A pillar page is a webpage featuring a long-form article that explores a specific topic in depth. The pillar page links to, and is linked from, several ‘sub topic’ pages. The presents you as an authority on the topic, driving more traffic to your page and, therefore, your website.
Your pillar page will boost your search engine visibility by better organising your content into related ‘clusters’.
There’s a lot of talk around pillar pages at the moment. Perhaps you’ve been teetering on the edge of creating one for a while, knowing your business would benefit from one, especially as HubSpot puts their keyword tool to bed. Or maybe you haven’t heard of this new phenomenon of the SEO content world and need to learn everything, ground up.
Either way, this pillar page – on pillar pages (see what we did there?) – should help guide you, answer any questions and help you decide if your business is ready for a pillar page (hint: it probably is).
A good way to understand pillar pages is to imagine a food festival. The main reason you’ve gone – the core topic – is to try different foods from around the world and get a tasty dinner. There’s one big long street with tents along it, where you see pizza, Chinese food, curry, sushi and paella. But off this main thoroughfare there are smaller alleyways, lined with dessert stalls, gin tasting stalls, doughnuts and chocolates (anyone else feeling hungry?!) – or sub topics. So you leave the main food street, and you veer off into the alleyway to try some sweet treats. Once you’re finished there, you follow the signs back to the main street and carry on your journey down the core food festival, until you come to another side street, explore that avenue, then come back to the main street again – ad infinitum.
Organising a pillar page
If you were a business who specialised in pet care, you might choose to write a pillar page on ‘owning your first dog’. This is your ‘core topic’.
In this pillar page, you’d break the sections down into more in-depth, concentrated topics such as:
Section 1: Finding the right breeder
Section 2: Training your puppy
Section 3: Eating and drinking
Section 4: Socialising with other dogs
Section 5: Finding the right vet
Section 6: Grooming and care
These are called your ‘sub topics’. They all relate to the core topic, but offer opportunities to go further into detail, linking to external relevant materials in the meantime.
A hypothetical example of a pillar page
You create your pillar page on ‘owning your first dog’. When you come to write ‘Section 1: Finding the right breeder’, you write lots of interesting facts and advice about this sub topic. As you write, however, you start to link to external blog posts you’ve written on this topic. For example, you might already have 3 blog posts ready to be published that link to this topic called:
- Our guide to the top 10 UK dog breeders
- 5 things to avoid when finding your dog breeder
- Does your puppy have its full health checks? Questions to ask before you buy.
You want to link to these blog posts in Section 1. Whichever words you hyperlink from on your pillar page, must be the same words that you hyperlink in the blog post, back to the pillar page. This will ensure that when one page performs well, the entire topic cluster will be boosted in Google. The more connections you set up between the same words in your content, the more trusted you will become as an authority on the topic.
Examples of sub-topic linking
- You use the phrase ‘top 10 dog breeders’ in your pillar page
- You hyperlink this phrase to the blog post titled ‘Our guide to the top 10 UK dog breeders’
- Wherever you’ve used the phrase ‘top 10 dog breeders’ in your blog post, you redirect back to the pillar page with a hyperlink.
But “A pillar page without a content cluster is actually just a page” says Hubspot. If you just create a long page of copy, without any of the cluster links, you’re just creating… an extra-long webpage. This will not have the same effect as a pillar page, won’t act as an organisational tool, and won’t help Google build your authority on content.
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Remember: The aim of your pillar page is to get more people finding your content and linking through to even more of your content through well-organised links. If your page is just a page, there’s no guarantee anyone new will find your content, making it a fruitless task.
Activity 1:
Write a list of big, core topics you could create pillar pages on. Try to think of five core topics you think your business is an authority on, has existing content for, or could easily create more content about.
Top Tip:
Make sure you check your key metrics on this existing content to make sure you are repurposing already high-performing content: look at things like:
- Page Views
- Shares
- Click-through rates
- Conversion rates
- Comments
"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." John Steinbeck certainly knew how to come up with an idea or two. But if you’re not sure you’re up to the pillar page equivalent of ‘Of Mice and Men’ just yet, then there’s a few tricks you can try to generate ideas. Coming up with viable ideas is any writer’s biggest challenge, so dedicating enough time to the content-planning stage ahead of getting stuck in is an important step not to be missed.
We’ve already touched on cluster topics: now it’s time to think of your own.
Activity 2
Create your own clusters. Using the five core topics you thought about in Activity 1, try to write eight sub topics of cluster content for each one. Set it out in the same format as the diagram below, to help you visualise how the content would connect together.
How did you do? Did you complete the task? If so, you’ve just created yourself five new pillar page ideas with up to eight sub topics to dive into more deeply on hyperlinked pages. That’s a lot of content! And if you organise the content appropriately, as outlined in Chapter 1, Google will love you for it.
Still struggling to create ideas for pillar pages? Sometimes even the best marketers find themselves short of inspiration. When your main purpose is to create content for your business, day in, day out, having an “off day” isn’t really an option (particularly if you are the content writer). Alternatively, perhaps you’re more strategy minded or don’t see yourself as a ‘creative type’, yet you know your business would really benefit from having some pillar page content.
Here are some more ideas to help you find inspiration for pillar page content:
- Write a list of things to avoid in your sector
- Combine old, outdated blog posts into a new updated pillar page
- Write an A-Z guide about a topic on which you are an expert
- Create ‘must do’ or ‘bucket list’ style content
- Write about a survey you’ve conducted and the results
- Create a top 10 list about something you know really well
- Write about inspiration and link to your business
- Show a step-by-step or ‘how to’ demonstration
- Predict future trends and back each one up
- Clarify the top 10 industry misconceptions
- Create a calendar of upcoming events and discuss each in detail
- Write ‘A Buyer’s Guide To…’
- Create a list of ‘lessons learned’ since you first set out in business.
Top Tip:
If you struggle to find the words yourself, feature colleagues, local experts, former colleagues, social media influencers, podcasters, friends, family and anyone who has something smart to say about your topic of choice! Social proof is one of the most powerful things you can use as a marketer, so don’t just do all the hard work yourself: reach out to some of those fantastic contacts you have (or even use quotes from famous people in history…) to further illustrate your points.
Advantages of the x10 format
Your own content is front and centre stage. Not only does this mean you are established as an authority on your topic, but it means you aren’t in danger of plagiarising anyone else’s work and getting into trouble with Google for it. Google loves original, organised content, so if you’re creating a x10 pillar page, there should be plenty for search engines to adore about your website.
Disadvantages of the x10 format
It’s a lot of work! Creating 3000+ words of original, well-researched, well-crafted content requires a lot of hard work and the expertise of an experienced writer. If you’ve already got content you can repurpose – such as an ebook – then great, but if you’re starting from scratch, it’s a lot of copy to produce in one go.
Advantages of the resource format
This type of pillar page improves SEO, even though many of the links may send people off your site, which is not optimal for your business. You can generate inbound links from the sources you include on the pages that are yours, but not on the ones that belong to other people.
Disadvantages of the resource format
Your own voice will not come through as strongly as in a x10 pillar page as there simply isn't as much content from you on the page. The majority of your content will be hyperlinked elsewhere like a huge catalogue of interesting and useful bookmarks for your reader. Rather than celebrating your own knowledge, it acts as a research project you’ve done on behalf of your audience.
Top Tip:
To optimise the pillar page, you need a conversion opportunity near the top. This is like any other landing page on your site – you have to give the reader the opportunity to gain something from you in exchange for a few details. Instead of removing the navigation bar, as if best practice on standard landing pages, you can leave this on in a pillar page, and simply insert a form which asks for 2-3 fields, such as names and email address.
The offer should be a PDF version of the pillar page – despite the fact the user has to give you their details, PDFs are still surprisingly popular and many visitors to your site will prefer to have a “physical” downloaded copy of your pillar page, rather than browsing the page itself. Giving the option for download right at the top means you’re keeping everyone happy, whether they want to download or simply bookmark your page to keep coming back to later online.
There are a few best practices you’ll need to check you’re using on your pillar page. Without these, your page might not function as effectively as it could, meaning all that hard work is being wasted. You might have already implemented some of these tips – some have been mentioned in previous chapters – while others may have passed you by.
Activity 3
Use the following points as a checklist, ticking off each one when you’ve achieved it on your pillar page.
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Ensure your core topic is actually referenced in your page title
It sounds so obvious, but this is the best way for Google to find you and associate you with other similar content you’ve created. Remember, if your pillar page performs well, it boosts everything else linked to it, so make it really easy to find you.
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Likewise, make sure you core topic is referenced in the URL for the page
Lots of CMSs do this automatically for you when you create a new page, but it’s still worth checking that your key core topic words appear in your URL – again this helps improve your site’s search visibility.
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Check there’s a top navigation to the rest of your site visible
If this is the first page a new visitor lands on – because they’ve clicked through from one of your related posts, social media or advertising – you need to give them the opportunity to explore the rest of your site, so don’t hide away.
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Don’t stop at the page title, include the core topic in your H1 tag
It bears repeating: you need to ram it home that this pillar page is about your core topic! Yes, it feels overly repetitive and contrived, but by repeating those key terms you’ll be easier to find and easier not to confuse with something else.
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Early on, define your core topic – assume nothing
Your reader has come to your pillar page for one of two reasons: they know a bit about the topic but need more, or they know absolutely nothing. The former will want confirmation of what they know for a confidence boost, the latter will benefit from layman's terms explanation.
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Include conversion-focused landing page elements near the top (a form)
As explored in Chapter 5, the pillar page format isn’t for everyone and the ways people plan to use your information may vary greatly: use this as an opportunity to gain some contacts and offer a PDF of the page in exchange for some basic details.
Create an anchor-linked table of contents which skips to chapters when clicked onThis is the essential feature of a pillar page – there is so much content in one place here that you need to make it as easy as possible to navigate the different sections/ include an anchor to make skipping around really easy.
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Reference the core topic in the alt text of images throughout
Not only can your pillar page be found through Google text searches and linked external content, but if you include your core topic words in the alt text of the images you use, Google Images will also redirect to your pillar page, creating another way for you to be found.
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Reference related core-topic terms throughout the page’s content and define them
Not only do you need to be using your core topic wording at every turn, but related sub topics in the cluster – those you will link to outside of the pillar – need plenty of mentions. This isn’t only so that you’ve got opportunities to hyperlink, but so you are constantly teaching the reader new terminology.
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Link to relevant internal resources (blog posts, ebooks, case studies and others)
We’ve laboured this point enough in this pillar page, but just in case you missed it – link, link, link! The most valuable content to link to your pillar pageb (and vice versa) is your own. Whether it’s older content or newly created for this purpose, the best way to promote your expert view is to hyperlink.
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Link to relevant external resources (viable, trustworthy websites that aren’t yours)
Your own content is the best, but showing you’re confident and credible enough to shout about other great marketers is a wise move – alternative, if you’re creating a Resource Pillar Page, you’ll be predominantly relying on superb external links.
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At the end, include a ‘Back to top’ button to save your reader from scrolling
This is another tactic to encourage further exploration of your website – don’t just leave them hanging at the bottom of your page; guide the reader back to the top so they can a) explore another chapter they previously skipped or b) use your site navigation to discover more about you and your products/services.
And there you have it...
Well, not really because – as your new expert knowledge has taught you – a pillar page is never really done! So we will be regularly updating and adding to our pillar page on pillar pages, creating new blog content to support it and helpful tips we learn along the way (in fact, we’ve already got our Chapter 7 title planned out!). But for now, we wish you luck with your own – go forth and organise!