Pillar Pages: The What, The Why, and The How

What is a Pillar Page?

Just like how a pillar supports the rest of the building, a pillar page is an article or webpage that serves as the backbone for content of a particular topic. Numerous subtopics – known as cluster pages – get linked to from the pillar page, and together they help a website establish its authority over the topic.

Like the image above suggests, pillar pages are like the hub of a wheel, and the cluster pages are like the spokes. This organizes your content and allows the Google web crawlers to index your information in a logical way. The structure allows Google to see the context of your pages rather than just a single page in isolation. 

Topic Clusters Explained 

Your pillar page combined with all its subordinate cluster pages form a topic cluster. To form the connection, the pillar page has an internal link to each cluster page. Each cluster page in turn links back to the pillar page. 

Together, the topic cluster provides a comprehensive overview of your subject. Why is this helpful? It can boost your website’s SEO ranking. This is because if you produce more good content on the same subject, it increases the number of relevant keywords that you rank for. It also builds your website’s credibility on the topic – and as a whole. 

Google is more likely to feature websites that prove they are trustworthy and knowledgeable about a particular subject. Topic clusters are the way to get there. 

Well-organized topic clusters improve user experience and increases dwell time, since searchers are more likely to:

1. Find your website if more important keywords are ranked well by Google
2. Read for a longer period of time, since you have multiple cluster pages with relevant information about the topic
3. Come back to your website for more information, because your pages are structured effectively 

Topic Cluster Example 

Let’s say your topic is about your local mall – we’ll call it the Narnia Mall. Your primary keywords would likely be “Narnia Mall,” (broad) and your pillar page would be something like “Things to Do At The Narnia Mall” (also broad). 

Some possible cluster pages might be “Navigating Parking at the Narnia Mall,” “The Best Places to Eat At The Naria Mall,” “The Fascinating History of the Narnia Mall,” and “Local Secrets of the Narnia Mall” (narrower subtopics). Together, the pillar page and its cluster pages would form a topic cluster all about the local Narnia Mall.

The goal is for Google to recognize your site as an authority on the Narnia Mall, and for any user looking up the Narnia Mall to find one of your pages. Creating a topic cluster using pillar pages helps you achieve that. 

Why You Need Pillar Pages

Pillar pages are proven to drive organic traffic to your site and help you shoot up the Google rankings. This comparison chart by Moz.com, showing the performance of their pillar pages compared to other blog posts, shows how effective they can be. 

Overall, pillar pages should be foundational to your overall strategy. A primary goal of producing content is to drive content to your website and establish that you know a lot about a certain topic. A website pedaling tires will want to write pieces that establish they know a lot about tires, wheels, or other closely related topics like auto repair or maintenance. 

Creating pillar pages is a foundational step to achieving that. They build a skeleton that is fleshed out by all the cluster pages – together building brand recognition and topical authority. 

This structure helps you with content mapping too. Your goal is to meet your reader at whatever stage of the journey they’re at. Are they interested in the history of your local mall, or actively trying to figure out how to park there? Pillar pages help you organize your content so that readers are pulled into your site no matter what stage they’re at in evaluating a topic.

How to Start Creating Pillar Pages

Now that we’ve gone over the what and the why, the next section will cover the how. You’ve seen how useful pillar pages can be, so let’s go over what steps you can take to implement them in your site. 

Identify Your Topic

The first step is to choose a topic cluster. You’ll want to select a topic that is:

• Relevant to your website’s niche
• Not too broad
• Helpful for your target audience
• Able to promote your brand (if possible)
• Associated with a high-volume keyword 

You can search for a topic naturally, based on what your website offers, search using a keyword research tool, or look at similar websites to yours and see what they’re writing about.

Choose Your Pillar Page Subject

Now that you have your overall topic cluster, you’ll want to focus down on the subject of your pillar page itself. This needs to be a subject that logically branches out into all the different topic clusters that you’ll cover, because you should be able to link to them all within the pillar page. 

The most important factor in creating an effective pillar page is writing informative content. Writing what audiences find helpful will shoot you up the Google rankings faster than any keyword wizardry. 

Keyword Research

That being said, identifying keywords is an essential part of the process. One of the most important parts of this is figuring out search intent. This is what a user is desiring to learn or do when they type in a certain keyword configuration. Discerning what keywords will most closely match the search intent of your intended audience will greatly increase the traffic to your page. 

The keywords for your pillar page should be broad, while those for your cluster pages can be more specific. The cluster pages lend themselves well to long-tail keywords, or keywords that are longer in length and easier to rank for.  

There are multiple keyword research sites that will tell you the volume your desired keywords are being searched at, and the difficulty of ranking for them.

While you should look for the best blend of high-demand and low-difficulty, you shouldn’t choose keywords that don’t match your users’ search intent, the purpose of your website, or the natural questions in your topic cluster. 

Create Your Pillar Page…

Once you have your keywords and are raring to go, then it’s time to make your pillar page! This should be the first page you create, since it provides the most broad overview of your topic. This will be your most viewed page of the topic cluster, so make sure you:

• Have an eye-catching introduction
• Follow SEO best practices
• Give your readers a call to action
• Tie in your website’s services to the topic
• Ensure the information and design is high-quality 

Note: When you write your pillage page, make sure you’re doing so with the cluster pages in mind, so you can easily add in links to your cluster pages once they’re posted. 

…And Then Your Cluster Content

While your pillage pages are cornerstones for your site that will attract the most clicks, they only work if they have other content to prop up. 

Once you have your pillar page providing a broad view of your topic cluster, then it’s time to start churning out your cluster pages. Make sure each one links to your pillage page, and that each answers real questions your audience will have about your topic. 

What Comes Next?

So you’ve created your pillage pages and have a retinue of cluster pages to boot. What now? 

A lot of that depends on how your pillar page performs. High-performing companies stay on top of their content and update it frequently to keep it fresh and relevant, so you’ll want to check in on how your pillage page is doing. 

KPI’s, or key performance indicators, help you identify whether your page is meeting your expectations and show you areas to improve. Google analytics can easily overwhelm you with the amount of statistics they provide, but here are some of the most important KPI’s to monitor:

• Page views
• Bounce rate
• Leads/conversions
• Ranking
• Organic traffic
• Social network interactions

Organizing Your Website

Not only do pillar pages create a natural structure for a topic cluster, but they also help you organize your website. From your website, you can easily direct readers to the relevant pillar page, and the pillar page will then direct them to whatever cluster pages they wish to explore.

Consider creating a table of content on your website, or featuring your primary articles. Whatever you do, try to direct readers to your pillage pages, whether that’s through social media marketing, pushing your pillar pages to the front, or some other means. This will help your entire site. 

Starting Building Your Foundation!

Now that you know what pillar pages are, why they can help you with your content marketing strategy, and how to start creating them, there’s only one thing left to do: start creating the pillars of your brand!