Pillar pages are a popular content format and a subject of experimentation and discussion among content marketers. Maybe you’ve been tasked with writing one. Or maybe you’ve found articles discussing their virtues and where they fit into your marketing mix.
It can be challenging to find a satisfactory definition of what a pillar page actually is—in a genuinely helpful way for creating one. There are a lot of opinions floating on the web. So at the risk of adding more resonance to an already loud conversation, we’ve kept it short and straightforward.
What is a Pillar Page?
Pillar pages (also known as “content pillars”) are detailed guides that provide a focal point to comprehensively explore a topic, answer questions related to that topic, and possibly serve as a hub of links to related content.
Pillar pages are designed to be immutable, not locked away behind a form, and freely available to searchers. Pillar pages are the primary form of “topic clusters” used to organize content on websites. So let’s unpack it a bit.
What is a Pillar Content Strategy?
The content pillar is a major theme that will dictate many articles, videos, e-books, infographics, and blog posts. Typically, a content pillar is cemented with one or more particularly strong and elaborate pieces of content. Generally, these are labeled as ‘bedrock content.’ These can be cut into several smaller articles and attached back to the bedrock content. Thus, it creates a spider’s web of related and relevant content.
The advantage of content pillars is that they help you maintain focus and relevance to your buyer personas. When deciding on a content pillar, think about the keywords you regularly use to anchor your articles in good SEO practice.
The best content pillars provide the foundation for a brand to become one of two things: a thought leader or a problem solver.
Pillar pages are created to contain all the information you would typically include in multiple white papers or an eBook on a single page or blog post. In addition, your pillar page will focus on a specific topic that you are trying to rank in the SERPs. The advantage of having all your information in one place allows visitors to get their questions answered quickly and efficiently.
It is valuable because the way people search for information on the Internet has evolved, so have search algorithms. People no longer just search by keywords or obscure phrases. Instead, time is precious, so they ask Siri or type in a search engine: “What’s the best strategy for pillar content?” Google has improved with understanding what you mean so that the algorithm will guess precisely what you’re looking for and populate the rest of your query.
Benefits of Implementing Pillar Pages
1. Improved Content Quality
Pillar page strategy improves content quality due to thorough planning in creating topic and sub-popular pillars. To cover a topic well, you need to do a gap analysis, then prepare any content needed to fill the gaps. It gives you a more comprehensive battery of content. It also makes it easier to align core messages throughout the content.
Since this is a campaign, and since so much content is created at once, it is easy to have in-house subject matter experts review the content and ensure that quality controls such as copy editing are in place. While it should always be the case, some organizations have difficulty with these content development issues. For some companies, doing all the content at once in a focused effort helps make those critical quality control steps happen.
2. They Help Structure Your Content Strategy
To create topic clusters, you should examine your existing content and identify the most important topics to your business.
By examining your content, you can identify what important topics you haven’t written on that much. It can help you organize the existing content and plan future content that will interest your ideal customer.
3. Provides a Content Roadmap for Your Team
Beyond the main content covered on the pillar page, you’ll likely be offered a range of related topics that dive deeper into specific subtopics or related topics. It provides a roadmap for your content team. Content for these topics can later be created and linked to the pillar pages if needed. These follow-up articles can help you keep your pillar page topics in focus for your audience for longer.
4. Allows ‘Content Binging’
By publishing a comprehensive packet of content at once, you allow members of your online community to binge on your content. It is similar to watching Netflix series, but it is not for entertainment. When someone is interested in a topic, they tend to use as much material as possible on that topic. They want all their questions to be answered. By creating a comprehensive column page, you allow them to do the same, with your content, on your website!
5. Easier Communication and Reporting
We’ve found that column pages make it easy to explain content campaigns, their goals, and objectives to everyone. From an agency standpoint, we find it easy to explain to clients. Also, marketing managers find it easy to explain to their executive managers.
From this point on, the discussion becomes about the ‘nuts and bolts of the project. How much existing material can be leveraged, how many minor changes will be needed, how much significant rewriting will be required, how much material must be built from scratch, and the time frame for completion. It is a very common method that is easy to understand.