Building topical authority is a great way to boost your position in organic search results and improve your brand’s visibility in AI search. Positioning your brand as an expert in certain topics relies on the right strategy. And it all starts with defining your content pillars, which provide the framework for demonstrating expertise and establishing trust in your field.

Content pillars support your marketing and SEO strategy. Think of them in the same way you think about how physical pillars hold up a building’s structure. They’re the foundation for expressing your knowledge, ensuring relevance, and maintaining consistency across your content production and messaging. They’re also essential to the effective organisation of content and providing value to users.

Let’s take a closer look at content pillars, explore some common types and examples, and learn how to create pillars that will improve your own performance and results.

What are content pillars?

Content pillars are the key themes and categories around which all the content you produce is built. They’re your core topics that any articles, blog posts, guides, videos, e-books, whitepapers, and other resources you create cover. These should always align with your own industry, areas of expertise and authority, business goals, and audience needs.

Pillar content offers a rich source of material for your readers on a particular theme. It demonstrates expertise and authority by expanding on core topics and strategically interlinking with multiple cluster pages covering related content.

It all starts with a pillar page, a broad top-level page that serves as an all-encompassing introduction to the topic. Supporting content then sits below this page in your content architecture, delving deeper into specific strands related to that central theme.

Defining and building around content pillars ensures consistent and cohesive content creation that aligns with your messaging, values, and goals. This is vital for positioning yourself as an authority, satisfying Google’s EEAT guidelines for expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness, and improving your SEO and content marketing performance.

What’s the difference between content pillars and topic clusters?

A content pillar is a broad, overarching focus theme for your content, while a topic cluster is the subtopic that branches off from the pillar to go into more detail. This is often demonstrated with the hub-and-spoke model, where the content pillar is the hub, and topic clusters are the spokes.

Topic clusters are important because they build out content pillars and link them together, like spokes connecting to the hub of a wheel. They go into greater depth about themes related to the content pillar, providing valuable information for the audience and showing expertise and authority on the subject.

For example, if a marketing agency uses SEO as one of its content pillars, potential topic clusters could include things like technical SEO, local SEO, and international SEO.

Benefits of content pillars

Content pillars can significantly benefit your SEO strategy and topical authority. The pillar becomes a catalyst for a wealth of content, attracting users seeking information on a specific topic and promoting exploration while showcasing your expertise to build trust. These are just a few of the core benefits of content pillars for any brand.

Boost SEO performance

Applying a pillar content strategy creates an easily understandable structure for search engines. It also makes it easier to comprehend how pages and URLs within a website relate to each other, as they’re organised logically. This can reduce the risk of content duplication and keyword cannibalisation and show the breadth of your expertise within a space.

Enhance AI visibility

Content pillars provide a clear structure that AI and large language models (LLMs) use and prioritise to understand content relevancy, hierarchy, and topical authority. This can improve the chances of content being discovered, used, and linked to in Google’s AI Overviews (AIO), as well as increasing citations in LLMs.

Pillar content and topic clusters are also helpful for Google’s query fan-out, as they provide comprehensive information for sub-queries that support AIO and Google AI mode.

Demonstrate expertise and authority

After users land on your content hub, you can lead them in different directions, cementing your expertise through the volume of content on offer. Topic clusters must be relevant, high-quality, and connected to the content pillar, so site visitors associate your brand with the topic.

Increase time on page

An engaging and easy-to-use content pillar will keep users on your site for longer. Users staying on your site and pages for prolonged periods is a strong sign they’re topically relevant. If they can get all the information they need in one place, they’ll be less likely to look elsewhere for information.

Improve internal linking

When your content pillar is interconnected with related internal links, it helps keep your website’s content organised and easy to navigate. Optimising your internal links also distributes authority and ranking power between your pages. Use an appropriate anchor text for your internal links to help Google understand its relevance.

Types of content pillar pages

There are three main types of content pillar pages — ‘Guides’, ‘How-To’, and ‘What-Is’. Consider your target audience and their search intent to decide what type of content pillar page to implement. Let’s take a closer look at each of the types of content pillars:

Guides

A guide content pillar gives the reader a complete overview of the topic. It provides answers and authoritative coverage of common questions. Guides should cover all top-level queries and serve as a content hub, linking to other pages and resources (cluster pages) for further details and a deeper dive into specific topics.

Most guide pillar pages are evergreen and act as an ‘ultimate guide’ or ‘beginner’s guide’ to a theme. They present foundational information about a topic and attract top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) search traffic from people interested in the subject, before directing them towards other content assets to continue their journey.

Guide pillar page example

Asana’s ‘How Asana works’ page is a good example of a guide pillar page within the software-as-a-service (SaaS) sector. It provides an overview of what Asana is and how it works, with links to other related guides and how-to pages for greater depth.

This creates a good entry point for beginners wanting to understand more about Asana. It captures search for top-level queries and directs users to related articles within most segments. This content pillar is an evergreen page containing information that should require minimal updates over time.

screenshot of Asana guides page showing its content pillars
Source: Asana

How-to

A How-to pillar page aims to help the reader accomplish a task or solve a problem. These are essentially tutorials that take the user through processes step-by-step and advise on the best practices to achieve a task. They can be aimed at beginner or experienced audiences.

How-to content pillar pages position your business as the solution to the reader’s pain points. They help the reader achieve a goal relevant to your industry, demonstrating your expertise and providing valuable content for the audience.

Good how-to pillar pages include supporting video, images, and diagrams with clear bullet points and steps.

How-to pillar page example

‘Skin 101: how to build a basic skincare routine’ is a good example of a how-to pillar page from Dermalogica. It’s a clear beginner’s guide for basic skincare that includes numbered steps to help the reader achieve their goal (to create a simple skincare routine).

The how-to guide supports the skin health content pillar and has links to products, blog posts, and other related content, such as a moisturiser guide. Its structure makes it easy for readers, search engines, and AI tools to comprehend and explore links between different pages.

By providing a solution for users, it helps position Dermalogica as a skincare expert and builds authority on the topic. It’s also authored by a licensed skin therapist, which improves its trustworthiness.

screenshot of a how-to guide on the Dermalogica website.
Source: Dermalogica

What-is

A what-is pillar page is an effective way to introduce users to a topic. These capture search traffic around ‘what is’ and related queries to explain a topic in detail. They’re incredibly useful when your goal is to rank for keywords aimed at a beginner audience and attract TOFU traffic.

Think of how many times you’ve entered a ‘what is’ search query. If Google directs users to your pillar page which describes and explains the topic in-depth, you’ll quickly gather topical authority within your niche.

Explainer articles, blog posts, and videos are all common examples of what-is content pillar pages. You can break complex subjects down into chapters or separate content assets where necessary, making it easier to digest and comprehend.

What-is pillar content defines the subject and helps users build their knowledge and better understand a topic while linking to related content.

What-is pillar page example

This ‘What is a workflow process?’ page from Miro is a good example of a what-is content pillar. It answers the main question about what a workflow process is, with sections covering related queries and examples to aid understanding.

This targets TOFU search for people looking for information about workflow processes. As it directly answers the question, this should help search engines and LLMs understand and use the relevant information and consider Miro as an authority.

It goes into further detail about the topic with supporting sections, examples, and links to templates.

screenshot of what is a workflow process post on the Miro website.
Source: Miro

Industry content pillar examples

Brands in every industry benefit from using content marketing pillars to structure their output. Here are some effective content pillar examples from different sectors to inspire your business.

Travel content pillar examples

Many travel companies use destination guides as a content pillar. These can focus on a specific continent, country, or city. Rough Guides does this for many locations, such as Italy.

The content pillar page for Italy includes key information about why people might visit the country, where to go, and what to do. It answers common questions about when to visit, what to pack, and how to get around to capture search and align with audience needs.

The page has great interior links to subtopics such as specific trips in Italy, itineraries, and even YouTube videos providing insights from locals. These go into greater detail on each aspect and link back to the Italy content pillar page.

screenshot of Italy travel guide on Rough Guides website.
Source: Rough Guides

SaaS content pillar examples

The navigation menu for the blog on the Zapier website is a good example of using content pillars effectively in the SaaS sector. Guides, blog posts, and other resources are organised into distinct pillars, including automation, productivity, and business growth.

Each pillar page has a couple of featured articles and then links to subtopics within that field. These aim to address customer pain points, explain technical issues, and provide greater depth with a range of What-Is, How-To, and Guides.

screenshot of 5 systems you should automate today blog post on the Zapier website.
Source: Zapier

Ecommerce content pillar examples

Gymshark uses content pillars effectively across its blog categories. The rest of the Gymshark website is a standard ecommerce site with product and category pages. However, the blog provides an array of insights, advice, and guides related to health and fitness.

The blog currently has five content pillars:

  • Explore
  • Gymshark
  • Product & Style
  • Fitness
  • Health

Each pillar has a dedicated focus and links to detailed pages offering more depth on specific but related content. For example, the Health content pillar branches out into topics not covered elsewhere, such as recipes, mental health, and sleep.

This allows Gymshark to cover relevant and helpful topics for its audience while effectively and naturally capturing related search traffic.

screenshot of Gymshark blog homepage.
Source: Gymshark

How to create content pillars

Understanding your brand and audience is vital to identify the core themes of your content pillars. This allows you to define a clear strategy built around content pillar pages that align with your business and satisfy Google’s EEAT guidelines. Follow these steps to help you create effective content pillars.

1. Choose a content pillar topic

Firstly, identify your overarching content pillar topic. This must be highly relevant to your business and industry, with a healthy search volume that you can cover in detail, including supporting subtopic keywords. It should be a topic where you can demonstrate real expertise and authority.

Consider your audience and their pain points by researching common search queries on the topic and reviewing any customer support interactions. Good content pillars provide valuable insights within your sphere of influence. Avoid making the content pillar topic too niche — if it is, use it as a spoke to branch off from a broader pillar instead.

You might also want to use AI tools to help identify content pillars. Feed your website and any existing URLs, along with relevant audience insights and competitor information, into LLMs and prompt them to find content gaps and themes. This can highlight potential pillar topics, but always check and ensure they align with the goals and needs of your business and audience.

2. Create a list of subtopics and long-tail keywords

Research the search terms your audience uses so you can form a list of keywords to build your pillar page around. Consider their search volume, difficulty, and the keywords your competitors’ pillar pages rank for. Separate these keywords into those to target for your pillar page, and those that will be used for supporting content.

The pillar topic’s keywords should have sufficient search volume to create a valuable ranking opportunity. For subtopics, target keywords with lower search volumes first, as this will help you build domain and topical authority and help you identify more niche user pain points. You can then fight for higher keyword difficulty search terms later.

Once you’ve gathered an extensive list of long-tail keywords, you can easily create subtopics that feed off your pillar page. Check and ensure these are all relevant to the content pillar and still within your remit of experience and expertise.

3. Evaluate any existing content

Before you start thinking about content pillar ideas, evaluate your existing content. Can it be reused or repurposed? Ensure it builds user trust and satisfies SEO requirements by hitting Google’s EEAT standards.

Review your current top-performing content, as this can help you refine potential pillar ideas. Pages with high click-through rates, high time on page, and low bounce rates often indicate they’re engaging and aligned with your audience’s needs. These can be suitable for building content pillars.

Evaluating existing content also avoids keyword cannibalisation and content duplication. With new or optimised content as part of a pillar strategy, each piece must target a unique key phrase.

As you implement your content pillar strategy, be patient with search engines, as they take time to understand your site’s structure. Over time, they’ll find, crawl, and index your pages, helping your site build topical authority.

4. Check out the competition

Competitor research plays a key role in most marketing activities, and creating a content pillar strategy is no different. Assess the competition for your content pillar ideas by looking at direct competitors and the content that surfaces when searching for your chosen topic.

Think about the user’s search intent and the content format that best matches your query. The leading pages in SERPs are a strong indicator of what you should emulate, so look at what types of content rank well and use it as a template before adding your own flavour.

Check if competitors cover the topic with their own content marketing pillars or just standalone blog posts. This can help identify any gaps and opportunities, such as thin competitor content you could expand upon, and any strengths to emulate.

Creating unique and valuable content is essential, so don’t just copy a competitor’s ideas. Use insights gained from competitor research to build your own effective pillar content strategy to produce engaging and original pages that resonate with your audience.

5. Create your content pillar

After doing all the necessary research, it’s time to plan and produce your content pillar. This must include high-quality content that’s well-written, engaging, and provides value to the user. These are important elements to consider when creating a content pillar:

  • Keywords
  • Headers
  • Word count
  • Internal links
  • Images and video
  • CTAs (call to actions).

The pillar page is your foundation, but you also need to devise a deeper content calendar that covers all subtopics to support it. This helps form a clear plan and avoids any duplication.

Structure

Ensure your content pillar has a logical structure that’s user-friendly and easy for search bots to crawl and index. Users should be able to land on your site and fully explore your topic without returning to SERPs.

This requires an engaging, relevant, and keyword-rich headline (H1) that outlines the content pillar, followed by headers that break it down into subsections. Comparing against content that already ranks is a good way to get an idea of an effective structure and sections.

The content should flow naturally and logically. Using questions in headers, breaking parts up with bullet points, and including CTAs that guide users to the information they need creates a natural and engaging structure.

Interlinking

Natural internal linking is essential to your information architecture and sharing link equity, helping with navigation, and distributing page and topical authority. The internal linking structure also provides a deeper context for search engines.

Use your content pillar plan to identify relevant pages to link to that add more information and value. Natural and relevant anchor text and CTAs, where relevant, help create an effective interlinking structure.

6. Track page performance

Monitor the performance of your content pillar from the off so you can assess metrics such as engagement, organic traffic, and keyword rankings. Are they driving results and helping you meet your business goals?

  • Use any pages that perform well to your advantage by linking them to newer pages to share link equity.
  • Review subtopics for content gaps and look for changes in the SERPs or user intent to keep your topical authority in top health.
  • Optimise pages that aren’t performing. Improve content quality, depth, EEAT, and naturally link to different parts of your content pillar. If you can combine this high-value content with a great user experience, your content pillar will have a good chance of succeeding.

Add content pillars to your strategy

Implementing a content pillar strategy with a steady output of high-quality and linkable, related content will naturally earn you visibility in SERPs. Topical authority on one or more areas is fuel for better organic traffic, so it’s worth investing time in your content creation and structure to achieve this.

The more keywords you rank for on your given topic, the more authority you will have. Use your content pillars to achieve high rankings, engage your audience, and drive conversions. Constantly look at how you can strengthen its value for both the user and search engines.

At SALT, we can help develop a content marketing strategy built around content pillars appropriate for your brand.