Pillar Pages for Cybersecurity Companies
What is a Pillar Page?
Pillar pages are essential for organizing and structuring content in a user-friendly and search engine optimization (SEO) friendly way. These are central, comprehensive pieces of content that cover a broad, specific topic in depth, acting as a foundational hub that links to and organizes related subtopics – known as cluster content.
They work by providing a comprehensive overview of a subject while interlinking with more detailed subtopic pages. This improves website organization, user experience, and SEO performance by enhancing topical relevance and authority. Pillar pages establish a clear information hierarchy and provide a roadmap for visitors to navigate a website’s content pieces.
Interlinking content through hyperlinks enables website visitors to delve deeper into topics, extending their time on site. Furthermore, updating your pillar pages regularly provides fresh content to search engines, leading to improved rankings.
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Pillar pages are a crucial part of any cybersecurity digital marketing campaign. They help establish your organization as a leading industry voice, dramatically improve SEO performance, and can even generate high-quality sales leads. Contact Bora today to find out how we can create pillar pages to take your content marketing efforts to the next level.
The Role of Pillar Pages in Cybersecurity Content Strategy
Pillar pages are crucial to any successful cybersecurity content strategy. They enhance content visibility, improve SEO, and establish authority in a highly competitive industry. Comprehensive and content-rich, these web pages are central hubs for your chosen topics. By linking to more detailed subtopics on cluster pages, you offer your target audience a logical, satisfying user experience. Let’s look at the role pillar pages play in a cybersecurity content strategy in more detail.
Enhancing SEO Performance and Brand Visibility
Pillar pages play a critical role in improving your SEO and, hence, enhancing your brand’s visibility. The content structure they follow – serving as a single resource for a broad topic and linking to more in-depth articles on that particular topic – is favored by search engines, and, as such, your content ranks higher than it would otherwise. Also, it will keep users on your site rather than sending them elsewhere, further enhancing SEO.
Pillar pages are also an opportunity to stack your content with relevant keywords, including high-level terms like “network security” and long-tail variations like “how to prevent data breaches in small businesses.” Again, the more effectively you use keywords, the higher your content will rank, and the more people will see your work.
Similarly, Google rewards new, fresh content, and pillar pages are easy to update. As new trends, tools, or threats relating to your chosen topic emerge, you can expand your pillar page to cover these developments, further bolstering your page authorityWhat is Page Authority? Page Authority is a numerical score on a logarithmic scale, ranging from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating greater authority. This score is based on….
Establishing Authority Within Your Domain
As a cybersecurity provider, you need to convince potential clients that you know everything there is to know about your subject matter. Amidst a saturated market, you need to stand out from your competitors and prove that you can be trusted to protect your clients from threats. Pillar pages are one of the best ways to achieve this goal.
Pillar pages cover an entire topic, from the broadest strokes to the finest details. They contain everything a potential client might want to know about your solution and field of expertise. If you’re an authority in your field, potential customers will want to buy from you.
Crafting High-Performing Pillar Pages
So, we’ve established why pillar pages are essential – enhancing SEO, visibility, and brand authority – but how can you do them well? Let’s break it down.
Best Practices for Creating Effective Pillar Pages
Here are a few best practices that you need to keep in mind when creating your pillar pages:
Identify the subject areas that align your core business offerings to your target audience.
To effectively reach your target audience, it’s essential to identify the subject areas that align with your core business offerings. By understanding these focus areas, you can tailor your messaging and marketing efforts to better resonate with your readers and drive engagement. This can lead to increased brand recognition and, ultimately, drive business growth.
- Build out the core topic and subtopics using keyword research and analyzing competitors. One effective way to develop a comprehensive outline for your pillar pages is to conduct keyword research and analyze your competitors. This will help you identify the core topic and subtopics relevant to your audience and ensure that your content provides value and stands out from the competition.
- Create content for the identified pillar pages, between 1500-4000 words optimized for SEO, including relevant links, headings, and keywords.
- Advise the marketing team on the correct way to interlink all the content on their website. To ensure that the content on the website is easily accessible and navigable, it is essential to advise the marketing team on the correct way to interlink all the content. This will enhance the user experience and improve the website’s SEO. Proper interlinking can guide users to related content, increase the time spent on the website, and ultimately boost the website’s overall engagement metrics and domain authority.
Anatomy of a Great Pillar Page in Cybersecurity
The Managed Detection and Response (MDR) pillar page we created for ReliaQuest is an excellent example of a successful pillar page. It’s also just one of the pillar page examples on our site. Let’s break down what makes it work.
Format
The page is structured with well-organized headings, concise paragraphs, and visual aids, including infographics that clarify complex topics. Moreover, the flow of the page follows a user’s natural line of questioning about MDR solutions.
Table of Contents
Including the table of contents at the top of the page ensures users can skip to sections they’re interested in and find relevant content.
Call to Action (CTA)
Strategically placed CTAs ("Request a Demo" or "Get the Chart") encourage engagement and conversions throughout the content.
User Experience
The page is mobile-friendly, flows naturally, and includes visual assets to break up the copy.
Internal Linking
This pillar page includes links to relevant blogs throughout, meaning readers can continue their learning journey without leaving the ReliaQuest website.
Strategic Planning for Pillar Pages
Determine the Pillar Pages Your Website Needs
Start by identifying the key topics you want your pillar pages to address. These topics are typically related to the solution you provide. When choosing your particular topics, prioritize the ones with high search volume to ensure your pages rank better on search engine results pages (SERPs).
You then need to consider the needs and challenges of your target audience. For example, if your potential customers often need clarification about your solution and another similar solution, you should address that on your pillar page.
Topic Clusters: Expanding Your Content Reach
Once you have figured out what pillar pages you want to create, you need to start thinking about how to break down your core topics into more detailed subtopics, also known as topic clusters. The same rules apply: prioritize subtopics with high search volume, address the needs of your target audience, and are relevant to your solution. Each subtopic should have a detailed article you link to on the central pillar page. You should also link back to your main page from your topic cluster to boost your page authority.
Pillar Page Implementation and Optimization
Now you’ve done your planning, you should be ready to implement your pillar pages into your content marketing strategy. Here’s how to optimize your content for maximum impact.
SEO Tactics for Maximizing Pillar Page Impact
We’ve touched on this already, but let’s bring it all together. Here are the SEO tactics you can use to maximize the impact of your pillar pages:
Keyword Optimization
Using a mix of primary, secondary, and long-tail keywords related to your core topic and subtopic will help increase your organic traffic and ensure you’re high up on search engine rankings. Make sure these keywords are in your main copy and headers!
Internal Linking
Linking cluster content back to your pillar page (and vice versa!) will strengthen your topic clusters and improve your domain authority.
Content Structure
Breaking up your content into short, digestible sections with clear subheadings, bullet points, and visuals improves user experience and drives up time on page.
On-Page SEO
When creating your content, stick to established SEO best practices like using keyword-rich meta descriptions, optimizing image alt text, and ensuring fast loading speeds.
External Backlinking
Placing articles on third-party sites and backlinking to your pillar page can improve its ranking and enhance visibility.
Monitoring and Updating Your Pillar Pages
Once your pillar pages are live, you will need to keep an eye on their success and update them where necessary. Using tools like Google Analytics, Moz, and SEMrush to track metrics like page views, bounce rates, and keyword rankings will help you gauge their effectiveness, identify any issues, and update your content where necessary.
It’s also important to listen to customer and user feedback. If your target audience finds issues with your content, you need to address them. Use this feedback to refine content, fill gaps, clarify any confusing sections, and create new types of content. You’ll also need to assess your competitor’s content to ensure you stay ahead of the game.
Finally, you must continuously update your content – and create new, quality content – to keep up with emerging developments. New content will ensure that your pillar pages are relevant and accurate and boost your ranking on SERPs.
Challenges You May Face When Creating Pillar Pages
However, creating pillar pages comes with significant challenges that in-house marketing teams may struggle to overcome. Creating page after page of SEO-optimized, in-depth content is no mean feat.
Failure to understand the purpose and value of pillar pages
Some businesses struggle to understand the purpose of pillar pages and how to assemble them effectively. Many websites consist of unconnected solution briefs, products, resources, and blogs. This lack of structure results in a loss of value.
Internal silos and communication gaps
In some companies, different departments work in isolation. For instance, the bloggers write content, while the web team and internal writers also collaborate to create content. However, it’s essential to ensure that everyone is aligned on the topics and that there’s a clear structure in place. This is the value of a pillar page.
Lack of resources
Marketing teams usually have limited resources, which leads them to focus on creating sales materials. However, for pillar pages to serve their intended purpose, companies must generate ideas and content for internal and external blogs. This is a time-consuming task that requires significant effort. Unfortunately, marketing departments are often understaffed, and this task is frequently neglected, resulting in decreased SEO and, therefore, less organic traffic.
Long-term benefits
Creating pillar pages and building blogs around them may be time-consuming; however, it can result in increased organic traffic and means you don’t have to shell out for expensive pay for click programs. Therefore, companies must prioritize comprehending and implementing effective content-creation strategies for long-term success.
Why Choose Bora?
So, how can you overcome these challenges? By partnering with Bora. Partnering with Bora means partnering with a team with a deep understanding of the cybersecurity landscape. Our writers possess the knowledge and expertise to convey technical concepts in a clear and engaging manner.
Additionally, entrusting your pillar page copywriting needs to a dedicated team can save you valuable time and resources. You can focus on core business activities while we create compelling pillar page content.
Working with Bora also means you’ll enjoy a collaborative partnership. Your feedback and insights will be incorporated into the content creationWhat is Content Creation? Content creation refers to generating material, such as text, images, videos, or audio for online or offline platforms. Organizations typically create content to engage an audience,… process, ensuring the delivery of content that aligns with your vision and goals.
And, most importantly, with Bora you’ll witness measurable improvements in SEO and domain authority metrics, just like Itegriti did. Our pillar page efforts on Itegriti’s site grew their social media audience by 65%, drove an increase in the number of SERP results in the top 11 places by an average of 17%, and increased the number of referring domains by more than 160%.
But don’t just take our word for it – here’s what one of our top clients had to say about our ability to deliver on your projects:
“I have worked with Bora for a good number of years in a couple of different organisations. and it has always been a positive, easy and rewarding experience. No project or task has ever been too big, they are always flexible and accommodating to deadlines and company guidelines, whilst at the same time being able to add a different perspective and valuable ideas to projects.”
FAQs
How do pillar pages help improve SEO for cybersecurity companies?
Pillar pages help improve SEO because they follow a content structure favored by search engines, are stacked with keywords, and are an opportunity to continuously update existing content and upload new content.
How can I choose a topic for my pillar page?
Choose a broad topic that contains many subtopics and relates to your brand. It should be keyword-rich and relevant to your audience.
How long should a pillar page be?
Between 2000-5000 words, depending on the complexity of the topic
So, what are you waiting for? Schedule a discovery call with Bora today to discuss how we can create high-quality pillar pages that boost engagement, improve SEO, and establish your brand as an authority in the cybersecurity space.