What is a Pillar Page?
A pillar page is a comprehensive, in-depth webpage that serves as a central hub for a topic. It provides a broad overview of the topic and links to other pages (called cluster pages) that offer in-depth insights into specific parts of the topic.
For example, the webpage below is a pillar page. It is optimized for the keyword “Vanilla cake” and links to multiple cluster pages about the different types of vanilla cakes, including:
- Vanilla white cake
- Vanilla naked cake
- Vanilla checkerboard cake
- Vanilla cupcakes
- 6-inch vanilla cake
Example of a Pillar Page
Let us assume we have a site that teaches yoga. The site will have multiple pillar pages, including one titled “Beginner yoga poses.” This pillar page can then link to cluster pages like:
- 10 easy yoga poses for beginners
- How to build a daily yoga routine
- Common mistakes in beginner yoga
Similarly, the site can have another pillar page titled “Basics and benefits of yoga,” which links to cluster pages like:
- Mental health benefits of yoga
- Yoga vs. other fitness programs
- Why consistency matters in yoga practice
Both pillar pages can also link out to the same cluster pages. So, they will both link to a cluster page like “Top 5 health benefits of practicing yoga,” which is relevant to the both of them.
Importance of Pillar Pages
Pillar pages are authoritative and can rank for focus keywords with a high search volume と keyword difficulty. This makes them great for bloggers who want to build authority within a topic or niche.
Pillar pages also provide some secondary benefits, including improved 内部リンク, rankings, and a better ユーザーエクスペリエンス. They also improve conversion rates, increase user trust, and reduce 直帰率.
For instance, the internal links on pillar pages allow visitors and search engines to understand the hierarchy of the content published on the site. These internal links also improve SEO by sending リンクエクイティ と ページランク to the pages receiving the link.
From a user experience perspective, pillar pages offer visitors a comprehensive overview of a subject. This allows them to explore related topics more easily without needing to navigate to another site or enter a new search query into their search engine.
Well-designed pillar pages also keep visitors engaged longer. They encourage visitors to move through more pages on the site and help build trust by presenting content in a logical, easy-to-follow manner. Overall, this boosts the site’s visibility and rankings on 検索結果ページ.
Relationship Between a Pillar Page and a Topic Cluster
Many websites nowadays use the topic cluster model. That is, they publish multiple related content on a single topic. These content are then structured into topic clusters (also called content hubs), which, at their most basic, consist of a single pillar page and multiple cluster pages.
The pillar pages are the main pages in a content hub and they link to cluster pages that cover specific areas of the topic in detail. For example, a site that teaches yoga can have content hubs like:
- Benefits of yoga
- Yoga for beginners
The “Yoga for beginners” content hub can contain content like:
- Beginner yoga poses (pillar page)
- 10 easy yoga poses for beginners (cluster page)
- How to build a daily yoga routine (cluster page)
- Common mistakes in beginner yoga (cluster page)
The “Benefits of yoga” content hub can also contain content like:
- Basics and benefits of yoga (pillar page)
- Mental health benefits of yoga (cluster page)
- Yoga vs. other fitness programs (cluster page)
- Why consistency matters in yoga practice (cluster page)
It is important to know that the topic cluster or content hub is not a physical page. Instead, it is a structure for linking the pillar and cluster pages. Only the pillar and cluster pages exist as physical webpages.
Pillar Page Best Practices
You should follow on-page, off-page、 と technical SEO best practices for your pillar pages. However, you should also keep these pillar page-specific best practices in mind to improve your chances of ranking on search results pages.
1 Focus on a Broad Topic
A pillar page should center around a single topic that is wide enough to support multiple subtopics. If the topic is not wide enough, it could lead to keyword cannibalism, wherein you end up with multiple content competing for the same or similar keywords.
Keyword cannibalism will cause your content to compete with themselves, which would affect their rankings on search results pages. A narrow topic can also lead to thin content, as there wouldn’t be enough content to include in your cluster pages.
2 Avoid Merging Multiple Topics
Your pillar page topic should be broad enough to cover multiple cluster pages, but not too broad to the point where it contains multiple topics.
A pillar page with multiple topics can overwhelm and confuse visitors and search engines. Such content will also appear disjointed to visitors, which will hurt your user experience and defeats the point of the pillar page and topic cluster.
3 Be Comprehensive but Not Exhaustive
You should strike a balance between covering the topic in depth and not going too deep to the point where the pillar page begins to cover content that should be found on the cluster page.
Your pillar page should address major aspects of a topic. It should give a well-rounded but not exhaustive overview of a topic. That should be left for the cluster page.
4 Link to All Relevant Cluster Pages
Internal links to cluster content are essential for the topic cluster model to work. These links guide visitors toward more specific content and help search engines understand the relationship between your content.
These internal links also distribute page authority and improve SEO across the topic cluster. However, make sure to follow internal link best practices, such as ensuring the links are ナチュラル and contextual with appropriate anchor texts.
5 Include a Table of Contents
A clickable table of contents allows visitors to jump directly to specific sections of the pillar page. This improves the user experience as visitors can go directly to the content they are interested in.
The table of contents also allows visitors to assess the structure and depth of the pillar page before reading it. This allows them to confirm that your pillar page contains the answer that they seek. From an SEO perspective, a table of contents also improves the crawlability と indexability of the pillar page.