How can you Create Pillar and Cluster Pages for your Website?
Pillar pages cover a particular topic extensively, while cluster pages focus on sub-topics discussed in the pillar pages. Both pillar and cluster pages are internally linked. Together these pages form content silos or topic clusters. Our previous blog discussed the benefits of pillar pages for SEO. This article will discuss the steps to create pillar and cluster pages on your website. If you need help with including pillar and cluster pages in your overall SEO strategy, you can hire a professional SEO Agency in Ontario.
Types of Pillar Pages
Before discussing the steps to create pillar pages on your website, let’s discuss their types. Pillar pages are of the following types.
Ultimate Guide Pillar Page
These long-form pillar pages provide a comprehensive guide on a particular topic. Usually, they cover multiple aspects of a specific topic. As a result, they act as a resource for readers looking for in-depth information about that particular topic. They usually rank high on SERP for keywords relevant to that article, driving huge traffic.
The Hub Pillar Page
These are light on text but contain links to other pages with in-depth content related to the hub page’s topic. As a result, they help improve the site’s structure.
Hybrid Pillar Page
It is a combination of the ultimate guide and hub pillar page. This type of pillar page contains long-form content that provides an overview of a topic and links to other cluster pages within the same content hub.
6 Steps to Create Pillar and Cluster Pages
Now that you understand the different types of pillar pages let’s discuss how to create one for your website.
Select a topic for content silos
The first step to creating pillar and cluster pages is selecting topics relevant to your business or industry. The purpose of choosing relevant topics is to improve your website’s SERP ranking for related broad and high-volume keywords and drive quality web traffic. You need to select a topic that is expansive enough to create multiple related content on sub-topics.
The following tips can help you select topics for pillar pages.
- Identify foundational topics in your niche
- Identify related topics your audience is currently showing interest in
- Perform competitor’s analysis to check the topics they have covered
- Identify content gap
- Identify topics that can help generate leads, sales, or conversion
- Use keyword research tools to research topics
Keyword research
Next, you need to perform keyword research to identify keywords to target through your pillar and cluster pages. Optimizing your topic cluster content with relevant keywords with healthy search volume and achievable keyword difficulty can help improve your website’s organic ranking and traffic for related searches. However, while focusing on keywords you should not ignore prioritizing topics. Your primary goal should be to help your readers understand the content of your topic cluster better.
Following a reader-first approach can help you identify appropriate keywords for your content. As Google prioritizes helpful content and user experience when ranking a website, this approach can help improve your website’s SERP performance.
Keywords for your pillar pages are closely related to the main theme of your topic cluster, have a high search volume, and should provide opportunities for multiple sub-topics. On the other hand, keywords for cluster pages are usually long-tail keywords. Their purpose is to support the pillar page topic.
You can use Google to identify keywords for your cluster pages. For instance, you can search for the pillar page keyword in Google’s search bar. Google autocomplete, ‘People also ask,’ and ‘related searches’ sections are some of the best places to find ideas and keywords for cluster page topics.
Create an outline to cover the topic cluster
An outline for your pillar and cluster pages is not just limited to listing headings and subheadings. The focus of an outline is to ensure comprehensive topic coverage and create opportunities for internal linking. The following tips can help you create a proper outline for pillar and cluster pages.
- Focus on target keyword—When creating an outline for your pages, keep in mind the target keyword you want individual pages to rank for. Next, ensure that target keywords are naturally included within your content. This will help keep your content focused, relevant, and optimized for search engines and users.
- Include cluster page topics – When creating an outline for your pillar page, include sub-topics for cluster pages. It will help you develop comprehensive pillar pages and create links to cluster pages.
- Each page should thoroughly address specific topics – When structuring outlines for your pillar and cluster pages, ensure each of them can offer value independently.
Write and design the pillar page
Next, it’s time to write your pillar pages. Based on the outline you created, ensure your pillar page contains comprehensive content useful for your audiences. Additionally, you must follow SEO best practices to boost these pages’ SERP ranking. Your content should be unique, relevant, and offer value to your audiences. Besides, you should structure your content appropriately with headings, sub-headings, bullets, etc., for better user experience. It will encourage audiences to spend more time on your website checking your content. Increased dwell time will signal search engines that your website is relevant, which can further boost your site’s organic ranking and traffic.
Write cluster pages
After writing the pillar pages, it’s time to move to cluster pages covering sub-topics. The purpose of cluster pages is to support your pillar page. You should optimize each of your cluster pages with relevant secondary keywords. Further, you need to link all the pages (pillar and cluster) in your content silos. Links are an essential aspect of the topic cluster. Your pillar page should contain links to individual cluster pages. Each of these cluster pages should also link to your pillar page.
Promote your pillar pages
Creating pillar and cluster pages is not enough. You also need to promote your pillar pages. For instance, if you are investing in any advertising campaign or promoting any page on social media, it should focus on pillar pages. Promoting these comprehensive resources to your target audiences can help you drive more quality traffic. Besides, it will also help create opportunities for audiences to explore other pages in the topic cluster on your website.
Therefore, by following all these steps, you can effectively create pillar and cluster pages on your website. HireH Consulting offers comprehensive SEO services in Ontario. We can help develop effective SEO strategies for your website, involving pillar and cluster pages to boost your organic ranking and web traffic.
