Why pillar pages are the foundations of a successful content strategy

Keen to improve your current content strategy? Or maybe you’re eager to start creating content but want to make sure it’s search-engine-friendly from the offset. Whatever your reasoning might be for wanting to find out more about pillar content and how it works within the context of a content strategy, you’ve come to the right place.

Here at the award-winning digital marketing agency, Aqueous Digital, we have an experienced team of SEO experts and content writers that create and execute successful content strategies for a wide range of different clients. To help you understand the role pillar content plays in content strategies, our team have created this handy to article!

What is pillar content?

Pillar content (also referred to as a pillar page or content pillars) is one way of creating a substantial interconnected bank of content that informs and supports the user’s understanding of a topic. The pillar page itself should briefly cover every aspect of a topic, leaving space for each of these aspects to be explored in more detail in separate pieces of content.

Each piece of content contributes to building information around the pillar page, which creates layers of content all linked back to a singular page – the pillar page. These informative layers of additional content present plenty of opportunities for the user to explore certain areas of a topic in more detail, if the user desires.

By way of illustrating, you may choose to create a pillar page surrounding the topic of digital marketing. Within this topic and pillar page, you’re likely to mention and produce relevant content on subjects such as content production, email marketing, online advertising, and social media, for example. Often, pillar pages are also service or product pages.

What role do pillar pages play in content strategies?

When creating a content strategy, the pillar page should be the primary focus, with all other content in the strategy falling under this particular topic. You should start every content strategy by pinpointing the focus of the pillar page first, then deciding which sub-topics should be covered and how they should be written.

Why is pillar content important for content strategies?

Creating content strategies using pillar content and pillar pages has many advantages for businesses. From keeping your team aligned and on track with content production to identifying any sub-topics that are particularly popular (or unpopular!), there are countless reasons to consider using pillar pages in your next content strategy. We explore a handful of these sought-after benefits in more detail below.

Creates a content focus and goal

As the pillar page is the at the top of your pyramid of content and all content links back to this page, it becomes the strategy’s core focus. The reasoning behind choosing this focus will be because it supports a greater business goal. For example, you may decide to create a pillar page after recently deciding to offer another service or sell a different type of product to your normal range.

Creating content that supports this pillar page will ultimately help more of your target audience to find your services/products. Regardless of whether you want to increase enquiries, boost sales, or simply bolster brand awareness, pillar content can help you to achieve a variety of business goals.

Aligns your content team

Creating a set pillar page content strategy that your team can refer back to is another way of ensuring they are all aligned and writing content with the same end goals in mind. Those with a clearer vision of their work and its aims are much more likely to have better self-governance and communication, creating a far more efficient team. Assigning a particular topic as pillar content has this same affect.

Allows you to identify strengths and weaknesses

By opting for a strategy with layers of content culminating in a pillar page, you can identify which sub-topics are attracting the most views, which are being ranked highly by Google and other search engines, and even those that aren’t performing as well as you thought they would. Using tools like Google Analytics can help you to track the CTR (click through rate) and engagement levels.

Ensures consistent quality of content

Once you’ve created a pillar page that delivers on quality, you can seek to replicate this same standard of writing in the supporting pieces of content. While a high-quality pillar page is always advantageous, it’s not enough to create just one piece of quality content. Instead, you should consistently publish quality pieces of content that meet the same standards as the primary pillar page.

Seeking content strategy support?

At Aqueous Digital, we specialise in creating high-quality content informed by in-depth SEO research and have years of experience crafting effective content strategies that deliver real results for our clients. Alongside our content strategies, we also offer everything from reputation management to a wide range of search engine optimisation services.

Regardless of whether you want to increase enquiries about a certain product or service, or simply ensure your website and its fantastic content is being found by your target audience, we can help. As an award-winning digital marketing agency with years of experience in this industry and a talented team of account managers, content writers, and technical SEO experts, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

If you’d like to speak to a member of our Liverpool team about our free website health checks or schedule a convenient date and time for one of our no-obligations consultations, please feel free to call us on 0800 285 1424. Alternatively, you can also submit your enquiry via email to agency@aqueous-digital.co.uk or head over to our contact page and fill out our online contact form.