What is Pillar Content: Examples and Steps to Create a Strategy

Your marketing strategy should evolve according to your audience, trends and budget. Introducing novel content types that perform well can increase your audience reach and sales. When people search the internet they are mostly looking for answers. Your aim is to answer these questions with a detailed blog, video or an Ebook. This is what essentially a pillar content means but I will talk about in detail in the coming sections.

Read this blog post to the end to know about content pillars and how you can incorporate them in your 2023 marketing strategy.

Pillar Content Definition

Pillar content is a comprehensive and in-depth piece of content that serves as the foundation of your content marketing strategy. It is designed to provide value to your audience, establish your brand as a thought leader in your industry, and generate ongoing traffic to your website.

Pillar content is typically long-form and can take the form of a blog post, e-book, white paper, or video series. It covers a specific topic in detail and provides a thorough overview of the subject matter.

Why is Pillar Content Important

Pillar content can seem like a lot of effort, but the results are long lasting and impactful. Here are a few benefits of Content Pillars:

Build Audience Trust and Increase your Credibility

The importance of pillar content lies in its ability to attract and engage your target audience. By providing valuable information, you can establish trust and credibility with your audience and position yourself as a go-to resource for information in your industry.

Improve Website Ranking and SEO

Pillar content can help you generate ongoing traffic to your website. Search engines (like Google) use factors like content length and amount of dynamic content to rank you on their search. This means that if your website regularly updates content and it is what people are searching for, you will rank much higher on search engines.

Generate Leads and Bring in More Business

Pillar content is not just for your audience consumption, but it is a tool to attract leads and increase sales. Create content that addresses questions of your target audience. You will attract the right people for your business that may become potential leads.

Steps to Develop Pillar Content Strategy

1. Research what questions people are asking in your business domain. Example you are a vendor of seeds, so a good pillar content would be to create a blog post or video about the best seeds to plant each season. You can use Google autofill to find questions. Answer the Public is another useful website to look for questions.
2. Create a Blog/Video/Ebook title that answers the questions and create an outline that goes into detail about the topic.
3. Write the blog/Ebook with relevant keywords. Video content can be broken down into a series.
4. Publish your content and promote on your social media. You can also use pillar content in paid ads as well.

Note: you can include a CTA towards the end of the content so that you may generate leads in the process.

Do's and Don'ts of Pillar Content

Pillar Content Examples

Here are the commonly used content types in pillar content:

1. How-to-Guides: they go into detail about a certain topic and is the most common type of content that people look for on the internet.
2. Video Series: can include multiple videos in succession that cover a vast topic. You can use platforms like YouTube to publish them.
3. Downloadable PDF Reports: are great for consultancies or firms that deal with a lot of data. You can publish quarterly reports on topics relevant to your business.
4. Ebooks: are really attractive to people who want to learn a new skill or know more about a certain topic. Ebooks are longer than blogs and are generally more descriptive.
5. Podcasts: are a rapidly growing alternate to video content. Similar to video series, you can develop a podcast series, maybe invite one or two notable guests from your field to create audience interest.

Summary

Pillar content is a valuable tool for any business looking to establish a strong online presence and drive growth. It provides value to your audience, establishes your brand as a thought leader, and generates ongoing traffic to your website.

If you would like to generate high quality pillar content for your blogs, social media or website, reach out to me on LinkedIn for more info.