What Makes a Good Pillar Page?

To understand SEO pillar strategy, it’s best to start with some well-known imagery. You can probably picture a few famous buildings with pillars. Think of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., or the ancient Parthenon building in Athens, Greece. These two buildings have numerous pillars, each load-bearing and built with the same purpose in mind: sharing and supporting the weight of the entire structure.

There is a reason the SEO pillar strategy is named after these architectural building blocks. The function of each is similar. Where construction pillars support the structure of a building, pillar pages support the structure of a successful marketing technique. And just as engineering and art go into creating strong, aesthetically pleasing pillars for a building, the construction of pillar pages requires a similar mesh of craft and science.

So where does a business start with an SEO pillar strategy? Let us answer that for you in this blog by reviewing how to choose a pillar page, types of pillar pages, selecting content topics, a pillar page vs a landing page, and other issues of interest.

What Is a Pillar Content Page?

A pillar page will broadly explore a popular topic that relates to your business’s services or products. It should be rich in a variety of keywords and show you are an expert in that particular field. Similar to how a building could not be supported with just one pillar, this marketing strategy includes several sub-pillars and supporting blogs in addition to the pillar page. To understand the highlights of these three parts, remember the following:

• Pillar Page - around 3,000 words, broadly covers the topic, contains approximately 15-20 keywords
• Sub-Pillar - around 1,500-2,000 words, explores a sub-topic of the pillar page more in-depth, contains approximately 12-15 keywords
• Supporting Blog - around 750 words, deep dives into the details of the sub-pillar topics, contains approximately 5-7 keywords

How Do I Choose a Pillar Page?

The strategy behind choosing a pillar page topic is based on understanding what your audiences want to know. Simply searching for “pillar content examples” might give you a general idea of what to go for, but it doesn’t help you choose a pillar page for your business. Thankfully, we have come a long way from guessing the questions people are asking about a particular subject. Now there are tools available to figure that out for you, like our platform at DemandJump. We help you zero in on the exact wording of the questions and keywords people are typing into search engines about any topic.

(DemandJump's automated pillar page strategy tool outlines the exact content to create.)

An example is the best way to demonstrate this. Let’s pretend we have a young entrepreneur, Yoko, who has started her own yoga studio, Yoko’s Yoga. She’s heard about SEO pillar strategy and has decided to makeover her website’s blog with this strategy in mind. There are many methods to figure out what keywords she should be using in her blog, but we will focus on using DemandJump’s platform for this example. Here is a sample of the top keywords and questions she might find focused on yoga:

Yoko has many options to choose from for her pillar page! But she needs a topic that she can extensively cover in 3,000 words. She also wants to make sure she can come up with related topics for the sub-pillars and blogs that support the pillar page. “Benefits of yoga” is probably one of the better choices for a pillar page, as this keyword is broad and allows room for growth through sub-pillars and blogs.

Once you’ve landed on your pillar page topic, like Yoko, you can begin the actual writing. How do you write pillar page content? Our experienced content team at DemandJump has put together a few tips they find useful when writing pillar page content.

How to Write a Pillar Page

This is the artistic side of this process, where your creativity can shine through. Thousands of good writing methods exist, but for SEO pillar strategy writing, these are our favorite:

• Choose Keywords First - Start with a list of keywords and questions you plan on using in your pillar page. It’s usually best to keep them in an easily accessible place when writing. This allows you to organically insert the keywords into your content, rather than forcing them in after you’ve finished writing. 
• Bullets and Lists - Bullet points and numbered lists are easy methods of consuming content. One writer found that 17 out of 50 successful articles she had written had numbers in the titles. Something about a list makes the content feel bite-sized and likable, like a snack before the main course.
• Make It Skimmable - Paragraphs should be short, and you should include multiple headings in a larger font to catch the eye of a reader looking for something specific.
• Call to Action - This is commonly abbreviated as a “CTA.” It’s smart to end your content with a CTA, which will direct your readers to a landing page. A landing page encourages your customers to take action, such as joining a mailing list, starting a free trial, or scheduling a call with you to discuss your services further.

Can DemandJump Help Me Create a Good Pillar Page? Yes!

There’s a reason you happened upon this blog when researching SEO pillar marketing. We wouldn’t recommend a marketing strategy to our customers if we weren’t using it ourselves and seeing positive outcomes.

If you’re looking for a platform to find keywords, we’ve got you covered. Maybe you’re a little uncertain about creating your own pillar strategy; that’s something we can help with, too. Or perhaps all of this sounds overwhelming, yet promising, and you want us to take over the entire program, from strategy development to writing the content. Wherever your needs are, we can meet them. Still have some lingering questions? Contact us! Ready to dive in and start searching for keywords? Try our platform for free!