- A content pillar is a way of strategically building and aligning content that meets your target audience’s interests and needs.
- Content pillars are supported by topic clusters that encourage users to keep engaging with your brand.
- Building a successful pillar requires careful keyword research and an audit of your existing content.
If you’ve been marketing your business with blogs, videos, and other great content, then you know the value of content marketing. However, there’s a world of difference between random content that occasionally brings traffic to your site and a robust content strategy that establishes your brand as a thought leader. That’s where content pillars come in.
What is a Content Pillar?
A content pillar is a substantive collection of content that reflects a core topic of your business. It covers all aspects of the topic, from the bird’s-eye view to the nitty-gritty. Ideally, your users will treat this page as their go-to resource on the topic. That’s what makes a content pillar more than just a blog or article. It’s an authoritative resource on the topic.
Supporting Your Content Pillar
This isn’t to say that you need to dump all your knowledge into one giant article. Rather, you create a main topic page, then break out your subject into “topic clusters.” These clusters support your core pillar. This tactic provides an immense SEO benefit by building up your site’s internal links. It also helps keep the user in your universe of content. Ideally, they will spend a significant amount of time engaging with your blogs, articles, videos, and other content in your pillar.
Making Your Content Pillar Successful
Take the time to research the keywords that would best traffic to your pillar. Remember, it’s hard to rank for general keywords, so target keyword phrases (aka longtail queries) that people are more likely to search for. Align your keyword and topic choices with your overall brand goals and products/services. Then, set goals for your pillar. Do you want to generate more leads? Gain more followers? Establish a benchmark to measure your success.
Transforming Your Existing Content Into a Pillar
You don’t necessarily need to start from scratch. Figure out which of your content is performing best on your site, then evaluate whether you could rehash that content into a pillar. Think of it in terms of what your target audience most wants. Then, expand upon the core topic and develop the supporting clusters as needed.
Wrapping Up
A content pillar strategy is two-fold in its benefits: it enables you to build up your internal links and improve your website’s SEO, and it gives you an opportunity to establish your brand’s authority on a topic that your target audience wants to know about. This approach is also much more effective for your content marketing goals than a scattershot approach in which you publish blogs, articles, and videos, then wait for traffic. Creating a content pillar helps you better align target keywords with your target audience. Then, you can create content that’s truly valuable to the people who matter most to your business — by making your business matter most to them.