Great content and intelligent keyword selection are no longer sufficient to raise your search engine rankings in today’s competitive digital environment. The best way to show Google you are an authority on your subject right now is to organize your content into pillar pages and topic clusters.
Pillar posts provide a way to organize and link related content, provide a comprehensive topic overview, and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Creating pillar posts that cover a broad topic and links to related cluster content can provide your audience with a more seamless and intuitive user experience, improve your search engine rankings, and drive more traffic to your site.
In this article, we’ll explore how pillar pages can help improve your SEO rankings and discuss the benefits of using this approach to organize and promote your content.
What is a Pillar Page?
A pillar page is a comprehensive, in-depth webpage that covers all aspects of a particular topic and is designed to be the central hub of a cluster of related content. The pillar page should be optimized for search engines. It should provide a clear and organized overview of the topic and links to other pages in the cluster that provide more detailed information on specific subtopics.
The idea behind the pillar page and topic cluster strategy is to create a more comprehensive and interconnected body of content on your website that is easier for users and search engines to navigate and understand. By organizing your content this way, you can establish yourself as an authority on a particular topic and improve your search engine rankings by providing more relevant and valuable content for your audience.
Key takeaway: A pillar post is a foundational, in-depth webpage that covers all aspects of a particular topic and serves as the central hub for a cluster of related content.
What are Topic Clusters?
Hubspot introduced the topic cluster model, which is handy if blogging is integral to your inbound marketing strategy. In a hub-and-spoke model, topic clusters are groups of related content tightly organized around a core topic. Each cluster contains a central pillar page (the hub) surrounded by cluster pages (the spokes).
Why Should You Use Pillar Posts?
Using pillar posts can provide multiple benefits for your content marketing strategy. Here are some of the main reasons why you should consider using pillar pages:
Improved content organization
Pillar pages can help you organize your content around a central theme or topic, making it easier for your audience to browse and consume your content. By providing a comprehensive topic overview and linking to related cluster content, you can create a more seamless and intuitive user experience for your website visitors.
Enhanced SEO
Pillar pages can also provide a significant SEO benefit by tying your content together topically. By focusing on a specific topic and linking to related cluster content, you can create a more coherent and structured content hierarchy to improve your search engine rankings. Additionally, having a high-quality pillar page can help you rank for a broad, competitive keyword, which can drive more traffic to your website.
Improved authority and credibility
By providing a comprehensive, expert-level resource on a specific topic, you can establish yourself as an authority in your industry and increase your credibility with your audience. This can help you build trust and develop a loyal following of readers who look to you as a trusted source of information.
Overall, pillar posts can help you improve the organization and discoverability of your content, boost your search engine rankings, and establish yourself as an expert in your field. If you want to enhance your content marketing strategy, using pillar pages can be a practical and valuable approach.
Key takeaway: Using pillar pages can benefit your content marketing strategy by improving the organization and discoverability of your content, boosting your search engine rankings, and establishing yourself as an expert in your field.
How do Pillar Posts and Topic Clusters Improve SEO?
The pillar page method is critical to building trust with searchers and increasing online visibility. Here’s how it improves your SEO:
Improve site structure
Topic clusters improve your site structure, a technical SEO optimization that makes it more easily crawlable by Googlebot and other search engines. The easier your site is to crawl, the more straightforward Google can find, index, and rank your pages.
How do you make your site easier to crawl? In an ideal site structure, any page on your site should be accessible in three clicks or less from the homepage. The information architecture is such that the most important pages are the closest to the homepage. Pillar pages support this model because they are meant to be a destination in their own right and are often accessible from a site’s website or one tier down.
Improve user experience
A topic cluster also helps make your website more navigable for human users looking for information about a specific topic or area.
When you have many related pages easily found under one umbrella term, it makes sense for them to be grouped. That way, when someone searches for something, they can find all the information they need in one place.
The improved experience keeps people on your site longer, giving Google’s algorithm more data to indicate that you deserve to rank higher.
Rank for competitive keywords
Since pillar pages are the hub pages for a primary topic, they are meant to target broad keywords, which are super competitive on the SERP.
To rank for a broad keyword, you need a long-form piece of content that comprehensively covers that keyword, linking to other pages that cover its branch keywords, i.e., a pillar page.
And when pillar posts rank, they accumulate traffic, backlinks, and SEO power. As a bonus, they then pass more traffic to the cluster pages they’re linking out to, improving the rank of those pages.
Build your reputation
It’s important to understand that a search engine aims to provide the best answer to whatever the searcher wants. To give bad results would be a bad experience for the user, diminishing faith in the search engine — the last thing Google wants.
It’s not in anybody’s best interest for Google to rank non-experts for anything. They’ve put much effort into their algorithm’s ability to surface the best information possible, no matter which type.
Google has three key foundational concepts behind its ranking factors: expertise, authority, and trust. These concepts refer to how closely your content matches what people are searching for while demonstrating authority based on your site’s reputation and trustworthiness.
When you complete a topic cluster around a pillar page, you demonstrate that you know the subject inside and out. After all, when have you known an expert only to discuss a topic just once? And when Google trusts your expertise enough to rank you on the first page, its users will too.
How Long Should a Pillar Page be?
The length of a pillar page can vary depending on the topic and the depth of information that needs to be covered. However, a pillar page should generally be longer than average blog post content and aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the topic.
An excellent guideline to follow is to aim for at least 2,000 words, but the length could easily exceed this depending on the complexity of the topic. Ultimately, the goal should be to provide the reader with all the information they need on the topic without overwhelming them with irrelevant or redundant content.
So, while the length is essential, it’s equally important to focus on creating valuable, informative, well-organized, and easy-to-read content. Since the pillar page is usually one of your most extended pieces of content, make sure it’s easy for people to scan. The last thing you want is for people to get lost in thick blocks of text and quit reading.
Key takeaway: A pillar page should be comprehensive, cover a specific topic in-depth, and be much longer than average blog content. While there’s no set length, aiming for at least 2,000 words is recommended to provide enough information on the topic. However, the focus should be on creating valuable, well-organized, easy-to-read content rather than just meeting a specific word count.
How to Build Pillar Pages to Boost Your SEO
Once you know how to create topic clusters, you can use them as a foundation when writing new content or changing your website’s existing content.
Decide on the topic you want to rank for
The first step to creating a pillar page is to stop thinking about your site regarding keywords. Start thinking about the topics you want to rank for first — then brainstorm blog topic ideas based on more specific keywords related to the broader topic.
The best way to choose which topic to focus on is by considering your target audience and aiming to thoroughly cover a specific subject they need help with (also pertains to your business).
Pillar posts should answer any question or query a searcher might have about a topic, making them want to click on your pillar page when they enter a Google search term that your page ranks for. Then, they’ll click on your pillar page to get the answers to their questions, which will link to more specific pieces of cluster content hyperlinked on the pillar page.
Choose a broad topic that can generate more related blog posts that will serve as cluster content but not so broad that you can only cover part of the topic on a single pillar page.
Plug it into a keyword research tool.
Once you have an idea of the topic for your pillar page, you’ll want to plug it into a keyword research tool. These allow you to see which keywords have the most searches in a given time frame (usually monthly) and how much competition there is for each search term.
Pillar keywords are broad, general keywords that define a pillar page’s overall topic or theme. They are usually high-volume, highly competitive, and cover various related subtopics. For example, if your pillar page is about “healthy eating,” some possible pillar keywords could be “nutrition,” “diet,” “healthy lifestyle,” “food choices,” or “weight loss.”
Cluster keywords are more specific and focused than pillar keywords and are related to subtopics within the overall topic of the pillar page. They are usually lower volume, less competitive, and cover a narrower range of topics. For example, if your pillar page is about “healthy eating,” some possible cluster keywords could be “vegetarian diets,” “low-carb diets,” “gluten-free diets,” “nutritional supplements,” or “healthy meal planning.”
You can start by brainstorming general topics related to your website or blog to identify pillar and cluster keywords. Then, use a keyword research tool to identify specific keywords and phrases people are searching for related to those topics. You can also analyze your website analytics and search data to see what keywords people use to find your and your competitor’s sites and use those insights to inform your keyword strategy.
Create high-quality content.
Since your pillar and cluster pages target keywords, you’ll want to handle your on-page SEO for each. Be sure to include the target keywords in your title, headings, throughout the body of the article, in the meta descriptions, image alt-tags, and so on.
This will help search engine crawlers find and register that your article deserves to be ranked as a response when someone searches for that term.
Good internal linking strategy & cluster pages.
Internal linking is critical to the pillar page and topic cluster strategy. Once you have created your pillar page, you’ll want to link to the cluster articles that provide more detailed information on specific subtopics.
The purpose of internal links is to help visitors navigate your website and discover more relevant content. It also helps search engines understand the structure and organization of your website and can improve your search engine rankings.
When linking to your cluster articles, you should use descriptive anchor text that accurately reflects the content of the article you are linking to. Consider the placement of your links and try to include them naturally and logically within the content of your pillar page.
In addition to internal linking, creating well-organized and easy-to-navigate cluster pages is crucial. Each cluster page should focus on a specific subtopic that your pillar page links to and should be optimized for search engines and designed to provide a comprehensive overview of that subtopic.
By taking care of internal linking and cluster pages, you can create a more comprehensive and interconnected body of the content on your website. This can help you establish yourself as an authority on a particular topic and improve your search engine rankings by providing more relevant content for your audience.
Promote your pillar posts.
Promoting your pillar posts is essential to the pillar page and topic cluster strategy. Because pillar pages are comprehensive, in-depth resources that cover broad topics and provide value to your audience, promoting them can help you establish yourself as an authority and drive traffic to your website.
When promoting your pillar pages, it’s essential to clarify to your target audience why they should read them and how it can benefit them. You can do this by highlighting the unique value proposition of your pillar page, such as its comprehensive coverage of a topic or the expert insights it provides.
Paid ads and social media exposure can effectively promote your pillar pages, allowing you to target specific audiences and reach a broader range of people. When running paid ads, target relevant keywords and demographics, and create ad copy that communicates the value of your pillar page. Similarly, when promoting your pillar pages on social media, use eye-catching visuals and engaging copy that entices your audience to click through and read more.
Overall, promoting your pillar post is an essential step in maximizing the impact of your content marketing efforts and can help you drive more traffic, establish yourself as an authority on your topic, and, ultimately, achieve your business goals.
How to Measure the Success of Pillar Pages
As you add more content to your pillar page or new cluster content, compare the results against your goals and benchmarks. However, like most SEO strategies, organizing your content by topic and pillar pages takes time to show results. It may take a few months for your organic traffic to regain momentum.
There are a few key metrics that you can use to measure the success of your pillar pages:
Traffic
You can track the number of visitors to your pillar page over time to see if it’s attracting significant traffic to your site. Using analytics tools like Google Analytics, you can also see where your visitors are coming from, which can help refine your promotional efforts.
Engagement
You can also measure engagement metrics like time on the page, bounce rate, and scroll depth to see if your pillar page keeps visitors engaged and interested. A high bounce rate or short time on the page could indicate that your content needs to resonate with your audience or is not meeting their expectations.
Conversions
Ultimately, the success of your pillar page will depend on its ability to drive conversions, whether that’s leads, sales, or some other desired action. By tracking conversion rates and other relevant metrics, you can see if your pillar page contributes to your overall business goals by monitoring conversion rates and other relevant metrics.
Backlinks
Another key metric to consider is the number and quality of backlinks your pillar page attracts. Backlinks from high-quality, relevant websites can help boost your search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your site.
By tracking these metrics over time and making adjustments as needed, you can refine your pillar page strategy and ensure that your content is delivering the results you’re looking for.
Key takeaway: To measure the success of your pillar posts, you can track metrics like traffic, engagement, conversions, and backlinks. Tracking the number of visitors to your pillar page and engagement metrics like time on page, bounce rate, and conversion rates can help determine if your content resonates with your audience and contributes to your business goals.
Conclusion: Next Steps
Shifting your SEO strategy from a keyword-driven approach to a topic-driven one is challenging. But pillar pages and topic clusters can have real business benefits. Pillar pages can provide a comprehensive overview of a specific topic and tie together related cluster content, creating a more seamless and intuitive user experience for your website visitors.
In the end, make sure that your pillar page includes lots of links to other content on your website, it’s easily scannable, as long as it needs to be to improve your rankings, and it’s high-quality. You should probably spend more time on your pillar page than on most other pieces of content.
