Cornerstone Content: A Guide to boost Website Authority

Cornerstone content is the key to take your website to the next level. Let’s explore how these powerful pages will boost your SEO and establish your authority.
Cornerstone Content
Cornerstone Content
Cornerstone Content: A Guide to boost Website Authority
Cornerstone content is the key to take your website to the next level. Let’s explore how these powerful pages will boost your SEO and establish your authority.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
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What sets apart certain content as the backbone of a successful website?

That is how the Cornerstone Content works..! It is the heart of your content strategy and intended to inform, engage and rank.

It is the ticket for  increasing SEO, establishing credibility and retaining readers. 

Let’s explore more in detail how to create cornerstone content that makes your website work.

What is Cornerstone Content?

The cornerstone content forms the foundation of your content strategy. It acts as a central hub for the related topics and targets high-value keywords.

Put it simply, the most significant and detailed articles on your website are referred to as cornerstone content. 

The significant features of cornerstone content includes,

  • It provides the most value by covering the topic in-depth.
  • It represents the main theme of your website, your main area of expertise or business emphasis.
  • It is regularly updated. So it remains relevant and fresh over time.
  • These pages ought to get the most links from both internal and external sources.

How Cornerstone Content drives SEO Effectiveness?

Well structured and authoritative content is highly favored by search engines.

So, in this section let’s explore how cornerstone content drives SEO effectiveness.

  • Cornerstone pages act as hubs. It connects various related posts. Thus helps the search engines to understand the structure of the site.
  • By offering unmatched value, cornerstone content helps to rank for broader and high competition keywords.
  • The site’s credibility gets enhanced as these pages demonstrate expertise in a particular field.
  • Reputable websites are more likely to offer backlinks to high-quality cornerstone content. This further boosts SEO.
  • Acting as the central hub in a topic cluster,  it highlights how relevant your website is for a specific topic.
  • The likelihood of well-structured cornerstone content appearing in featured snippets is higher. It further increases visibility.
  • When cornerstone content is strategically linked, it improves crawl efficiency. These internal linking guides the search engine bots through your website and makes it easier for them to index your pages.
  • Users are more likely to stay on your site for longer when you have thorough and engaging content. This increase in dwell time tells search engines that your page is worthwhile.

How to identify potential Cornerstone Content Topics?

However, it’s challenging to decide on which topic should serve as the cornerstone topic for the website.

So, let’s explore how to identify potential cornerstone content topics:

  • Learn the needs of your audience. Make use of surveys, forums and social media to research their pain points, questions and goals.
  • Audit your existing content. Identify which topics are high-performing and missing relevant to your niche.
  • Conduct Keyword Research. Set your sights on evergreen and high-volume keywords with little to moderate competition.
  • Analyze your competitors. Study their cornerstone content. Then identify opportunities for improvement and expansion.
  • Align the topics with the goals of your business. This means select topics that directly support the goals of your brand, products and services.
  • Decide on intent based keywords. This makes sure the type of content aligns with the needs of your user, whether it is informational, how-to or comparative.
  • Prioritize broad topics. This means choosing overarching topics that have the potential to develop into multiple relevant subtopics.
  • Give Evergreen Topics Priority. Steer clear of trends and concentrate on long-term and relevant topics.
  • Validate demand, search volume and competition levels using analytics tools. Before developing a complete cornerstone page, publish smaller content pieces to determine audience interest.

Steps to create Effective Cornerstone Content:

If you have heard of cornerstone content but are unsure of how to create it effectively, not to worry – you are not alone.

Creating cornerstone content is similar to building the foundation of a sturdy house. It must be solid, reliable and long-lasting.

Here is the step-by-step guide to create a killer cornerstone content:

1.Identify Your Core Topic

To begin with creating the cornerstone content, the first and foremost step is to figure out your core topic.

These topics are the main and fundamental ideas upon which your website is built around. It should align with your expertise, the overall purpose of the website and your audience’s needs.

For instance, if you are running a digital marketing blog, your core topics will be SEO strategies, Content Marketing tips or Social Media Marketing.

Thus these topics serve as umbrellas. The related articles and resources will be grouped under these topics.

However, the ultimate aim of this initial step is to find the areas in which you want to be seen as an authority.

So, once you have decided your core topics, it is considerably simpler to write cornerstone articles that act as the primary sources for those topics.

In addition, if your topics are clear, all of your supporting content will organically connect to these pillars.  It further strengthens the overall structure and relevance of your website.

2.Dive into Keyword Research

Now you are clear with your core topics. So the next step is to dive deeper into keyword research.

This is where you will determine which keywords your audience are searching for and which one will improve your content’s search engine ranking.

For creating cornerstone content on  “SEO Strategies”, the relevant keywords will be “SEO Optimization”, “On-Page SEO” and “SEO Optimization”.

Thus keyword research helps you to learn more about your audience’s interest. With that, you will be able to create content that meets their needs and answers their questions.

So make use of keyword research tools to identify the high volume keywords related to your topic. But, don’t just focus on broad keywords. Look for Long tail keywords too. 

Because long tail keywords help you to target specific search intent and attract more qualified traffic. Instead of just targeting “SEO”, take into consideration “How to improve SEO rankings for beginners?”.

It also confirms that you are targeting the search terms with enough search volume and low competition. As a result your content will have a better chance of ranking.

Once you have picked up the right keywords, organically integrate them into the cornerstone content. Thus the content’s value gets increased and optimized for search engines.

3.Plan a Strong Content Structure

Cornerstone content is longer than a regular blog post. Thus having a clear and strong structure will prevent you from becoming overwhelmed.

It is equivalent to organizing a well-built house. To build a strong foundation, everything must be in the right place.

1.Begin with outlining the cornerstone content.

2.Break it down into sections that address various facets of the topic. Each section should feel connected but also stand on its own. If your cornerstone content is about “SEO Best Practices”, then you need to include sections on “On-Page SEO”, “Off-Page SEO” and “Technical SEO”.

3.To make your content easier for readers to follow, organize with clear sub headings and bullet points within each section.

4.This structure helps the audience to navigate through the content easily and makes it easier for search engines to scan. This further supports SEO rankings.

5.A simple content structure includes a,

  • Introduction which explains why the topic is important and what the readers can expect.
  • Key Sections which tackle the specific aspect of the main topic.
  • Conclusion/CTA which summarizes the main points and guides the readers to take the next step. For example, downloading a free resource or exploring a related article.

Thus a well-structured cornerstone content contributes to the creation of an extensive resource that addresses all relevant queries of the audience. It also links back to the supporting content on your website.

4.Write Content that is Exceptional

Here is where the magic takes place. Create content that genuinely amazes your readers.

Cornerstone content is the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and add significant value.

Someone should think, “Wow, I don’t need to look anywhere else,” after landing on your page.

  • Begin with focusing on your audience. Figure out what are their pain points, questions or challenges related to your topic?
  • Address those directly by offering practical and actionable guidance.
  • Create the content simple to comprehend and apply. Add examples, statistics, illustrations and real-world applications to make it engaging and rich.
  • It’s also important how your tone is. Make an effort for a voice that is both professional and approachable. 
  • The aim is to make the readers feel like they are learning from a reliable source. 
  • Plus, this is cornerstone content. So, make the extra effort. Keep it comprehensive, well-researched and evergreen. So that it will remain useful for a long time.
  • Finally, wrap it up with a clear call-to-action (CTA). The reader should be aware of what to do next like encouraging readers to explore related articles, sign up for a newsletter or reach out for services.

5.Bring In Internal links Thoughtfully

The cornerstone content doesn’t live in isolation. It serves as the central link that connects the other pieces of content on your site.

This shows to search engines that your website has a well-structured hierarchy and encourages viewers to delve deeper. 

Plus, by spreading link equity throughout your website, these internal links improve your SEO game.

So internal links are crucial to the cornerstone content as they are the threads that connect your website. This means the created web of related articles points back to your cornerstone piece.

Here is how it works:

  • When you are creating your content, look for opportunities to link to other relevant pages on your website. For instance, if the cornerstone content is about “SEO strategies”, it will be linked to related detailed articles on “on-page SEO tips” or “how to build backlinks”.
  • The trick here is to be thoughtful. Don’t provide links merely for the sake of including them. 
  • The links you include should make sense. It should genuinely help the reader dive deeper into the topic. 
  • Use descriptive anchor text which means the words that can be clicked. So the viewers will understand exactly what they will find when they click.
  • Finally, link back to your cornerstone content from related pages. 
  • This will let the search engines know that your cornerstone content is the main authority on the topic. This increases the likelihood that it will rank higher.

6.Optimize for SEO

Creating cornerstone content is just half the fight. The main contributor to making sure your hard work actually gets seen is to optimize it for search engines. 

SEO is the spotlight that draws attention to the cornerstone content. It makes the content visible to your target audience.

Keyword Integration – Start with keywords. Utilize them organically throughout the content. Encompass them in the title, subheadings, meta description and image alt tags.  

But avoid Keyword Stuffing. Because, content that is easy to read and offers genuine value is preferred by search engines.

Readability – The second thing is to pay attention to readability. User-friendly content is highly favored by search engines. 

So, to make it easy for readers and search engines to navigate, break the content into shorter paragraphs, use bullet points and include clear headings. 

Meta Optimization – In search engine results, the title tag and meta description serve as a preview for your content. 

So integrate the focus keyword in both. Keep them concise yet compelling. A strong meta description will increase your Click Through Rate (CTR). It will give users a clear idea of what they will get from the page.

Internal and External Links – Include both internal and external links in your content.

Internal links help to connect the content on the site and External links demonstrate to search engines that you have done your research.

Technical SEO – Behind-the-scenes changes are also important. The cornerstone content page should be mobile-friendly, load quickly and the structure of the URL is optimized for search engines which are ideally short and keyword-rich.

The website should be secured with HTTPS. The XML sitemap should be clear, so that the search engines could easily crawl the content.

These technical aspects make sure that your cornerstone content receives the attention it merits.

7.Put in Multimedia to increase Engagement

Nobody enjoys reading a wall of words even if the information is valuable. Multimedia is beneficial in this instance.

The cornerstone content can be elevated by including images, videos and interactive elements. It also keeps the audience hooked.

For writing cornerstone content about “SEO Strategies”, infographics that break down the steps, screenshots showing real world examples and short video explaining the basics could be included. 

These elements will enhance the readability and engagement of the content. It will also improve the SEO of the content.

Because, content that keeps users on the page longer is highly favored by search engines.

The multimedia used in the content should be of high-quality, loads quickly and works well on mobile devices. Nobody likes to squint at a tiny chart on their phone or wait for a slow video to buffer.

8.Publish and Promote

As you press “publish,” make sure everything is prepared for success. Double check your formatting and make sure your SEO elements are in place.

Check the loading speed and mobile friendliness of the website. Both technically and aesthetically the cornerstone content should be excellent.

Publishing alone is not enough. You must tell others about it. 

  • Start by sharing your content on all social media platforms. 
  • Make your postings specific to each channel by using eye-catching images for Instagram and bite-sized takeaways for Twitter.
  • Next, step into email marketing. Send a dedicated email to your audience outlining your new content and explaining why it is a must-read.
  • Then include backlinks. Reach out to relevant websites, bloggers or industry leaders and ask them to link to your cornerstone content. So that the credibility and SEO ranking will get boosted.
  • Lastly, promote your cornerstone page using the existing content. Include links to it in product descriptions, landing pages and related blogs. 
  • Internal linking indicates to search engines how important your cornerstone content is and guides visitors to it.  

Thus publishing and promoting works together. It all comes down to making sure your efforts receive the visibility it deserves.

So, when executed correctly, this stage transforms your cornerstone content into a traffic magnet and a basis for the success of your website.

Example of Successful Cornerstone Content:

Healthline’s “Nutrition Topics” serves as a stellar example of cornerstone content done right.

Here is the breakdown of why their approach works so well:

“Vitamins and Supplements”, “Healthy Eating” and “Diets” are the central hubs into which Healthline structures its nutrition related cornerstone content.

Each hub deep dives into its respective topic with detailed subtopics, guides and linked resources. 

This is how they do it:

1.Detailed Information

  • Each nutrition topic hub covers a broad range of subtopics.
  • It includes benefits of specific vitamins, comparisons of diet plans and healthy eating tips.  
  • The content is maintained evergreen by frequently updating with the most recent research.

2.Scannable Layout

  • Healthlines cornerstone pages are made to be easily navigable. 
  • With clear headings and bullet points, the information is broken into short sections.
  • Both skimming and in-depth readers are catered to by this layout. 

3.Evidence Based Approach

  • Healthline makes sure that all of their information is backed by scientific studies.
  • To increase credibility, the majority of articles include references to peer-reviewed journals and medical professionals.

4.Internal Linking

  • Every hub provides links to relevant Healthline articles like in-depth analyses of certain supplements, workout advice and recipes. 
  • These internal links promote deeper site exploration and maintain reader engagement.

5.Multimedia Integration

Their cornerstone pages includes,

  • Infographics which make complex topics like calorie breakdowns or vitamin benefits, easier for visual learners to understand.
  • By graphically summarizing the information,short and engaging videos offer additional value.
  • To promote user participation, some hubs feature tools like meal planners and calorie calculators.

6.Excellence in SEO

  • High-value keywords like “Mediterranean diet plan,” “Vitamin D benefits,” or “Best diets for weight loss” are targeted by the cornerstone pages. 
  • By responding to frequently asked inquiries in a conversational manner, they also optimize for voice search.

Key Takeaways from Healthline’s “Nutrition Topics”

1.Trust is Vital – The trust of the audience is gained by backing the content with credible and evidence-based information. It establishes your website as an authority in your niche.

2.Importance of User-Friendly Design – Multimedia components combined with a clean and scannable layout guarantee different types of readers will easily access and engage with the content.

3.Evergreen Content takes first place – The relevance and SEO performance of the cornerstone content is maintained over time by updating it with the latest research and trends.

4.Effective Internal Linking – A web of interconnected content is created by strategic internal linking. It directs the readers to relevant resources. It also enhances user experience and aids in SEO. 

5.Multimedia boosts Engagement – Including interactive tools, videos and infographics enhances the content’s memorability and engagement. It urges readers to spend more time on your page.

6.Optimize for Voice Search – Adding frequently asked questions or conversationally written content aids in capturing voice search queries, which are becoming increasingly popular..

Conclusion

In conclusion, you have the opportunity to leave a lasting impression by creating cornerstone content.

So emphasize value, relevance and structure. By doing so, a strong basis for the success of your website will be created.

Finally, what cornerstone topic are you going to tackle next..?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the difference between Cornerstone Content and Pillar Content?

Cornerstone content is the most significant and comprehensive content on the website.

It focuses on broad and high value topics to build authority and improve SEO. 

Conversely, Pillar Content acts as a central hub for a specific topic. As a part of a content cluster strategy, it links to related sub topics in a structured way.

How long should cornerstone content be?

There is no strict word count for cornerstone content. It needs to be in-depth and ranges between 1500 to 3000 words.

It should cover the topic in detail without superfluous jargon.

Can Blog Posts be Cornerstone Content?

Absolutely! Comprehensive, evergreen and well-optimized blog posts can be used as cornerstone content.

But they should align with your main topics and link to other related posts.

Founder of 7 Eagles, Growth Marketer & SEO Expert

Ashkar Gomez is the Founder of 7 Eagles (a Growth Marketing & SEO Company). Ashkar started his career as a Sales Rep in 2013 and later shifted his career to SEO in 2014. He is one of the leading SEO experts in the industry with 8+ years of experience. He has worked on 200+ projects across 20+ industries in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, UAE, Australia, South Africa, and India. Besides SEO and Digital Marketing, he is passionate about Data Analytics, Personal Financial Planning, and Content Writing.
Discover How 7 Eagles Help Your Business

Founder of 7Eagles, Growth Marketer & SEO Expert

Ashkar Gomez is the Founder of 7 Eagles (a Growth Marketing & SEO Company). Ashkar started his career as a Sales Rep in 2013 and later shifted his career to SEO in 2014. He is one of the leading SEO experts in the industry with 8+ years of experience. He has worked on 200+ projects across 20+ industries in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, UAE, Australia, South Africa, and India. Besides SEO and Digital Marketing, he is passionate about Data Analytics, Personal Financial Planning, and Content Writing.
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