website across different pages. When you link from high-authority pages to other pages, you pass on some of the SEO value, helping those pages rank better in search results.
3. Enhanced Indexing and Crawling: Search engines use links to discover and index your website’s pages. By incorporating internal links, you ensure that all pages are interconnected and easily accessible for search engine bots, leading to better indexing and crawling.
4. Keyword and Content Relevance: Linking relevant pages using targeted anchor text helps search engines understand the relationship between different pages on your site. This improves the overall relevance and keyword associations, ultimately boosting your organic search rankings.
5. Increased Page Visibility: Internal linking enables deeper pages within your website to gain more visibility. By linking them from high-traffic pages, you increase the chances of these pages being discovered and visited by users, expanding your site’s visibility.
6. Reduced Orphaned Content: Orphaned pages, i.e., those with no internal or external links, often struggle to rank in search results.

Internal linking helps prevent this by ensuring every page is connected to the rest of your site, giving them a chance to be indexed and ranked.

In summary, internal linking is essential for SEO as it improves website navigation, distributes SEO authority, aids in indexing and crawling, enhances keyword relevance, increases page visibility, and prevents orphaned content. By implementing a well-structured internal linking strategy, you can significantly boost your website’s SEO performance and organic rankings.

Creating a Logical Website Structure

• A logical website structure refers to organizing your website’s pages and content in a way that makes sense to both users and search engines. It helps improve user experience and makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site.
• When creating a logical website structure, consider the following:
  1. Categorize your content: Group related content into categories or sections. This helps users find information more easily and creates clear pathways for search engines to follow.
  2. Use hierarchical navigation: Arrange your website’s pages in a hierarchical manner using menus or breadcrumbs. This allows users to navigate through your site effortlessly.
  3. Prioritize important pages: Place critical pages within a few clicks from the homepage. Important pages are those that you want to rank higher in search engine results.
  4. Create a clear URL structure: Use descriptive and organized URLs that reflect the content of the page. This helps both users and search engines understand what the page is about.
  5. Internal linking between related pages: Connect related pages within your website using internal links. This not only helps users discover more relevant content but also assists search engines in understanding the relationship between different pages.
  6. Eliminate duplicate content: Avoid having multiple versions of the same content, as it can confuse search engines.

Use canonical tags or redirects to indicate the preferred version.

• Overall, creating a logical website structure improves user experience, enhances site navigation, and makes it easier for search engines to crawl, understand, and rank your website.

Using Keyword-Rich Anchor Texts

Using Keyword-Rich Anchor Texts: When implementing internal links, it is important to use anchor texts that contain relevant keywords. Anchor texts are clickable words or phrases that act as a hyperlink to another page on your website. By using keywords that accurately describe the linked page, you help search engines understand the context and relevance of your content. This can improve the visibility and ranking of both the linking page and the linked page in search engine results.

However, it is essential to maintain a natural and varied anchor text profile to avoid over-optimization, as search engines may penalize websites for excessive keyword usage.

Utilizing Descriptive Labels for Navigation Menus

Having descriptive labels for navigation menus is crucial when it comes to internal linking and SEO. This means using clear and concise wording to describe the destination of each link in your navigation menu. It helps users and search engines understand the content and purpose of each page and improves the overall user experience.

By using descriptive labels, you provide users with a better understanding of where they will be taken when they click on a link. Instead of generic labels like “Click here” or “Learn more,” consider using labels that accurately represent the content or topic of the destination page. For example, if you have a page about “Best SEO Practices,” use a label like “SEO Best Practices” for the link leading to that page.

Using descriptive labels also benefits search engines in understanding the website’s structure and content. Search engine crawlers review the links on your website to determine the relationship between pages. Clear labels that reflect the content of the linked page can assist search engines in indexing and ranking your website.

In addition, using relevant keywords within these labels can further enhance your SEO efforts. Instead of using vague labels, incorporate relevant keywords that align with the content of the destination page. This practice can help search engines associate those keywords with your website and potentially improve your ranking for those specific terms.

In summary, utilizing descriptive labels for navigation menus is an essential aspect of internal linking and SEO. It improves user experience, assists search engines in understanding your website’s structure and content, and allows for the effective incorporation of relevant keywords.

Avoiding Broken or Orphaned Links

One critical aspect of implementing internal linking for SEO is to ensure that you steer clear of broken or orphaned links. Broken links refer to links that lead users to non-existent pages or error pages, often resulting in a negative user experience. On the other hand, orphaned links are links on your website that are not included in any other pages or articles, making them isolated and hard to navigate for both users and search engines.

To avoid broken or orphaned links, it’s crucial to regularly check your website for any broken links using dedicated tools or plugins. This will help you identify any links that lead to non-existent pages or dead-end destinations. Once identified, you can either fix these links by redirecting them to relevant pages or by removing them altogether.

Additionally, when creating internal links, make sure to only link to existing pages within your website. This means you need to be diligent in maintaining your website’s structure and content. If you delete or rename a page, be sure to update any internal links that may be pointing to it. By doing so, you not only enhance the user experience but also ensure that search engines can navigate and index your website effectively.

Overall, by avoiding broken or orphaned links, you contribute to a seamless user experience, improve the discoverability of your content, and positively impact your SEO efforts.

Implementing Relevant and Contextual Links

When it comes to internal linking, it’s crucial to ensure that the links you include within your content are both relevant and contextual. This means that the links should be closely related to the topic being discussed and should provide additional value and information to the readers.

Relevant links help to establish a logical connection between different pages on your website. For example, if you are writing an article about different hiking trails, it would be relevant to include internal links to specific trail guides or gear recommendations that are related to the specific trails mentioned in the article.

Read Also: Mastering SEO Strategy: A Comprehensive Guide to Topic Clusters

Contextual links, on the other hand, are links that are placed within the natural flow of the content and provide additional context to the readers. For instance, if you are discussing a certain concept or term in your content, you can include an internal link to a separate page that provides a more detailed explanation or definition of that concept.

By implementing relevant and contextual links, you not only enhance the user experience by providing valuable information, but you also signal to search engines that your content is interconnected and authoritative. This can ultimately lead to better search engine rankings and improved visibility for your website.

Remember, the key is to strike a balance between providing useful internal links and not overwhelming your readers with an excessive number of links. Focus on quality rather than quantity, and always keep the user experience in mind when incorporating internal links into your content.

Optimizing for Search Engines: Technical Aspects of Pillar Pages

The course of your marketing efforts can be drastically altered by a single effective piece of content, which makes SEO both irritating and potentially life-changing. To be sure, Google is known for upgrading its algorithms and best practises several times a year, so it does not reward one-and-done efforts for very long.

Even while there’s no foolproof method to beat the system and get all of your articles ranked #1, a methodical strategy that incorporates pillar pages will probably yield some nice returns. Search snippets are one component of the pillar concept that benefits both websites and searchers.

Whether it’s your first time hearing about pillar pages or you’ve been trying to crack the code for some time, the concept is a must-know for anyone looking for SEO success.

Pillar pages are high-level content that broadly overviews a core topic. They are a hub for all your other in-depth content about that topic. And by linking out to these in-depth articles from your pillar page, you’re giving Google and your readers the information they need to understand the case in its entirety.

This is important for two reasons. First, it helps you rank for long-tail keywords that you wouldn’t be able to rank for otherwise. And second, it provides a better user experience for your readers, who can easily find the information they’re looking for without having to search through multiple pages on your website.

You can optimize your pillar page for on-page SEO elements like:

• Incorporate your main keyword into the page title and subheadings.
• Make a catchy, clickable title tag and meta description.
• Use structured data when appropriate.
• Each subtopic should have its header.
• Include your primary and secondary keywords throughout the page.
• Within the first 100 words, include your target keyword.
• Make sure that your content corresponds to the search intent.
• Create readable text with plenty of headers and paragraph breaks.
• Image optimization and alt text addition

How does one go about making a pillar page? You have to start by forming a subject cluster. Therefore, read our post on topic clusters if you haven’t already. Lastly, you need to organize your list of keywords and group them into distinct groups. After that, finish creating each cluster page. The following describes the full process:

1. Determine which topics you want to rank for.

The first step in creating a content cluster and pillar page is deciding on a topic for which you want to rank. The goal is to consider broad topical themes rather than specific keywords. Your piece should ideally be general enough to necessitate multiple blog posts but not so vast that it is impossible to cover all topics in a single pillar page.

“Business” is far too broad for a pillar page. It’s likely too wide for a website. When choosing a broad keyword for a pillar page, ensure that it has a high search volume. However, you may also want to examine trend data. Is the keyword gaining traction among your target audience? Or is it already past its prime?

2. Conduct extensive keyword research

Conduct extensive keyword research to discover your topic cluster’s entire universe of search queries. You must know everything. Consider your personas’ pain points and the questions they ask at each stage of the customer journey.

Use traditional keyword research tools such as Google Search Console or Answer The Public. This tool displays the keywords and search queries people enter when searching for a specific topic. 

Another method for generating valuable queries is to use Google autocomplete suggestions and related searches in the “People Also Asked” section. This provides you with even more information about how people search.

3. Sort keywords into blog categories.

This is possibly the most challenging aspect of creating a topic cluster. And it’s by far the most crucial step to nail. If you fail to group your keywords properly, your cluster pages will be too broad, too narrow, or too similar, and they will not rank well.

-Think about the overall theme or focus of the blog, and use that as a starting point for categorizing keywords. 

-Consider what keywords are most relevant to each category, and try to group them together accordingly. 

-Don’t be afraid to get creative with the categories – sometimes, the best way to sort keywords is to come up with unconventional or unique groupings that will make the blog stand out.

4. Compose your cluster pages

Your cluster pages are blogs or any other type of content that expands on the sub-topics on your pillar page. For example, if you have a pillar page on “B2B Video Marketing”, then you could create cluster pages on secondary topics like:

• Maximizing the Potential of Video Marketing: Engaging and Converting Your Audience
• How to Use Video for Successful Digital Marketing Campaigns
• Visual Search: What is and How to Use It?

As we see, a pillar page relies on pretty general content, a central keyword. Meanwhile, your cluster pages should focus on long tail keywords or more specific questions to give your audience more details on that pillar theme.

But what should you do first, a pillar page or your cluster ones?

Before creating a pillar page, you should complete most of your cluster pages. It’s much easier to summarize content when it already exists. If you write your pillar page first, you’ll feel compelled to include too much information, rendering the cluster pages obsolete.

There are a few key things to consider when composing your cluster pages: 

• 1. Make sure your pages are well-organized and easy to navigate. 
• 2. Use clear and concise language. 
• 3. Use images and multimedia to break up text and add visual interest.
• 4. Use external links to provide more information about your topic. 
• 5. Keep your pages updated with fresh content.

Measuring Success: Analytics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The use of pillar pages to improve SEO for your primary services has been the subject of a lot of recent internet discussion. Implementing a pillar page approach requires time and work, but you’ll soon see SEO and lead generation benefits once the material is finished and you’ve begun to market your pages and the cluster content.

But you also need to monitor your overall performance if you want to make the most out of the pillar page method.

Because pillar page campaigns are dynamic, just like other marketing initiatives, you must monitor and analyze their effectiveness just like any other. You can optimize SEO and lead creation by tracking and measuring performance and making necessary adjustments to your content and promotion.

To track the effectiveness of your pillar page and content measure and track the following metrics about the pillar page and each linked piece of content:

• Sessions: More sessions means more visitors.
• New Sessions: More new sessions mean you’re expanding your reach to new visitors.
• Average Session Length/Duration: The longer people stay on the page, the more engaged they are.
• Bounce Rate: These are visitors who come to your site and leave immediately. A lower bounce rate is better.
• Inbound Links: This number should grow over time.
• Contacts Created from the Page: This number should grow over time.
• Customers Created: This number should grow over time.

You can monitor these metrics using Google Analytics and use a spreadsheet or other tools to map activities back to contacts and customers in your marketing and sales software.

For the pillar page itself, monitor the following three metrics, and look for growth:

• Domain Authority for the topic.
• Monthly search volume.
• Relevancy.

Challenges and Considerations: Navigating Pillar Page Implementation

These difficulties can make it impossible for the pillar page project to begin or finish. Organizations frequently wind up with ineffective pillar pages. They aren’t interesting to their target audience, they don’t boost SEO rank for core issue keywords, and they don’t drive traffic.

Challenge 1: Finding the Right Topic

Amazingly this is a problem many organizations have, especially if they haven’t had a content marketing plan designed to target a specific audience segment.

There are many reasons why this might be the case. The challenging part is that pillar pages are a heavy lift. It’s not just one blog post. It’s multiple blog posts, an ebook, publication, continued promotion and so forth. If they’re going to invest the time to do this, many organizations want the perfect topic, and analysis can lead to paralysis.

Tips:

• Leverage one of your existing ebooks.  Choosing an ebook you’ve already published, and that’s still relevant to your audience, is one of the easiest ways to select a pillar page topic!
• Keep the topic narrow. Answer a single question, or discuss an industry problem in depth.
• List to what your customers are asking for. Review your online channels and see what your customers are asking for, and build a pillar page to provide that information.
• Ask your sales team. The questions salespeople routinely answer makes great content. You may have to work to find an overall topic that encompasses the content, but this approach often pays off!   
• Look to other content and channels for inspiration. If you have other channels that are well-liked by your audience see if you can leverage them. Think out of the box for this one. For example, if your  YouTube channel is popular, leverage the with 16 how-to videos you’ve published. While video content won’t improve your SEO by itself, if you put those 16 videos on a pillar page with well crafted introductory paragraphs that explain what each video shows and provides supporting information, then it will.
• Bring in outside help. An agency or consultant to help you narrow down topics

Challenge 2: Finding the Right Topic Keyword and Related Keywords

Once a topic is selected the work isn’t over, it’s just beginning. You have to choose the right topic and subtopic keywords. The challenge here, whether starting from scratch with the intention to build content, or transforming an ebook into a pillar page, you have to choose your topic keywords based on SEO factors, not what you believe the keywords should be, or even keywords that have been used in the past.

You have to pick a topic keyword that you can rank for – that takes research.

There are lots of tools you can use to help you brainstorm, research, and create pillar pages. An SEO tool like SEMRush, Moz Pro, Ahrefs and other can help you identify keywords used in your industry related to your topics, and show you search volume.

You’re looking for:

• Keywords your competitors aren’t ranking for. Choosing keywords used by your competitors makes building rank that much harder.
• Longtail keywords that you can rank for (keywords that aren’t heavily used by others).
• Keywords that have a high monthly search volume.

Tips:

• Ask your customers. Ask them how they describe the topic you’re going to turn into a pillar page. You may find some great topic keywords this way.
• Use your topic keyword everywhere. Once you choose a topic keyword, start using it everywhere on your website, in brochures, and on social to build recognition and get others familiar with it and using it.
• Hire an SEO consultant. SEO is daunting. Hiring an agency or consultant can take this burden off of in-house staff and speed up this part of the process. If you do, make sure they give you data to back up their recommendations.

Challenge 3: Choosing Which Existing Content to Leverage

Once to the topic and keywords are chosen, it’s time to create the content for the pillar page. Since pillar pages are supposed to consist of eight to 22 subtopics, the prospect of creating all of that content can be daunting.

While it’s always a good idea to leverage your existing content where it fits, some organizations stuff pillar pages with any content they can find, instead of making sure it closely matches the topic and subtopics.

The intentions may be good. Someone may want to include a popular article loosely related to the topic. With all the content required for a pillar page, this can seem like a time saver, but it’s diluting the core focus of your pillar page.

Remember, you’re creating a very long piece of content. It needs to be focused, relevant, and meaningful to the core topic and subtopics covered. If the content goes wandering off into other areas you audience may turn off resulting in a poorly received pillar page that doesn’t get backlinks and doesn’t keep generating traffic over time.

Tips:

• Update all content to make it current. Update the text, statistics, and links in the content you leverage.
• Keep subtopics focused on your main topic. If a piece of content isn’t doesn’t directly support the main topic, leave it out. If it’s a great piece of content, mention it and link to it.
• Have people outside your organization (such as good customers) review it. Ask if all the content is relevant to the main topic and should be included in the pillar page.
• Hire outside help. Sometimes an agency or consultant coming in with a fresh set of eyes can be the best choice for selecting content to leverage while retaining the focus needed to make a great pillar page.

Challenge 4: Making Long-form Content Compelling

The next place organizations struggle with is making their long-form content compelling. This is especially true when leveraging existing content.

It’s always a good idea to include stat graphics, bulleted lists, and relevant images in blog posts. Some organizations skip that step when creating shorter content. After all, if an article is only one or two pages long, they figure anyone interested will read it.

There are two things to remember. Any article regardless of length will perform better if you add stat graphics, lists, and relevant images. Be sure to always add those elements. Second, if you put eight to 22 short, text-only posts together to create a pillar page, you’re likely creating an engagement experience that is best described as “thick and chewy.” Your visitors won’t consume it.

Tips:

• Assign someone to do a graphics refresh. Make it a priority role, give them the time to do it!
• Statistics, key quotes, and data are all great candidates for graphic treatment.
• Hire a graphic artist. If you don’t have a graphic artist in-house, hiring one can greatly reduce the time it takes to do a graphics refresh. Graphic artists think visually. They can review content and easily decide which content can benefit from graphic treatment.
• Have a team of insiders and outsiders review the pillar page before publication.
• Make sure the content is compelling and scannable.

Challenge 5: Building In Potential Lead Generation

The last challenge we see is that many organizations don’t use their pillar pages effectively for lead generation. One of the key concepts around a pillar page is that the pillar content is also offered as an ebook because readers often like to download long-form content to read later.

Many organizations don’t add other content offers to their pillar pages. They should. Any relevant content offer is fair game to add to a pillar page. If you’re discussing something that relates to an offer you have, include a button, image or link to the offer landing page.

Tips:

• Keep references to content offers short and to the point. Keep the pillar page focused on the main topic and subtopics.
• Put calls to actions near related content.
• Use links or button CTAs rather and image CTAs.  Links or buttons distract less from the pillar content.
• Update other offer landing pages. Include information about why they’re relevant to the topics covered on the pillar page.

It takes a lot of time, and a diverse set of skills to do a pillar page right. Your team may possess many of the skills needed such as knowledge of your products and services and your existing content. They may not have SEO analysis or graphic art skills.

Managers usually want to get pillar pages done in a timely fashion so the marketing team can move onto other things and so the company can reap the SEO benefits. Problems occur when you start cutting corners to get the pillar page project done. The marketing team may fall back to what they’re comfortable with, and punt some of the more challenging issues I’ve listed in this article.

If a pillar page project is done fast, but not right,  it won’t generate traffic, earn backlinks, and boost your SEO the way it should.

Pros and Cons of Pillar Content?

pursuing a pillar content strategy might not be the best fit for every website or business. And even if it is a good fit for your business, it can’t be expected to solve all of your problems. To help you get a better sense of whether or not pursuing a pillar content strategy is the right move for you, we’ve gathered together these pros and cons that will help you weigh your decision before moving forward.

Pros

• Google rewards Pillar Pages. Because pillar content is so authoritative and comprehensive, it does a good job of matching the searcher’s intent and answering their questions. This means that they stay on your page longer and do not “pogo” back to the search results. Google takes note of this data, and uses it to inform its search rankings. Pages that keep readers longer are ranked higher in search results, which is good for you.
• Pillar pages are more likely to earn links. pillar pages are authoritative resources. As such, they are more likely to be linked to by outside websites. The more links you have pointing to your pillar page, the more authority your pillar page and your website overall will have. Google rewards websites with a high number of links (if people are linking to you, then you must be correct!) so the importance of this can’t be overlooked.
• Pillar pages are more likely to be shared on social media. Because pillar pages are so thorough and make searchers so happy, they are more likely to be shared on social media than your typical blog post. This leads to more referral traffic and indirectly might get you more links from outside pages.
• Pillar pages build trust. Creating a pillar page allows you to answer a searcher’s question. But because the page is so thorough, you are also able to anticipate and answer their follow-up questions, all while they’re on your page. They don’t need to go back to Google to do follow-up searches. This makes the searcher happy, which allows you to begin building trust and a relationship with them. This trust will make the searcher more likely to convert to a lead and, eventually, a customer.
• Pillar pages are Sales collateral. Sales teams spend countless hours educating prospects about a topic before they ever get close to a sale. And by answering one question, they will often open the door to another question, and another. Before long, the entire day has been spent answering questions and no sales have been made. Bummer. By creating pillar pages, though you create a resource that your sales team can use to quickly educate prospects without all of the back and forth, saving time and letting them.
• Pillar pages can save time (in the long run). Though pillar pages take a lot of time to create (more on that below), in the long run creating pillar pages can save you a lot of time and effort. How? One high-quality pillar page has the potential to outrank and outperform dozens of lower-quality blog posts. That means that you can write fewer, higher-quality blog posts to complement your pillar pages, instead of churning out a slew of low-quality blog posts just because you have to match keywords, etc.

Cons

• Pillar pages take a lot of time to produce. Writing a comprehensive guide or step-by-step walkthrough that is going to anticipate and answer all of the reader’s questions isn’t easy. It’s a lot of work, and it can take a lot of time—depending on the topic, it could take days to weeks to create a single comprehensive pillar page. This can make generating a pillar page difficult, especially if you are also handling many other tasks. You can’t expect a 5,000-word pillar page to take the same amount of time to write as a 600-word blog post.
• Pillar pages don’t replace the need to blog. Though a good pillar page will reduce how many blog posts you need to write, you can’t just create a pillar page and never produce another piece of content again. You’ll need to continue blogging so that your website remains active, and to capitalize on new search phrases, keywords, and questions that your audience might use. Yes, you might not need to produce quite so much content, but you still need to produce.
• Pillar pages will become less advantageous as more people use them. Pillar content will always be beneficial to you from a marketing perspective. But in terms of SEO, Pillar pages tend to benefit early movers first. If you can be the first website to produce a pillar page about a topic, then you are much more likely to benefit in SEO than if you are the 5th website or the 20th. At that point, your pillars will either need to be more focused, or you’ll need to make them stand out in other ways (see below).
• Pillar pages can use up a lot of resources. In addition to time, pillar pages use up a lot of resources. As pillar pages become more common, new pages need to stand out in some way in order to compete. This will predominantly be done through the use of visuals, design features, or interactive components. And while that’s great and leads to a high-value finished product, it’s expensive. Either you need to have a full team working on producing a single page, or you need to outsource the work, which can be a drain on a tight budget.
• There’s no guarantee that Pillar content will transform your business. Yes, pillar content is getting a lot of buzz lately. And yes, it has amazing potential to boost your SEO efforts. But, ultimately, just like with everything else, there are no guarantees of success.

Pillar content is an amazing tool/strategy that could work wonders for your SEO and marketing efforts. But it is not a magic bullet, and comes with no guarantees of success. Before diving wholeheartedly into creating a pillar content strategy, it’s important for you  to understand bot the pros and cons of such a strategy so that you have a better sense of whether or not it is right for you and your business.

Future Trends: The Evolution of Pillar Pages in Content Marketing

Increased adoption of AI

Experts have been saying for quite some time that robots will be doing more human jobs as advancements in technology continue. Massimo Chieruzzi of AdEspresso believes that we’re moving one step closer to that being a reality.

“OpenAI’s GPT3 has already proven to be capable of writing decent quality content at scale. While this content is clearly not enough for high-quality blog posts, the lower end of the market and SEO spammers will start adopting it massively for content production increasing the noise in the SERP.”

According to a McKinsey survey, a small group of respondents coming from a variety of industries attribute 20% or more of their organizations’ earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to AI. That’s a significant indicator about the impact and growth of AI in 2022 and beyond.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will be altering the game in several industries, simply because computers are changing the way they think as James Chadwick of Pencil explains:

“With classical programming and systems, you input rules and data, and you get answers. With ML you input data and answers, and it learns the rules.”

Machine-generated content will be a thing

Another facet of AI is what is known as machine-generated content and it’s pretty self-explanatory. Content that has been created by a machine.

We’ve briefly mentioned that using this content for writing high-quality blog posts is still somewhat far off but there are other uses as James Chadwick explains:

“MGC (Machine Generated Content) will start to be industrialized, starting on Facebook and Instagram. MGC will impact all creative fields, but it will be sharpened first on Facebook and Instagram. The ad auction is nearing a $100 Billion marketplace, powered by testing tools and fast, granular signal. By incorporating most of the data/ML into its own native tools, creative is now one of the few levers Facebook still wants businesses to pull.”

Use mixed Content types

Companies of all sizes are now recognizing the importance of using various content types like articles, blogs, newsletters, FAQs, and videos to share information about a product. Around 70% of consumers choose articles or blog posts over conventional advertisements to learn about a company. Whether to boost search engine rankings or connect with new customers, blogging can be a vital tool in your marketing strategy.

Create top-quality audio and video-based production

The biggest key to success in content creation is, well, creating good content. This is an ongoing trend that we will continue to see. If you produce audio or video content, it needs to be of good quality. Good quality content makes your business look more professional and shows that you put time and effort into telling your brand’s story. Audacity’s Levelator tool adjusts the audio levels in audio segments by using traditional discrete compression, normalization, and limiting processing. Using Levelator saves you time while ensuring your audio and video-based content is top quality.

Conclusion:

In the dynamic realm of content marketing, the strategic implementation of Pillar Pages stands as a beacon for those seeking not just visibility, but authority and user engagement. This comprehensive guide serves as a roadmap for marketers and content creators, unraveling the intricacies of Pillar Pages and how they can be leveraged to elevate a brand’s online presence. By understanding the core principles, optimizing for SEO, and staying attuned to evolving trends, businesses can harness the power of Pillar Pages to navigate the digital landscape successfully.