Defining your Content Pillars

Content pillars are the foundation of your content marketing strategy and define how your brand unfolds online. Content pillars support your strategy from its core and are necessary to create engaging content that aligns with your business, its values, and its target audience.

What is a Content Pillar? A content pillar is a well-defined category overarching a number of topics and sub-topics within your business and its industry. Defined by SEO, business objectives, keyword and target audience research, content pillars sit at the heart of your content strategy and define all calendars, plans, and strategies for your business.

How many Content Pillars should I have? Having three content pillars is ideal. Depending on your industry, you may have between two to five. Remember that each content pillar will likely have between 10–20 sub-topics, maybe more, so you want to focus on your core topics, the ones that will cover daily topics within the entire strategy — hence, three is the magic number.

How do I know what my Content Pillars should be? This is first dependent on what industry you’re in and who your audience is. Secondly, there will be a clear layout of your brand guidelines, including in-depth keyword research, and detailed target audience information. Investigate Google Analytics, social media channels, email dashboards, and any other platforms you’ve engaged with your audience on, to gather first-hand data on who you’re trying to connect with through your content. Once you’ve done this, consider your campaign naming, monthly reporting, and data analysis. All of this together helps determine what your content pillars should be.

When should I change my Content Pillars? Of course, your content pillars can always be changed. However, you’ll want to stick to your content pillars for the sake of organised data and accurate reporting. This is another reason you’ll want to complete thorough research during your strategy phase. Since pillars cover a broad spectrum of topics within your strategy, they will inevitably adapt to minor changes within search terms and audience behaviours. Changing your set content pillars should be an annual occurrence at most — anything earlier would be due to a non-negotiable shift in the business, such as a stock change, rebrand, or significant data finding.

Content pillars set the stage for your brand online and how you define them will determine how effective your content strategy is. Research, study the data, and set your content pillars in stone for a digital marketing foundation you can depend on.

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