Content pillars are key topics you want your business to be known for. They cover everything you need to know about a certain topic, offering comprehensive and complete information.
In this article, we explain what content pillars are, how to create them, and why they are important. We’ve also provided useful content pillar examples that can help you create your own content marketing strategy.
Table of Contents
What Are Content Pillars?
Content pillars are clusters of content organized around a central theme or topic that provide substantive information. They usually consist of several types of content, such as blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, and more, all linked together by a common theme.
For instance, take a wellness business. Their main topic is wellness; however, they can also structure the content in several subcategories: medicine, diets, coaching, etc. All these represent opportunities to create separate grouped posts a.k.a. content pillars.
As such, content pillars are destinations for critical, in-depth information backed by data and guides. Regardless of the type of content, you should optimize a pillar page for a particular keyword that answers the searcher's intent.
Using content pillars, businesses and marketers can establish expertise and authority in their industry, attract a targeted audience, improve search engine visibility, and create a strong foundation for their content marketing efforts.
Why Are Content Pillars Important?
Content pillars are important for several reasons:
- Provides in-depth information about a theme or topic: Content pillars offer a complete and in-depth view of the subject by creating a series of content around a central theme or topic. This allows readers to learn everything they need to know in one place.
- Increases brand authority: Content pillars help businesses position themselves as an expert in their niche, build trust with their audience, and become authoritative sources of information.
- Boosts search engine visibility: When businesses create content pillars, they also create related content that can be interlinked and optimized for search engines. Interlinked content containing relevant keywords improves the website's search engine visibility, making it easier for people to find the content and the business itself.
- Offers new content ideas: Content pillars provide a roadmap for content creation, making it easier for businesses and marketers to create relevant, engaging, and valuable content for their target audience.
All in all, content pillars offer a strategic and organized approach to content marketing. They help businesses create high-quality content that resonates with their audience, establish authority, and achieve their marketing goals.
5 Steps for Developing a Content Pillar Strategy for Your Website
- Identify the Main Topic and Keyword
- Audit the Existing Website Content
- Analyze Your Competition
- Create Your Content Pillar
- Focus on Evergreen Pillar Content
Here are the steps to develop your brand's content pillar strategy from its foundation:
Step #1: Identify the Main Topic and Keyword
The first step to creating content pillars for social media is to identify what topic you’re going to focus on, and the keywords related to it. Both options should satisfy user intent while attracting search engine algorithms.
When choosing the main topic, consider who your target audience is, their problems and pain points, and what solution your products and services can offer.
For instance, if your customers’ pain point is balancing work and family, your content theme can be about family activities or work-life balance guides.
Next comes keyword search. This includes the primary keyword and all related phrases. Consider factors like the search volume, competitiveness, and relevance — factors that have the potential to bring your content to the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs).
Once you’ve decided on the core topic and target keywords, it's time to analyze the subtopics that will form the cluster pages and support the structure of the pillar page. The pillar page must touch upon all these subtopics and link to the relevant articles, where they are discussed in more detail.
Step #2: Audit the Existing Website Content
The second step involves conducting a content audit of your website. This step allows you to assess whether you have existing content that can be modified, optimized, or repurposed to support your pillar content page.
There are two main benefits of this process. Firstly, by optimizing and updating existing content, you can avoid cannibalization or duplicate content on your website. Second, you can re-evaluate the internal linking structure.
If you find that you already have existing articles that can support a content pillar, you reverse-engineer the process. Specific content strategies can begin with creating the pillar page to support the cluster articles.
Step #3: Analyze Your Competition
Once you’ve identified a topic to become an authority on, the third step is to conduct competitor analysis.
This provides insights into your competitor’s content marketing strategy that will help you find areas for improvement in your existing content and build more value for your readers. You can also analyze the subtopics covered by the competitors and identify content gaps.
Overall, by knowing your competitor’s content strategy and what makes them rank on SERPs, you can build a better, more robust, and comprehensive content pillar strategy.
Step #4: Create Your Content Pillar
The next step is to create the content. To build content pillars, begin by mapping out the structure of the pillar page. Design the article's structure by addressing all relevant questions and using headings and subheadings to organize information.
For example, if the topic of your pillar page is “What is the disadvantage of filing for bankruptcy?”, a simple search online will give valuable insights on popular headlines and FAQs related to it. From this, you can create an outline of questions people need an answer to, such as:
- What does it imply to file for bankruptcy?
- How to declare bankruptcy?
- Are there benefits from filing for bankruptcy?
- What are the consequences when you file for bankruptcy?
You can also use advanced tools to create automated SEO-friendly content briefs.
Step #5: Focus on Evergreen Pillar Content
Finally, focus on creating evergreen content — something that won’t require your constant maintenance. Ideally, a content marketing management strategy includes a variety of timely pieces and evergreen content. Often, evergreen content works best while creating pillar and cluster content.
Pillar pages that center on evergreen content perform exceptionally well for readers and search engines if you have high-quality cluster topics to support them. That is why emphasizing the searcher's intent and the topic's subject is of utmost importance.
For example, imagine you have a news publishing website and, during a content audit, realize you have several articles following a historical event. You can create a full evergreen pillar page from the vantage point. This page will offer an authoritative, high-level view of that historical event and all the highlights. Links to your cluster topics will further dive into each subtopic in greater detail.
Content Pillars Examples
Based on your content marketing goals, there are three types of content pillar pages you can tackle:
1. The Guide
The “Guide” format webpage offers an authoritative overview of a subject with various elements and pages that support it. These subtopics include FAQs, blogs, and links to resources and products, all clustered around the main topic of the pillar page.
One example is Zapier’s “System Management 101: An Ultimate Guide.” It starts with a clear introduction, follows a structured text separated by images and bullet points to make it easily readable, and links to other articles to suggest related reading.
Another example is the “Site Selection Guide” by Placer.ai. It explains how readers can use foot data when selecting a location or venue for their business. As a content pillar, it connects to several other pages that discuss different subsections of the main topic. In the end, it points readers toward another guide that is, in fact, a subcategory to site selection.
2. The "What Is"
The “What Is” pillar page covers subjects in detail; long-form blogs are a prime example. When the subject matter is complex, subtopics are often broken down into chapters and segments.
In the “What Is” pillar page, the subtopics are organized by a linked table of contents either on the side of the main content or before it. Each cluster is optimized for its purpose by adding elements like videos, graphs, and illustrations. The visual elements make the content more sharable on social media.
A good example of a content pillar is “What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization Explained” by Ahrefs. As one of the leading SEO tools, this page acts as a pillar for its services. It explains everything about SEO, showcasing their expertise — from why it’s important to how SERPs and SEO work — and links to internal subtopics that fill out any missing knowledge gaps.
Another example is “What Is Email Marketing” by Mailchimp. It covers everything about the topic including the history of emails to bring readers up to speed with today’s use of email in marketing. Throughout the article, you can find several internal links that expand the main topic, as well as a section at the end for related pieces.
3. The "How-To"
The “How To” pillar content presents actionable content to the user and enables them to start the process immediately. It's ideal for targeting an audience with transactional and informational intents.
An excellent example of this type of pillar page is “How to Start a Podcast: Complete Step-by-Step Guide [2024]” by Buzzsprout. It directly dives into the topic, has a clear structure with images and videos, and provides relevant interlinking. It answers every question an aspiring podcaster might have, from the necessary equipment to what software to use and where to upload it.
Another example is “How To Build Your Digital Banking Strategy” by Alloy. As an all-in-one risk solution for banks and fintech companies, Alloy explains how to build a digital banking strategy in three parts, divided into several more sections. This guide is tailored to a specific audience, using industry-specific jargon and solutions that can be immediately implemented by professionals seeking such content.
Content Pillars: Final Thoughts
Content pillars are unique pieces of content that help brands demonstrate expertise, establish authority, and stand out from their competitors. For content marketers, content pillars provide a strategic approach to creating content that answers all readers' questions.
To experience all the benefits content pillars provide, creators must understand the elements and best practices of a successful content pillar strategy. Start by identifying the main topic and keyword, audit existing content, and create an evergreen piece that will remain relevant for years to come. If you need help creating pillar content, contact some of our top content marketing agencies.
Content Pillars FAQs
1. How many content pillars should you have?
Although there is no rule of thumb regarding content pillars, having at least three per website is optimal. When creating content pillars (and content in general), focus on quality rather than quantity and provide readers with high-value information that addresses their needs and solves their pain points.
2. What are content pillars in social media?
Social media content pillars, also called “buckets,” are sets of themes or topics you can use to create posts. They can include industry news, testimonials, promotions, niche-related humor, and other topics.