Over 65% of marketers report that content marketing generates leads, while 72% of marketers say that content marketing increases engagement.
If you ask SEOs about their #1 content marketing tip, they’ll likely mention cornerstone content.
In this article, we’ll explain what cornerstone content is, why it’s so important, and how you can use it to increase leads and engagement.
What Is Cornerstone Content?
Cornerstone content is the most important content that should be featured on your website, blog, or other online presence. It is content that defines your brand and sets it apart from competitors. Cornerstone content generally includes topics that are essential to what you offer and serves as a foundation for everything else you produce. Examples include long-form blog content, about pages, product descriptions, and informational articles.
Ideally, your cornerstone content should be meticulously comprehensive, covering all aspects of the topic at hand. It should also be evergreen to ensure it remains relevant to visitors for a long time.
Cornerstone content can either be a blog or a webpage, but it is typically found in the form of a blog post several thousand words in length. Whichever type of content you choose, it should be well-researched and regularly updated to remain relevant.
Now that you know what cornerstone content is, let’s talk about why it’s important for SEO.
Cornerstone Content and SEO: Why Is it Important?
Cornerstone content plays a significant role in an SEO strategy. This is because it’s hard to rank highly for popular keywords. It’s often the case that you’ll have to create content that is more comprehensive and longer than the average blog post or webpage.
By creating cornerstone content, you’ll be able to target multiple keywords and ensure that your content is of the highest quality. This will help you to rank better in search engine results pages and ultimately attract more organic traffic.
Cornerstone content also helps you build backlinks naturally. By creating comprehensive, useful, and evergreen content, other websites will likely link back to it.
Another great benefit of cornerstone content is that it helps build your brand authority in the SERPs and the industry. When you provide your audience with well-researched content, they will recognize your brand as a trusted source of information that they return to for more.
Cornerstone Content That Search Engines Love: 5 Best Practices
The following are five best practices for creating cornerstone content that search engines and your audience will love:
Decide Your Content Topic and Type
The first step is to decide on the topic of your cornerstone content and its type (blog, article, landing page, etc.). This will provide you with the road map and the framework to create comprehensive content that is useful to your audience.
The best article is one that solves the problems of your audience. So, put yourself in your audience’s shoes, and think about their primary questions and problems. Then, use those as topics for your cornerstone content.
Asking yourself the following questions will help you decide what you want to cover in the article:
- What are the questions my audience is asking? What are the problems my audience might be facing?
- Are there any problems you still need to cover and are confident you can answer? Do you have data or case studies to back up your claims?
These questions will help you determine the type of content you should create and how comprehensive it needs to be.
Keyword Research
Once you’ve decided on the topic of your cornerstone content, it’s time to perform keyword research. Keyword research is essential for SEO and helps ensure that your content targets the right keywords.
You can use a variety of keyword research tools to find keywords. We recommend targeting a mix of long-tail keywords (keywords with more than four words) and short-tail keywords. This way, you can ensure that your content targets the keywords you want to rank for.
Create Value-Packed Content
Now that you’ve decided on the topic and done your keyword research, it’s time to create your cornerstone content. Your content should be well-researched, comprehensive, and value-packed.
You should include as much information as possible, back up your claims with data, and cite reputable sources. You should also strive to provide readers with practical takeaways they can apply to their businesses.
Here are a few tips for writing excellent cornerstone content:
- Use visuals like charts, diagrams, and images to make your content more attractive.
- Make sure your content is well-structured with headers and subheaders.
- Make sure your content is error-free and follows on-page SEO best practices.
- Avoid using jargon, and make sure your content is easy to read.
- Keep the sentences and paragraphs short.
Format for On-Page SEO
Once you’ve written your cornerstone content, you must ensure it is formatted well for SEO. This means that you should include the targeted keywords in your title, headings, and throughout the body of the content.
You should also include relevant internal links to other pages on your website and ensure that your content is structured correctly with HTML tags. Additionally, adding relevant images and videos to the content will make it more engaging and help it stand out.
Promote and Update Regularly
Once your content is published, you should keep promoting it to drive more traffic and increase its reach. You can promote your content through social media, email marketing, and other mediums.
You should also update the content regularly to ensure that it is accurate and up-to-date. Let’s say that you have written an SEO article. You can include updates when Google releases a new algorithm update or shares new insights on optimizing for SEO.
This will help you maintain a good relationship with your audience, as they will appreciate your effort to provide quality content.
Key Takeaways
Cornerstone content is the foundation of your content marketing strategy. It helps you answer your audience’s questions and establish yourself as an authority in your field.
To create successful cornerstone content:
- Identify the topic and type of content you want to create. Your content should answer questions that your target audience is asking.
- Perform keyword research to ensure you are targeting the right keywords. Long-tail keywords have more volume and less competition, but we recommend targeting short-tail keywords.
- Create comprehensive and value-packed content that is well-researched and structured. Use images and videos to make it more attractive, and make sure to back your claims with data.
- Optimize for SEO by including the targeted keywords in the title, headings, and throughout the body of the content.
- Promote and update your content regularly to ensure it stays up-to-date with the latest changes in your field.
