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. 

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.