Pillar Page

A pillar page is a long-form piece of content that acts as a resource hub on a broad topic. Pillar pages provide a high-level overview of all aspects of a topic, and then, right as the reader wants to learn more about a mentioned subtopic, the pillar page provides a link to an in-depth post on that exact subject.

Pillar pages are like an airport that your brand has control over. When it's your brand's airport, you can send users to whatever content location you want. If you provide a great airport experience, prevent all flight delays, and deliver the user to a stunningly informative destination, then that user will happily go to your airport again. They may even recommend it to a friend, or take you up on your pop-up offer for 50,000 free miles if they give you their email address.

With 2000 words and a single page, a pillar page serves as the ultimate guide to a user's long-tail keyword question. Your other blog posts will then relate to, and expand upon, one of the topics mentioned in your pillar page.

Why pillar pages are the pillar of content marketing success

Pillar pages are part of the hub and spoke or topic cluster model. Like a wheel, the pillar page acts as the central hub, while the more in-depth blog posts are the spokes. 

Here's why pillar pages are popular:

• They're great for the brand. Pillar pages hold your content strategy together. They let you provide powerful, helpful resources for your target audience on keywords that are central to your brand. It's also easier to think of blog post ideas when you already have a pillar page that's full of subtopics that need to be expanded upon.
• They're great for the search engine. When it's good for the search engine, it's also good for you. Search engines love internal and external links because you're basically doing their job for them. Links show connections and context, so the search engine will quickly understand what your content is about. This hopefully leads to better SERP rankings for your keywords. Pillar pages are SEO superstars.
• They're great for the user. Wouldn't you want to be handed a useful map of all the answers you were looking for? The user had questions about a broad topic, and you just gave them the ultimate guide and showed them where they can find even more information. A happy user also means a possible future customer.

Any aliases?

If you're wondering, Wait, I thought that was called a hub page... don't worry, you're right. It's like when you realized White Elephant and Yankee Swap are the same game. You might also know a pillar page as a:

• Power page
• Hub page
• Root page
• Parent page
• Content pillar
• 10X page
• Mother of Content, First of Her Name*

*Not an actual marketing term.

What’s the difference between a pillar page and a landing page?

If a pillar page is an airport for your free content, then a landing page is the direct private jet to your premium treasure. You're one step away from landing in paradise — all you have to do is enter your email address into the lead generation form.

Unlike a pillar page, people typically arrive at a landing page by clicking a call-to-action button or link to get a free trial, free ebook, webinar registration, or some other gated offer. A landing page is a conversion-rate-optimized page with the specific goal of convincing the user to convert on a gated offer. A pillar page, on the other hand, isn't looking to do anything but help the user learn and find the content they're looking for — while conveniently keeping them on your site.

How to create a pillar page

1. Choose a topic that you want your website to rank for. This is your topic cluster.
2. Create a pillar page outline with sub-topic headers that introduce most aspects of the topic.
3. Write the pillar page. Since writing over 2000 well-researched words is definitely daunting and time-consuming, consider using a professional content writing service. (Don't worry, I know a guy).
4. Create shorter, more specific blog posts that each target one keyword from your pillar page. This process takes time. Once you have created a piece of cluster content, add the link to that blog post on your pillar page.
5. Promote your pillar page. Publish on your website, share a link on forums, drive traffic from social media, etc.
6. Make another pillar page on a different central topic. You can do it!