Maybe you are asking yourself what a pillar page is and why you need one?  It may or may not be news to you but search behaviors are changing. With the evolution of machine learning and virtual assistants the way we conduct searches is becoming more conversational rather than searching terms and broken phrases. In response to this shift in search behavior search algorithms are being taught to recognize a searcher’s intent. Consider the following example: Perhaps you have used the following; ”good hikes” as a search term but recently you typed in “What are the best hikes in Portland, Oregon? Now Google, Bing and other search engines will look for the results that best answer your question rather than the results that offer the most relevant keywords. This shift is creating a shift in the types of landing pages and the shift to a different type of page organization. This article will explore the concept and organization of pillar pages and how they can help your marketing strategy.

Why A Pillar Page?

If you are still optimizing your blog content to rank for long-tail keywords the time has come to change your blog architecture to accommodate topic clusters or pillar page architecture. People are now accustomed to voice search with Siri and Cortana so the queries they are submitting are growing on length and detail in order to sort through junk and get the information they are looking for faster. People are also skimming content more often relying on blog headers to identify the information they are searching for. Google is responding to this by providing the most accurate information possible even if it is not exactly what the individual searched for. Google is playing at trying to return results based on intent and that creates gaps in both content and organization that can prevent a searcher from getting the information they need from your site.

Pillar pages are structured around the concept of topic clusters. Instead of choosing long tail keywords you choose broad topic areas you want to rank for and then create content based on keywords related to the topic that all link to each other so that you create a broader authority with search engines.

The benefit of this structure is that it is more deliberate in organizing and linking together URLs that relate to a cluster of topics. This in turn assists your site in getting more pages ranked in Google and helps searchers to locate your content more easily.

The three primary elements of a pillar page include:

• Pillar Content
• Cluster Content (blogs)
• Hyperlinks

What Is A Pillar Page

A pillar page is the basis on which you build a topic cluster.  It covers all aspects of a specific topics on a single page and provides room for more in-depth reporting via hyperlinks to cluster blog posts that link back to the pillar page.

While pillar pages cover a specific topic, cluster content addresses a specific keyword that is related to that topic at a much deeper level.

Pillar pages are normally longer than typical blog posts because they cover all aspects of a specific topic you are trying to rank for. Although longer they are higher level with less detail. Details should be left to cluster content blogs.

Creating A Pillar Page

Think about topics that address the top interests and challenges your target customers experience. Make your topic broad enough so you can generate more related blog posts that can serve as cluster content. The topic has to be contained to one page so don’t get too carried away. A topic like “Social media” would be too large but “Instagram marketing” is big enough to develop related blog posts that address Instagram marketing techniques in greater detail but specific enough to write a good solid pillar page about it.

The second important function of a pillar page is to answer any questions the searcher might ask about the topic. When the searcher clicks into your pillar page then they will click into those pillar page hyperlinks that provide more specific, in-depth knowledge.