Cornerstone Content Explained
Cornerstone content is a phrase digital marketers hear often, but many are still confused about what it actually means.
In simplest terms, cornerstone content is the content you want to prioritize above others on a website. These are the pages or blog posts you want to rank highest because it provides readers with exactly what you do, why you do it, and what products/services you want to highlight.
Think of a category page, such as ContentMender’s SCORE Blog Services page. This is where we want prospects searching for blog writing services to land first, whether they get there from a search query or a mention on social media. You want to give visitors a strong and quick impression of what your business is all about.
These pieces should be simple – especially within the first few sentences – and tell exactly what you do. If you sell designer shoes for theme-focused weddings, readers should understand this immediately. You can get deeper into the subject matter as a reader roll through the content of these pages, but for immediate engagement, simplicity reigns.
Think of these cornerstone pieces as the foundation of a home. Just as the foundation supports everything in a home, cornerstone content will support all future pieces of content, from videos to blog posts.
These pages/posts are higher in the website hierarchy of items, typically one-click away from the homepage. And don’t think these pieces just need to be a main service/product or category page; it can also be a blog post that prioritizes a certain aspect of your business, such as our process of matching writers to clients.
To gain the most advantage of these cornerstone pieces you’ll also want to internally link to them from your other top blogs – this shows search engines a signal that you want to prioritize these cornerstone pieces over others.
What does this all mean to you either as an agency of businesses or a business itself? Below are three major benefits.
1. Increases Your Brand’s Mission
Every business aims to build its brand within the shortest time possible. But of course, this is not a simple task.
A constant flow of engaging content helps with this mission, such as a strong blogging strategy that helps educate your audience. Those types of blogs must educate and influence first, and they should always point back to one of your cornerstone content pieces that explains exactly what your business is about.
2. Creates a Positive First Impression
The first impression your business makes can determine its growth rate. Creating a cornerstone article of high quality boosts the impression your business makes to the clients. It makes them interested in visiting your business website to view the services and products you offer. This gives your business an upper hand making the clients want to visit a page on your site any time they are on the search engines.
3. Attracts New Visitors on Your Website
Every business owner looks to not only attract more visitors to their website but to also sustain the current audience. Your regular audience might not need the piece of content that much because they have the details of your website, including the services and products you offer.
To the visitors, creating a piece of cornerstone content will give them directions to your website without much straining. It acts as a compass to the visitors on the website.
Concluding Thoughts
Make your cornerstone pieces the foundation of your website, and make sure they support every piece of content going forward. Again, many will see these as category and service pages. We especially see category pages that are thin with content, but they can use the most because they are the main support for every product or service listed on that respective page.
Special attention and care are required when writing your cornerstone article to make it the most authoritative and complete. These pages are supposed to be easy to find on your website. They also require a constant flow of internal links that are pointing towards them so that search engines like Google can see that you are prioritizing these pages.
