Cornerstone Content As Part Of Your SEO Strategy

The term “cornerstone content” has been popping up in SEO discussions. WordPress users have likely seen this as they fill in their Yoast fields. Cornerstone content is the best articles on your site, the pages or posts you want to rank highest in search engines. Cornerstone content is part of your SEO strategy. These articles should:

• Be fairly long and informative.
• Provide insights from different blog posts covering everything that’s important about a certain topic. 
• Inform—not necessarily sell products. 
• Communicate your mission and describe your business.
• Be well written, updated often and rank for your most competitive keywords.

Cornerstone articles help target key search terms

A cornerstone approach can help you tackle your key search terms. If you write a lot of articles on similar subjects, you need to tell Google which of them is the most important. Otherwise, you’ll be eating into your own market share insearch. Providing an internal linking structure among your posts tells Google which article is the most important.

Cornerstone articles should be easily accessible on your website

Users should be able to click straight from your homepage to your cornerstone articles. All your other posts about similar topics should link back to their corresponding cornerstone article. This internal linking structure will increase the chance of your cornerstone content articles ranking in Google searches.

An example of how to implement a cornerstone strategy

I’m in the process of updating my own website to implement a cornerstone content strategy. I write a lot of posts about content marketing that touch on a range of topics, including SEO, branding, social media, industry information and content delivery. I’m a fairly disciplined writer, and I have more than 300 blogs on my website. 

I’m writing one cornerstone article with an overarching title: SEO and Your Website: Writing Content that Search Engines Love. Whenever I write a new post on SEO and content, I will link this to the cornerstone article. I’m putting this article on my homepage to tell Google that this is the most important article about SEO copywriting on my site. This will increase its chances to rank.

Choosing articles to become part of your cornerstone strategy

If you’ve got a bunch of articles from which to choose for your cornerstone article, look for those that are the most current and informative. Do these target the keywords you most want to rank for? Check for readability—something on which Yoast scores us. Think short sentences and short words. Creating internal links is important, and Yoast also scores us on these. Make your copy easy to read and understand. Break it up with plenty of subheads to make it visually appealing. When you look back at what you’ve written, those subheads should tell your story. 

WordPress’ Yoast is a plugin

For full use of Yoast’s cornerstone functionality, WordPress wants you to upgrade to premium level. If, however, you’re tired of getting nickel and dimed for apps, just follow the guidelines I’ve outlined here. 

Find this confusing? 

Give me a call and let’s create an overarching SEO strategy for your content. Contact Top of Mind Marketing. Writers and content marketers. 

Easy Tips for Optimizing Your Linkedin Company Page

A few weeks ago I wrote about creating a LinkedIn company page—the page that’s about your company rather than you, as an individual. Let’s talk about optimizing that page so that it’s consistent with your brand and overall online presence and that it’s optimized so it contributes to your Google authority. Here are some easy tips for optimizing your LinkedIn company page

1. Provide comprehensive information in your profile fields 

LinkedIn’s profile and page content is searchable by users from both within and outside the LinkedIn platform. That means that users don’t have to be logged into LinkedIn to find you. This dramatically ups the game. You want to make sure you’re not missing opportunities to promote your business. 

Contact information changes and our business focuses evolves

Make sure your website URL and other information are correct. I try to check my company description every six months or so to make sure this is how I want to be positioning myself. In this section, you can identify up to 20 specialties and three hashtags. These specialties are your keywords, so be thoughtful and thorough. These will help direct the right traffic to your page. 

2. Personalize your LinkedIn Page URL 

All company pages and profiles are given a standard-issue LinkedIn URL, but you can create a vanity URL. In the upper righthand corner you’ll see an “Admin Tools” dropdown. Click on this, then “Public URL”. You’ll be presented with a field to fill in your proposed URL. If someone else already has your URL, you’ll have to get a little creative.  

3. Add or update your background image

If you don’t have a background image, it’s time to add one. It provides polish and visual texture. Choose an image that’s reflective of what your company does. Make this a distinctive banner, perhaps including a call to action. Image specs: jpg or png file, 1536 x 768 pixels. 

4. Make every character in your headline count 

Appearing immediately under your company’s name, your page headline is prime real estate when it comes to communicating your brand message. For both personal and company profile pages, your headline needs to grab readers’ attention and make them want to read more. LinkedIn profile headlines have a 120-character limit. Do test this on mobile to see how it looks.

5. Optimize your page content for both humans and search engines

LinkedIn wants you to think of your company page as a central location where people can find out more about your organization. Create both an overview and accompanying page content which tells your business’s story in a compelling way. Frontload your company’s overview, as this is the content that will be visible to users across devices.

6. Be on the lookout for new features

LinkedIn’s on the move, and they’re providing a lot of value. You may want to sign up for their newsletters to leverage some of their tools—many of them completely free. Next up: Showcase pages.

Do you have questions about using social media for your business? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing experts.   

Blog Topics for When the Well Runs Dry

I’m a pretty creative person, so I’m always mulling over new topics for blog posts and other content for my website. But let’s face it. Sometime the well just runs dry. This is the time of year when you’re trying to get the most out of Labor Day weekend, get your kids off to school or take a long-overdue fall vacation. 

One more thing: If you’re not subscribing to newsletters and publications that provide industry updates, start now. This is not only a critical part of your job, it’s the inspiration for endless blog topics. 

Here are some ideas for fun, inventive blog topics when the well runs dry

1. Trends. Look for trending topics on social and comment on these trends. Analyze, agree, disagree and share a relevant experience. 
2. Time travel. Drill down through your post archive. I have something like 300+ blogs. Which posts can you revisit and repurpose, update and/or refresh? Add a new introduction and conclusion to give it a facelift. Evergreen content endures.
3. Share a presentation. Have you given a presentation lately? Turn it into a blog post. Identify the major bullet points, the biggest takeaway and audience reaction. Think about also adding this to SlideShare for additional SEO value. 
4. Presentation/workshop/seminar/event. What have you attended that would make a great post? Profile the speaker and that person’s expertise. Who was the audience and why was this important? Provide a testimonial or quote from the presenter. Link to the presenter’s website. 
5. Showcase a member of your team. Or a colleague, leader, someone in your family or community who’s making a big difference.
6. New applications. Have you discovered a great application that’s ridiculously easy to use, free and saves you time? Share this with everyone you know! I’m delighted with my latest discovery. I’m currently working on newsletters using five different email applications. Besides the old standbys—Constant Comment, MailChimp and Vertical Response–I’m using Square. My client’s using Square for his payment system, so their proprietary newsletter app integrates with this data. It is by far the easiest to use of these five applications. I’m also using MailChimp’s MailerLite, a drag-and-drop-based application that’s very easy to use. 
7. Discuss an issue. How about this? Will Congress regulate big tech? This may happen, but not with this generation of legislators. From The Washington Monthly: “Chuck Schumer, one of the most powerful people in Washington,usesa flip phone. The kind of phone with a tiny screen and real buttons, designed for making actual phone calls, not writing emails. But then, the Senate minority leader rarely emails, he sends about one every four months. In case manufacturers stop making his favorite flip phone, Schumer has stockpiled ten of them.” 
8. Knowledge sharing. Love free stock photo sites. These images are edgy, arty, stunning. Look for Pexels, Unsplash, Nappy.com. A drawback: If you’re looking for photos that are business-specific or with people over the age of 30, keep looking!  

It’s a new season. Does your content marketing program need a boost? Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.