The “Human” Element: A Journey to Originality and Growth Mindset
In this vast world wide web, digital, automated, AI-powered universe we navigate daily, I often pause and reflect: What keeps us grounded in our...
5 min read
Liz Moorehead
Dec 16, 2022 1:56:24 PM
Welcome back to another edition of Ask a Content Strategist! This week, we're digging into one of my favorite topics: pillar page strategy. Specifically, what well-meaning, incredibly talented content marketers and business leaders like you are doing wrong with your pillar pages that are potentially stunting (if not completely) undercutting the results you should be seeing with your content.
As a quick refresher — because I'm a huge fan of guaranteeing we're all on the same page with shared definitions — a pillar page (sometimes called pillar content) is a piece of ungated, longform SEO content that addresses a broad topic in detail. Pillar pages live at the center of a topic cluster, a network of linked content that all relates to that one topic.
For example, "Instagram Marketing: the Ultimate Guide" would be a great example of a pillar page topic, which would live at the center of a cluster dedicated entirely to topics about Instagram marketing.
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Now, if you're scratching your head about what a topic cluster is (and why we're even creating topic clusters and pillar pages now), here's a quick video to get you caught up:
The bottom line is that if your organization has an SEO content strategy earmarked as a mission-critical component to drive organic traffic, leads, and sales online, the topic cluster and pillar page model is your one-way ticket to success.
However, I've spent the past eight years as a content strategist who has worked inside of agencies and in-house to enable brands across every conceivable industry you can imagine to leverage topic cluster and pillar page to drive bottom-line results. In that time, I've been amazed at how many different ways pillar pages specifically (from strategy and optimization, to staging and publication) go horribly wrong.
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In fact, I feel a kinship with the pillar page. Like the pillar page, I'm also absurdly large (six feet tall, to be exact), very powerful, and often extremely misunderstood. I also spew out a lot of words on topics. For example, I am the queen of giving 18-paragraph monologues to "Yes or No?" questions without ever giving a "yes" or "no" answer.
So, my goal today is very simple! I am going to unpack the most common mistakes you're making with your pillar page strategy that are stunting your ability to get the results you're looking for from your content!
Are you ready? Let's dig in ...
If your pillar page is gated behind a form, meaning people can't access it unless they give you information to either access a downloadable PDF or a full-page piece of content ... congratulations! You've published an ebook, not a pillar page.
🔎 Related: What is great content really? (HubHeroes Podcast)
The whole point of a pillar page is that it is an SEO play. So, if you're gating all of the content from your pillar page, you are defeating the entire purpose of the strategy. Google and other search engines need to be able to crawl the content, and those little robot gremlins can't do that if you're hiding all the goods behind a form!
"But Liz, this is a lot of expertise and goodness, and we don't want to just give it away!"
I hear you, and also I've got some good news for you. Your pillar page can still be a lead acquisition play even if you have it ungated. To show you what I mean, let's take a look at George's SEO content strategy guide, which is a textbook pillar page:
You can put a lead form at the top of the page as an option for your visitors, but make it clear they can still scroll down to access the material without having to fill out the form!
Do people actually convert? They definitely do. In fact, historically speaking, most of the pillar pages I've been involved in creating that use this approach often deliver 15% - 20% conversion rates, if not higher.
The only way your topic cluster will function properly is if every single piece of subtopic content you've created in your topic cluster links back to the pillar page, and the pillar page also links out to every single piece of subtopic content.
If you don't do that linking in both directions, your topic cluster will not function from an organic growth perspective the way you want it to. Looking at the below topic cluster example of what I usually see as a common mistake ...
... folks will either have the pillar page ("Hoodies for men: the ultimate guide") link out to everything, but fail to link all of those subtopics (e.g., "How much do quality hoodies cost?") back to the pillar page. Or, they'll link to the pillar page from each of those subtopic content pieces, but the pillar page won't link back to them.
🔎 Related: How to measure content marketing ROI (HubHeroes Podcast)
You need to have linking in both directions, party people. Otherwise, you're going to do a lot of content creation work only to get lackluster results in return for your efforts.
Recently, I've had to evaluate two different pillar pages from two different companies and they both had the same problem:
Pillar pages should be optimized for a broad keyword (e.g., "website redesign") and not for a long-tail keyword like you do with blogs (e.g., "HubSpot vs. Wordpress for business websites"). And you should optimize, from an on-page SEO perspective, accordingly ...
How do you know if you're gone astray?
Bottom line, create a pillar page, not a glorified blog post.
I'm not saying you need to have insane graphic and web design skills, but there are three boxes you need to check to make the HUMAN BEINGS not absolutely loathe, despise, and abominate your pillar page:
Bottom line, if you create a word-wall piece of pillar content that no one wants to engage with, explore, or read, you're going to have a high bounce rate which will really hurt your ability to rank well.
Why? Because your content should be built for humans first and not make them hate you for creating a pillar page that is more effort than its worth to understand or navigate. If you don't do that, they'll land on your page, quickly exclaim "No, thank you!", and return back to their search results.
Finally, search isn't everything, OK? Look, topic clusters and pillar pages can do a lot for your inbound strategy, in terms of driving qualified traffic and leads for your company.
🔎 Related: The last SEO content strategy guide you'll ever need
But if you're not also creating sales enablement content — case studies, articles about your pricing or what it's like to work with you, buyer guides, service page videos — or customer delight content that is hyper-specific to you and your products/services, you're only doing part of your job with your content strategy.
The most successful content strategies don't rely exclusively on SEO content to deliver results. You should be looking at your entire funnel (or flywheel) stage and creating your content to make your prospects and customers where they are.
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