Pillar pages are a great way to boost SEO rank for the core services you offer. A pillar page provides in-depth coverage of a core topic and is supported by clusters of content.
Each piece of content in the cluster links back to the pillar page helping build your authority for the topic with search engines. In fact, it's recommended that you publish 8-22 pieces of content on your core topic.
The initial reaction from many marketing teams is, "that's a lot of content!" It is. Especially if you're building it from scratch. An easier way is to create a pillar page from content you already have. There are a couple of ways to do that. In this article, I'll walk you through both.
Option 1: Turn an Existing Content Offer into a Pillar Page
A pillar page is made up of the following:
A web page that comprehensively covers a topic.
A content offer such as an ebook that contains the same information. People can download this to read and distribute offline.
8-22 pieces of content created from the topics and subtopics covered on the pillar page.
So if you already have a content offer the covers a topic in-depth such as an eBook, whitepaper, or strategy guide, use that content to create a pillar page.
Option 2: Audit Your Content to Find Topic Clusters and Topics
If you don't have a content offer to leverage, you may still be able to find a lot of content to leverage for a pillar page. Audit your existing content for topics, keywords, and performance data. Review all or a subset of your content depending on your intent:
Review all of your content to collect all possible content topics that might be turned into pillar pages.
Review content created for previous campaigns related to the topics and subtopics of the pillar page you want to create.
Review content created to promote a specific content offer if you’re turning that content offer into a pillar page.
Where to Look and Information to Gather
This content audit should look at the content published on your website pages, your blog, and your social media channels. To build topic clusters, focus on the following:
Topics titles. This is your overall content topic list. Some content will roll-forward as-is into Topic clusters, some may need to be revised, some may be discarded.
Keywords and hashtags used in the content or in the promotion of the content. These are the keywords you’ve been using. They will inform the keywords used for your topic cluster.
Social metrics such as engagement, mentions, likes, and shares.
Conversion metrics such as traffic, leads, and customers generated.
Gather Performance Data to Inform Your Decision
As part of this process, gather performance data to see each piece of content was received by your audience, and how each piece of content contributed to brand and product awareness. Check engagement metrics like:
Views
Shares
Comments
Mentions
Other types of engagement
Backlinks
Tip: Fanpage Karma is one of the tools we recommend for building pillar pages. It can help determine which content has performed the best, as well as rolling up data such as keywords and hashtags. It can also tell you the same information about your competitors which can provide additional insight into what topics your pillar page should focus on.
Also review content performance from a business results standpoint by analyzing metrics such as:
Page views for blog posts and page views for landing pages linked from blog posts.
Call-to-action (CTA) clicks from content. CTAs might be URLs, buttons, or image CTAs.
Conversion rate (the number of call-to-action or link clicks from content that resulted in a conversion).
Landing page visits from content and social shares.
Customers acquired.
Income attributed to the content. Based on your defined attribution model.
You may not have all of this data, but you should do your best to discover as much of it as you can. Use Google Analytics to track website engagement, see which websites you get the most traffic from, identify pages that generate the most conversions, See which social channels you get the most traffic from.
Social media management and automation tools like Hubspot and others can help you track engagement on your website and social channels as well as contacts and customers created.
Start by finding your best performing content.
Drill in to see more data for each post.
Use a spreadsheet to track essential information about the content you're auditing. We include a template spreadsheet in our pillar page guide.
Get an Inbound Growth Plan and we'll do the research and content plan for your pillar page!
Group Content into Topic Clusters
Once you’ve completed your audit, group content into clusters by topic. For each group come up with a core topic that encompasses the content in the group. Look at topic titles and keywords to help identify patterns. Remember, you need a group of at least 8 topics, and ideally, 15 or more all using similar keywords.
In a perfect world, you could copy and paste to make your pillar page and content offer. Odds are, things won’t be that clean. Your audit may identify multiple groups of 3-6 topics that are closely or distantly related. If that’s the case, examine these smaller groups of topics that are most distantly related and see if you think of a core topic to encompass all of them.
If you can find enough small content clusters that fit under a broader core topic, you'll have your core topic, and your subtopics too!
You're On Your Way with a Little More Work To Do
If you've got your topics, subtopics, and content to leverage, you've got a great start. From this point, your next steps are:
Create any new content to fill in any gaps necessary to cover your core topic.
Take a look at the content and content offers you've already created to see what you can leverage to create a pillar page today. Look at our complete guide to creating pillar pages to boost SEO for how to do everything done right.
