6 Benefits of the Pillar Approach to Content Creation

Even to those who understand its value, content can be a bit of a sticking point. And I understand why. It's time intensive, it can be difficult, and sometimes it takes a stretch of time before you see how valuable it truly is.

What Is the Pillar Approach to Content Creation?

If you're unfamiliar with the pillar approach to content creation, a content pillar is a significant piece of content — like an eBook or a guide that's written with the purpose of being broken down and expanded upon into many individual content pieces. So, instead of an eBook that is a stand-alone content piece, it's a foundation for additional, smaller content pieces like blogs and infographics.

Benefits of the Pillar Approach

When you put in the effort of planning and creating a content pillar, content becomes something that catapults you forward instead of holding you back. Here are the top benefits of the pillar approach to content creation.

1. Improves SEO

Google wants to see sites that demonstrate expertise and depth on particular topics. Optimizing cluster content around related keywords improves your SEO rankings by signaling that your site is an authoritative source on a specific topic. 

It also provides more opportunities for internal linking between pages, which makes it easier for search engines to understand the structure of your site and the relationship between different pages.

2. Offers Additional Keyword Opportunities

Topic clusters open up more keyword-targeting potential. Instead of optimizing each piece of content for just one term, you can incorporate multiple relevant keywords into one content area.

For example, if your main pillar topic was “healthy dinners,” your clusters could include subtopics like:

• Healthy chicken recipes

• Vegetarian dinner ideas

• 30-minute meal prep

• Weeknight skillet meals

This allows you to target those more specific keywords while still sticking to the overall theme. You can also identify latent semantic keywords that relate to your topics.

3. Creating More Content Becomes Easy

By implementing the pillar approach to content creation, you effectively multiply your content creation efforts. 

One eBook can quickly be scaled down to become additional blogs, along with multiple infographics, SlideShares, and social posts. 

Effectively, the pillar becomes the source of numerous future content pieces. Check out this example where one content pillar became over 30 individual content pieces and 90 social posts.

4. Your Content Becomes More Relevant

Say your goal is to publish four blogs per month for your business. Each blog post has its topic and purpose, but it must also tie back into the big picture or what you are trying to accomplish with those blogs.

When you start with a content pillar, you already know how each blog works as a part of the whole. The content pillar is your big picture, and each blog is a smaller piece of that picture which you pull from the pillar and work to elaborate on. 

Since each content piece is tied to the larger ideas within the content pillar, they will automatically be relevant to your brand, content strategy, and other content pieces from the pillar.

5. It Requires Less Work To Scale Content

The more effort you put into planning, researching, and creating the content pillar, the less work you need to do in the long run. This means the time and effort you must dedicate to your content strategy lessens over time. 

As you pull each idea and draft a blog post, infographic, or SlideShare, you already have the main idea, relevant research, main talking points, voice, and tone ready. All you have to do is fill in the spaces in between.

6. Improves Overall Consistency

Similar to how the pillar approach lends itself toward relevancy, it also creates a sense of consistency throughout all content pieces. 

Since the content pillar works as a sort of "source document" for the blogs, social media posts, and infographics stemming from it, it's much easier to remain consistent with voice and tone. 

This way, even if additional pieces are written by other authors or outsourced, you increase your chances of all corresponding content pieces aligning with your brand and overall concept.

Start using the Pillar Approach Today

Topic clusters, pillar pages, and content grouping should absolutely be on your radar for improving your website's content and SEO. By demonstrating your expertise and creating a cohesive reader experience, you'll improve search engine rankings and establish your brand as a trusted authority in your industry.

Need help creating a pillar and cluster content strategy? Leighton Engage is here to develop a blog strategy for publishing and sharing relevant content with your audiences. Click the link below to get started.