What Is a 10X Pillar Page?

That old “content is king” thing is so over. In its place are pillar pages. It means creating a content pillar page strategy. It’s both a methodical and creative approach to content development. I believe that organizing information is a creative process, so once I started creating a pillar page strategy for my own digital marketing content, I found that I loved the symmetry of this.

Let’s start by defining pillar page content

It starts with a single page of substantive content that’s an in-depth overview of your business—or if you’re doing multiple pillar pages—of one topic. This will be comprehensive and authoritative; generalities drill down to subpages with more details or illustrations.

Your goal: Create a 10X content pillar page

A 10X pillar page is a single webpage that is ten times better than any other resource out there covering this topic. This is the motherload. More creative, informative and easier to access. This means that it can be seen across devices and it offers solutions. When I write about a topic, I think in terms of providing information that helps people do their jobs—new tools and insights, better approaches to old dilemmas. This 10X pillar page has to be strong, standalone content around which you can build the rest of your website’s content.

One more thing to keep in mind: Word count

Part of this exercise is about ranking in search engines, and search engines need content so they can start indexing the content that we’re uploading to our websites and social sites. Your pillar page needs to be in the neighborhood of 3000 words. Sound like a lot? It is, but remember that you’re providing comprehensive information about which you’re an authority.

Creating topic clusters, or subpages that roll up to pillar pages

Once your pillar page is in place, it’s time to start developing the topic clusters, or subpages and blogs, that will provide more details about that topic. These are supplemental materials that support your pillar page. A subpage provides the opportunity to expand on what you’ve highlighted on your pillar page. It also needs to be fairly comprehensive—think 2500 words. These subpages take the form of text, infographics, videos, a guidebook or ebook. This is where you get creative and attract your users. They can be fun and entertaining, and tell a story.

Creating another layer of content with blogposts

Blogposts are another layer of content that link to the subpages of your pillar page strategy. These can be very specific to one topic. Blogs are informal, temporal and can be extremely topical. They can also be shorter than pillar pages and subpages, at 750 words. None of those 350 word blogs—those just don’t provide enough words for Google to chew on. Blogs should link to subpages. You should also be creating an inner linking strategy that helps keep users on your site, drilling down to read more content. Look for content or topics among your pages that is relational and create these inner links.

Subpages need to link back to the pillar page, strengthening value for both the user and search engines. Internally linking your supporting material to your core pillar creates the organizational structure that search engines like.

Subpages: What goes on a pillar page?

An estimated 84% of internet users are looking for content that provides a solution. Our attention spans are pathetically short. We want something that is personal, that reaches us on an emotional level. We love stories and want to be drawn in. Think about how you can work yourself into your descriptions. Provide case studies where appropriate.

Getting started with a pillar page strategy: Evaluate existing content

It starts with some analysis. Take a look at your Google Analytics account to see what pages your audience is coming to most often, paying attention to your bounce rate and where they’re entering and leaving your site. Look for drilldown through your site.

You don’t have to start from scratch. Do you have existing content that can act as either the pillar page or subpage content—or at least the starting point? I reorganized my own site and realigned the content. I also hunkered down and did some serious content development, which is going to be the case with most people who are adopting a pillar page strategy. Those word count requirements mean that content needs some beefing up.

Review your blogs; keep the good stuff and sunset the dated posts

Identify those blogposts that can be redirected and linked to your pillar subpages and those that should be either updated or sunsetted. I had some old blogs that went back for nearly ten years and many were dated and stale. I dumped these, and kept others and incorporated them into my pillar page strategy.

Share your expertise on social media

So now you’ve got this great content but no one knows it’s there. Start using your social media sites to share your expertise! Post to your Linked, Facebook and Instagram sites. Social becomes part of your overall pillar content marketing strategy.

Take the time to develop your pillars

Rethinking your goals, reorganizing and retrofitting content is a process. Take your time and do it right. Once complete, you will have created a stronger foundation for your website that will allow you to keep growing and building out your content.

Once you’ve created one pillar page strategy, you’re going to find that you will want to create more—further breaking down your authority into another grouping with a new pillar page hierarchy. Now you’ve got the tools and expertise to do this.

Ask us about developing a pillar-page strategy for your website. Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing specialists.

LinkedIn has published a new marketing guide for what they’re calling “times of uncertainty”. This “new normal” conversation is getting tiresome, but a few stats caught my attention: 

• Last year, 54% of B2B businesses planned on hosting more events. 
• We’re now six months into this disaster of a year; 78% of these businesses now are expecting budget increases for online content. 
• For 52% of marketers, shifting priorities has been their biggest challenge. They’ve switched from those expensive and difficult-to-quantify events and are investing their marketing dollars in content marketing. 

Shifting strategies; being nimble is key

While many of us have continued working through the lockdown, others have been furloughed, idle, bored, spending even more time online. 

Let’s stop whining about COVID and get to work

This disease is going to be part of our lives for a while, so make sure you and your family are doing everything you can to stay safe, and let’s get to work. 

A strong content marketing strategy is a long-term plan to drive business growth

Content marketing involves publishing relevant content in a variety of forms on the channels where your audience spends the most time. 

• You don’t need to be pushing out huge volumes of text every week. 
• Instead, think strategically. Create a single theme—a product or service. It could be your team—a highly trained and informed group of people who can’t wait to solve thorny problems.
• Use this message in different ways to add value. It can be turned into a case study, a video, an animated explainer video, a blog, a white paper, an ebook. It can drive your newsletters. 
• It may be time to embrace online advertising/pay-per-click (PPC). Carefully managed and monitored, this can be an important lead-generation strategy. PPC works if you work it. 

What’s good messaging?

I always like this description: A good blog, article or post isn’t about you. It should be something that helps people do their jobs. A tip, a workaround, a new application that’s a productivity enhancer. If you can find ways to help your audience recover, you’re in a stronger position to attract, engage and convert new customers in the process. Customer service has never been more important. Going the extra mile for your clients is a very good investment and never goes out of style. 

We kicked off the year with high expectations

None of us could have imagined that 2020 would turn into a year of such stunning challenges. An election year, a pandemic, a tanking economy and a global uprising over racial injustice. It’s a consequence of the economic disparity that is fundamental to so many of our social problems. People are losing family members and their jobs with diminished opportunities on the horizon. 

Now is the time to feature humanity, generosity and humor in your messaging. Try to reach people on an emotional level, demonstrating compassion.

Get back in the game

If you need help developing or implementing your content marketing program, contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.

Use the Power of Yoast to Optimize Web Content

WordPress’ Yoast is a plugin that can help you optimize your website content. Yoast creates fields on the back end of your website where you can identify keywords and write metadescriptions. Metadescriptions are the little narratives that show up on search engine results pages (SERPs) right below the link to your website. You can control these, so why wouldn’t you? Think of these as little customized promo spots. Make it easy for yourself and use the power of Yoast to optimize your web content.

Yoast will help you optimize your website content

After you’ve written your landing page content or blog, scroll down to the Yoast fields and identify your focus keyword and write a metadescription. Now scroll down and see how you did. Yoast rates your effort for its search engine optimization (SEO) value and readability. Green is good. Red sucks.

Now go back and make corrections. You’ll find that this gets easier. I generally write my content, then go back and retrofit it.

• Your focus keyword is critical.This word/phrase should be integrated throughout your page/blog. It should be in the page title, the first and subsequent paragraphs and in your subheads.
• No keyword stuffing allowed. Beginning with the Mobilegeddon algorithm change in 2015, you now have to have something to say. Google hates it when you fill a page with meaningless keywords.

Yoast doesn’t stop with keywords; it will also help you:

• Identify readability. For maximum understanding, we should be writing at a fifth-grade level. Yoast gives us a readability score, and most of us fail.
• Get in the habit of using short, crisp sentences. Break long sentences and paragraphs into short, crisp ones. Use short words and subheads. Make it easy for a reader to scan your subheads; together they should tell a story.
• Header evaluation. Yoast will let you know if your headline is wider than the viewable limit. If your title has a bunch of skinny letters, you can use more characters than if it has a lot of fatter, rounder characters.
• Metadescriptions. These should include your focus keyword and be within 156 characters.
• Internal links. Including an internal linking strategy on your website is a great way to encourage readers to stay on your site and drill down through your pages.
• Images. Every page should include an image. There are four fields that are associated with each image—title, caption, alt tag and description. Fill these in and use your focus keyword.

One more thing: Search engines love long posts

Keywords are about, well, words. You can’t rank if there’s no content. The longer your posts, the greater your chances of appearing in search engines—they have more clues to identify what your posts are about. An ideal blog post should have around 1,000 words to ensure  enough keywords for ranking.

Frankly, the prospect of coming up with a 1000-word blog on a regular basis is terrifying. But do think about 300-words as a minimum standard. If you’re writing something about which you’re knowledgeable and passionate, this shouldn’t be paralyzing.

Need some help getting started? Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing experts.

If one of your New Year goals is to begin or beef up your content marketing program, here are some tips.

Content marketing propels awareness, builds trust and drives sales

Content is the backbone of the web and includes landing pages, blogs, whitepapers, eBooks and social media posts. Content is what generates organic SEO for your website. Questions surface about whether or not blogs are still important--remember that search-engine ranking starts with keywords—blogs remain the best way to populate your site with quality content.

Images/Photos

Websites have become increasingly visual, and those with images perform better than those without. But think about mixing up visual content.

• Infographics are very effective and easy to create. I’ve been using a free app called Piktochart that’s ridiculously easy to use and I’m finding new ways to use it. 
• Use a quote or testimonial as a pullquote—it becomes a graphic and it’s a great way to draw attention to an important statement while also providing visual appeal.
• Slide presentations. Upload slide presentations as pdf files. Provide an overview and a key image to entice your readers. 
• Animated GIFs have become part of the landscape. 

Videos

Videos have become very popular—especially among younger users. They also boost your SEO value. There are many DIY tools for creating your own videos, but the quality can be marginal. Think about what you want your ideal clients to be viewing. Videos can be:

• How to/instructional 
• Interviews
• Quick tips
• Webinar recordings
• YouTube and Facebook are the most popular channels for publishing video content. YouTube tends to do better with longer-form video.

eBooks

Electronic books—eBooks--have become incredibly popular. They provide significant value by offering long-form topical discussion. Ebooks are typically PDF files and include a mix of text and images.

White papers

White papers are longer-form content used to convey data-driven insights or case studies. Like eBooks, white papers are also great lead magnets. 

Identify keywords

Using keywords correctly will help your content rank higher. Doing keyword research is an important part of every content marketing program. Use free tools such as Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest. 

• Use keywords in the title of your content.
• Mention keywords at least once in the first paragraph of your post.
• Use your keyword in at least one H2 heading.
• Maintain a keyword ratio of 2% of total word count.

Note that search engines are becoming smart and intuitive. They know the difference between natural keyword usage and keyword stuffing. 

Longer blog posts typically perform best

When writing blog posts, longer is usually better--2,000 words is good minimum target for your articles. You’re thinking “Nobody is ever going to read this!” Buzzsumo analyzed 100 million articles, and found that people are more likely to share longer articles. I believe you need at least 300+ words to rank well. Frontload your article, with the most important information in the first couple of paragraphs. 

Need help developing your content marketing program? Contact Top of Mind Marketing to develop your marketing strategy.