Utilizing Pillar and Content Strategy to Drive Tangible Results

The content you provide on your staffing firm’s website is important. The way your staffing firm’s website is found in search engines is also very important. If you want to convert your site’s visitors into leads, you need to provide in-depth, relevant content that also provides a great user experience. So, how does one do this? The answer is on focusing your content and one way to do that is, through content pillar pages. Read on to find out how pillar pages in your content strategy drives tangible results.

What is a Pillar Page?
The Content Marketing Institute defines a pillar page, also known as content pillar or power page, as a webpage that covers the overall topic in depth and links to the clusters of related content. Through pillar pages, your staffing firm is presented as a thought leader on a topic, driving more traffic to your page and ultimately the rest of your website. Your pillar page is great for SEO. It boosts your search engine visibility by better organizing your content in topic clusters.

Now, what are topic clusters? Topic clusters and pillar pages work together to improve your SEO and content strategy. They are a way of interlinking all of the subtopics on your website to one core topic, which is your pillar page.

*Source: HubSpot

Your pillar page touches on all of these subtopics with internal links that take your site’s visitors to content that covers those subtopics in more depth. In conclusion, your topic cluster content links back to your pillar page. This results in an interconnected content experience that provides value and improved SEO.

Now that we’ve touched on topic clusters, let’s review the three different types of content pillars. The most commonly used types are:

• 10x content pillar page
• Resource pillar page
• Product or service pillar page

A 10x content pillar page is a single webpage that completely deconstructs every aspect of your core topic. It contains all content that your staffing firm owns and controls. In other words, it’s similar to an ungated eBook. A 10x content pillar page answers the questions that your audience is asking, offers optimal UI and UX, and it approaches your topic in a very unique way that grabs your audience’s attention. Overall, it’s a piece of content that is a deep dive into your topic which boosts your site in Google search results.

A resource pillar page does exactly what you think, it serves as a reference page. This page links to external and internal content. Similar to a 10x pillar page, a resource pillar page focuses on a broad topic and briefly covers all of the major subtopics within it by using links to resources of those subtopics. Think of it as a gathering of information from many different sources all on one page, making it a great reference page for your audience.

Lastly, a product or service pillar page focuses on the products/services your staffing firm provides. The Content Marketing Institute provides a great example, stating that this type of pillar page describes the types of services your provide, step-by-step approaches, pricing, and more. The way a product or service pillar page is created all depends on your organization and what it has to offer.

Why are Content Pillar Pages Important?
There are many reasons as to why content pillar pages are important and why it helps your staffing firm’s content strategy. For starters, it’s a great way to organize your website. It reduces redundant content and allows for your pages to all lead to your most relevant goals. This organization leads to an improvement of SEO. If you are creating redundant content, Google is not going to rank your page well in search results. It’s as simple as that. Pillar pages and content clusters forces your staffing firm to decide what your website and content strategy is really about, which eliminates unnecessary content. Creating relevant connections between your pages helps your Google search ranking as well as keeps your target audience interested.

Going further into SEO, pillar pages are great when it comes to ranking for specific keywords. Through keyword research, your staffing firm is able to find the right words/phrases that align with the goals of your pillar page. This also helps with your search engine rankings.

Interlinking is another goal of content pillar content pages and it’s very important. It’s very helpful for your audience because it allows for them to dive even deeper into your content by exploring different pieces of relevant topic clusters your website has to offer. One of the biggest benefits of this is that your target audience stays on your site longer as you are providing them a range of content that they are looking for. This is also great for SEO because as Google is crawling your site, it will recognize that your pillar page is one of the best places to learn about a specific topic, which helps your ranking immensely.

Something we discuss a lot is lead generation, and pillar pages are a great way to generate those leads. If your staffing firms pillar page has a high ranking for a specific keyword that is relevant to your industry and services, you are naturally going to attract many visitors. If those visitors find value in your content and site, you can potentially have a new lead.

Pillar content pages are great for your staffing firm content strategy. It provides a one-stop place for your audience, teaching them everything they need to know about a specific topic that is relevant to your organization and exposing them to even more relevant content throughout your site. Pillar pages establish your staffing firm as a though leader and allows a great chance for more lead generation. Contact us if you are interested in utilizing pillar pages in your content strategy. We’re here to help!

About S.J.Hemley Marketing
S.J.Hemley Marketing is a marketing and sales consulting firm focused on driving tangible results for professional services firms. Brand matters, but not without ROI. With over 20 years of sales and marketing experience within staffing and recruiting, we have helped to drive successful branding, sales training, lead generation activities as well as defining marketing strategy for top organizations. www.sjhemleymarketing.com