Having trouble working out what to say on your website blog? Let me help you with a quick guide to pillar content and how to define what topics matter to your audience.
What is pillar content for blogging?
In content marketing, we refer to pillar content as the key themes you wish to discuss throughout your articles (there are some other meanings of this term, which I covered in a guide in the content marketing dictionary).
When referring to blogging, content pillars might also be known as content categories or content buckets. In practice the concept shows you how much depth your chosen topics should have, allowing you to draw from them endlessly to present new ideas, opinions or evergreen content to your audience.
How to define your blog’s content pillars
Typically any marketer working for you would define your content pillars upfront for all of your digital marketing, whether that’s website content, blogging, social media or email marketing. And even if the depth of discussion or nature of the content will differ in delivery across each of these marketing avenues, the topics you choose to discuss will be dictated by the pillars you create.
But how in the heck do you work out what these should be or how many you need?
Keep it simple.
Brainstorm topics based on:
Your brand values
Your products or services
What you want to be known for and are good at (expertise)
Your clients’ problems and solutions
When you have finished, select the 3 or 4 most important topics you think fulfil these categories.
Let’s give you an example.
I worked with Valued Accounting for a few years creating content throughout their marketing efforts. After brainstorming with Stephen, the managing director I came up with 4 content pillars we could use that answered our 4 needs: brand values, products and services, expertise and client solutions.
Accounting |
Customer stories |
Business advice |
Xero |
In each of these pillars, I had the depth to work with. There was always something to write about that showcased our 4 needs: brand values, products and services, expertise and client solutions. Even better, each topic was geared toward the reader, whether they were our peers, clients, or leads.
Remember you can get detail by adding sub-topics!
You can see in my example that I used no more than four content pillars for my client. I think this is a good number to maintain because you can always add sub-topics.
As industries grow and evolve so will your business and whilst the key area you serve will likely remain the same, what you talk about and sometimes how you talk about it doesn’t. These are your subcategories or sub-topics.
During Covid Valued had a lot of extra content to get out, discussing things like loans, furlough and of course things like remote and hybrid working. As clients returned to work and their businesses reopened to the public, their questions and needs evolved… our content also had to.
Keeping it simple with our pillars allowed us to pivot quickly, but stay within our zones of genius. Sub-topics gave us the detail of how we discussed our pillars based on the market climate.
The benefits of pillar content for blog writing
It’s easy.
The biggest benefit to writing from pillar content is two-fold.
you have a head start on ideation with focus
you can repurpose a blog and use it for socials and email (does it save you time, yes and no - here’s why I say that)
If you need a copywriter to create compelling copy, someone who understands how to reach your target customer, fill in the project brief form below!
