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What is pillar pages – and why do you need it?

Everyone wants to be seen – you too (though you may try to deny it). In particular, we want to be visible in search engines so that potential buyers can link your product or service to the need or question they have.

And to earn the best rankings in search engines there are two things you need to have in place: pillar pages and topic clusters.

And there you have it: the answer to how you can rank higher in search results on Google. If only it were that simple.

How Does It Work in Practice?

Fortunately, there are many things you can do to improve your SEO and grow your visibility online, and if there’s something you should involve yourself in, it would be pillar content. It's as simple as this: it's no longer just about keywords, it's about key topics.

Just like us humans, Google has become wiser throughout the years. The algorithms that used to interpret keywords one by one in order to present the best results to the one who searched, can now understand the connection between the different keywords.

Therefore, you too should switch the focus from keywords to topics. By organising your content in so-called "topic clusters" you will increase the likelihood that precisely your content ends up appearing in search results associated with this topic.

So how does it work in practice? It's a bit like constructing a blog with different categories. Instead of having the blog as the main page for hundreds of articles you write, you create one main page for each topic.

All the articles that are linked to the topic lead to this main page, and the main page links back. Still a bit unclear? Take a look at this video from HubSpot which explains it further:

 




What Do You Need to Think About When Creating Topic Clusters?

Remember that the main page (pillar page) should be general for the overall theme.

Each subpage, or in this case blog posts, may go more specifically into an area within the overall theme. For example: if the pillar page is about inbound marketing, blog posts linking to that page can be “What Are Personas?” or “What’s HubSpot?” that go deeper into the areas you mentioned on the pillar page.

The main page will link to the content that goes more in-depth on various themes, and the subpages will link back to the main page. This way you tie the "cluster" together.

Structure your website in clusters so that the main pages are in the navigation menu.

Be consistent with the keywords you use in the anchor text when you link between the different pages. This makes it easier for search engines to understand the context while reinforcing the credibility of your domain within the given topic.

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