Creating meaningful content that engages your audience is critical for any brand’s marketing strategy. However, the way that content is organized and ultimately delivered to audiences is a piece of the puzzle that’s often overlooked.
What’s more, the same strategies we relied on just a few years ago may not pay off the way the used to. Search engines are getting smarter everyday. Sites like Google want to know how your content works in the greater scheme of things. All the keyword research and SEO in the world won’t do much good if you’re not constantly reevaluating the best ways to package and deliver your brand’s content.
What is Pillar Content?
As its name suggests, pillar content lifts every other aspect of your brand’s strategy. They’re the pages you want to build around. You can have several pieces of pillar content, all working toward that one goal. Think of an old, stately mansion with its grand columns. They are typically the first thing you notice when taking in the home. Each of these pillars stand at the entrance, inviting you to explore further.
It’s no different with the content on your website. By organizing your content into “clusters” and determining the pillar, you can begin to reimagine everything about your website’s voice, from blogging to online ads. Even with a great SEO strategy and killer keyword research, it can be increasingly difficult to rank where you want to. Let’s take a step back and examine how pillar content might be able to help.
Determine Pillar Content
Let’s say you run a deli. You offer lunch options like sandwiches and salads, but you also offer catering and homemade dressings. Chances are your audience is only looking for one of these services at a time. By creating three separate pieces of pillar content around lunch, catering, and dressing, you’re letting search engines know that you’ve got three distinct offerings.
Now, we’ll take each of these three categories and build a pillar page around them. These pages should cover every aspect of each category. Let’s look at catering. On this page, you’ll find broad information about the topic such as rates, hours, menus, and so on. You’ll also find a ton of hyperlinks to various other web page or blog articles that delve into the SEO and keyword optimization. Because everything is linked to this pillar page, search engines will be able to find a well-packaged, optimized site and offer it to its users.
Organize Other Content Around Pillars
Each piece of pillar content should center around a larger, yet not too broad, topic. For instance, “catering” is a little vague, but “deli-style catering for events” is right on the mark. Design a pillar page with the key components of the category and link to other pages that help strengthen the pillar. For instance, the pillar page might give a rundown of the catering services, hyperlinking to other relevant articles and pages along the way.
As you create more content, you can expand the number of pillar pages to suit your needs. It’s also a good idea to routinely update the pillar pages, making sure the content you’re hyperlinking remains current and relevant to your audience.
Develop Content Pillars with ProFromGo
Need help identifying, developing or implementing pillar content on your site? Contact us today to get your online marketing efforts off the ground or pulling in the right direction.
