Pillar Content Strategy That Works

In this blog you’re going to learn how our content team created a pillar content strategy that works. This piece of pillar content helped a higher-ed client drive incredible results, capture featured snippets, drive 12,000+ entrances and 15,000+ total page views in the first two months. The best part – all of these results have continued to grow and improve over time!

This Higher-Ed client wanted to begin ranking for keywords and topics that were higher in the funnel – answering questions about careers that are directly related to the degrees they offer. Our content team created a new blog answering questions like:

• What are the top careers in this area of study?

• How much do these jobs pay?

• What is the projected future demand for each of these jobs?

• What are the educational requirements needed for each job?

The page was published on June 5, 2020 and in the first ~2 months (between June 1 and Sept 2), the page:

• Was engaged with by 121 converting users worth $41,200 at client valuation. 

• Ranked on page 1 for 500+ relevant keywords (with great CTRs!) 

• Captured 16+ featured snippets including our primary target keyword 

• Is seeing an estimated flow of monthly traffic worth $5.8K in CPC value from around 5.5k monthly visitors.

Now, THROW IN A WEBSITE MIGRATION

In the midst of this success, a website migration was occurring, so our original URL changed. For awhile this blog was ranking twice on the search engine results page (SERP).  However, after a short time, the old page was dropped from the SERP and the new page took over.

The first blog entered the SERP in position 28.6 on June 14th and rose to an average position of 2.5 by August 3rd. Then it totally plummeted off the SERP as the second page took over. Here is what we saw:

1st URL: Pre-Website Migration

Entered the SERP in position 28.6 on June 14th and rose to avg position 2.5 by August 3rd.

• Lifetime Entrances: 1,787 | LT Pageviews: 2,772
• LT Organic CTR: 3.9% | LT Clicks: 1.38K | LT Impressions: 34.9k

Then the second URL took over in average position of 13.2 and has continued to improve over time. 

2nd URL: POST-Website Migration

On August 3rd the first URL was dropped from SERP; traffic declined fast

On August 2nd the 2nd URL entered the SERP in avg pos. 13.2 (now 9.7) and built on that growth.

• Lifetime Organic Entrances (up to Sept 2): 10,029 (10,707 total)
• LT Organic Pageviews: 11,917 | LT Total Pageviews: 12,771
• LT Organic CTR: 6.6% | LT Clicks: 4.43K | LT Impressions: 66.8K

Proof that a great Pillar Content Marketing Strategy Works

Here is a list of amazing KPIs that prove pillar content marketing strategy works:

• We are now ranking on page one for more than 500+ relevant keywords (defined as current position is 1 – 5)
• We are seeing great CTR’s (10%–20+%) on many of the keywords in the top 10
• The combined CPC value of clicks for these top keywords is $1,700  in ~1 month

Here is how we know this effort paid for itself in CPC value in the first month.

Keyword #1 ->  CTR: 19.5% | Total Clicks: 735 | US Vol: 5.4k | CPC: $1.14 | Diff: 77% | Value: $838

Keyword #2 ->  CTR: 4.9% | Total Clicks: 251 | US Vol: 9.9k | CPC: $0.93 | Diff: 79% | Value: $233

Keyword #3 ->  CTR: 5.8% | Total Clicks: 143 | US Vol: 6.6k | CPC: $1.06 | Diff: 83% | Value: $151

Keyword #4 -> CTR: 11.7% | Total Clicks: 148 | US Vol: 5.4k | CPC: $1.14 | Diff: 77% | Value: $149

Keyword #5 ->  CTR: 9.9% | Total Clicks: 126 | US Vol: 6.6k | CPC: $1.06 | Diff: 83%  |  Value: $134

Keyword #6 -> CTR: 9.9% | Total Clicks: 73 | US Vol: 1.3k | CPC: $1.71 | Diff: 82% |  Value: $125

Keyword #7 ->  CTR: 16.2% | Total Clicks: 44 | US Vol: 590 | CPC: $1.60 | Diff: 82% |  Value: $70

This value continues to improve, as of Sept 2nd, we are now getting $5,800 worth of traffic, according to SEMRush – with 5.5K estimated flow of monthly traffic. 

6th highest traffic page on the entire site

What did we do to achieve these results? 

Here are a few on-page tips we used to get these results and that we believe will help you create a pillar content strategy that works:

1. Make sure you use jump links, so a user can easily navigate to the piece of the content that most interests them.

2. Create at lease one INFO-GRAPHIC and put it toward the top of the page, this captures the readers attention and presents information in an easily digestible way, helping influence them to read more of the details to follow below on the page.

3. Include images. If you’ve got jump links to sections, make sure each section has an image as a header. It also make it easy for a user to distinguish one-section from another as they scroll and scan the page.

4. Link to as many other pages as you can. In our case, we were linking to different career guides and the relevant degree pages.

5. Follow the Augurian Content Process – if you want to learn more about our Content Marketing Services and our content marketing process, please contact us.