Since at least 2006, if not before, the term "pillar content," sometimes known as "cornerstone content," has been bandied around in the context of content marketing.
Even though it's not frequently discussed, many bloggers use it, even if they may not fully understand what they're doing.
It's true that producing a large volume of top-notch material is difficult. A business blog that is jam-packed with uninteresting, uninformative pieces and one that is overflowing with the kind of high-value content that naturally attracts readers are very different from one another.
You must take the time to develop the pillar material that establishes your blog as the go-to source for quality information in your sector since the second scenario will undoubtedly yield superior business benefits.
How can you build a pillar post for yourself and what exactly is a pillar post?
Pillar content: What is it?
Consider the challenge of constructing a physical structure that will stand the test of time. With these key pieces of information, you want to do that. Cornerstone and pillar both express the structural function that this top-notch content performs for your company. Your overall content strategy focuses on it.
Ideally, you will choose a few of these structural components to pay attention to. Avoid going wild! Concentrate on the important, distinct areas where your company excels and where you want to be known.
Why are content pillars necessary?
Content pillars aid in the visibility of your company online.
These pillar pieces aid and strengthen your content strategy as well.
You can develop numerous subtopics, or clusters of content, that support the comprehensive piece of digital content and are relevant to your target audience's personas.
How do you create pillar or cornerstone content?
Prior to creating your cornerstone content, you need to take care of the fundamentals. Understand the goal of your blog and content in more detail, and create buyer personas.
Your pillars will be more effective if you have a deeper understanding of who your audience is, what their pain points are, and how you can be of service to them.
Five Steps to Creating Pillar Content That Works
If you're prepared to begin, follow these steps:
1.Select a Topic
A pillar page should cover a broad enough topic to generate a number of related blog posts that will serve as cluster content, but not cover so much that the page requires multiple pillars.
Your main subject areas have to be those that your ideal clients are curious about. These can be issues they're having or frequent queries they're posing.
2.Create a pillar page outline
Pillar pages are tremendously vast. If you merely sit down to write without any planning, you'll become stuck quite quickly. The result will be a chaotic tangle of content that will turn off readers and demotivate you as a writer.
Outline your pillar page before writing it, just as you would do with a new website design before you begin to build it out.
3.Start writing
You've been looking forward to this stage the most: actually settling down to compose your pillar post. Writing a pillar page is a challenging assignment even for a seasoned author because they can be as long as 5,000 words (and occasionally even twice that much or more).
You won't have to worry about structure because you prepared an outline; only content. Writing may go more smoothly than you anticipate, especially if you choose a subject you are quite knowledgeable about.
4.Make Your Pillar Page a PDF
Because you're not writing a book—but you kind of are—this will sound contradictory. That means a pillar page is a useful piece of content that some people might wish to save on their devices and print out for themselves.
A pillar page in PDF format is a terrific content offer. To promote the offer and gather leads for automated email marketing, use landing sites and calls to action.
5.Never Be Content
You are not finished with your pillar content strategy just because your pillar page and the related content have been developed, revised, optimized, and published.
There is a lot more cluster material to produce and publish, to start.
Then there is the issue of maintaining an updated pillar page. A portion of the information on your pillar page may become obsolete as your industry changes. Alternatively, you could choose to update your page with fresh thoughts.
Conclusion
It's difficult to produce content that appears on the first page of Google search results. But it is doable with the appropriate preparation and attitude. When challenges and obstacles arise, keep in mind why you're doing this in the first place: to get to the top.
After achieving your goal, you'll know what it feels like to see your efforts pay off.
Source: Pillar Content for Blogs: What Is It and How to Create It