Content Marketing What is Cornerstone Content and Why Do You Need it?

Are you looking for an answer to the question “What is the best SEO hack?” Regular content updates on your website or blog bring you long term results over time. But cornerstone content brings you quick results fast. The reason is that it is one of the most favored content types on Google Search algorithm. Cornerstone content marketing has been there for years. However, it is not one of the most widely-discussed topics among the content creation community. So, what the heck is cornerstone content? How can you create it without burning out?

What is Cornerstone Content?

Cornerstone content builds the content foundation of your website. It binds together all your content pieces and marketing efforts in a singular, comprehensive long-form content piece. Usually, it contains the most important and best information available in your website pages, blogs or posts. So, if you want certain content to rank higher on SERPs, cornerstone content is the way to go. 

Usually, cornerstone content has a length of over 3,000 words. However, it is not necessary to create text for cornerstone. In fact, you can also share videos or images as needed. The foundational content combines all insights from most relevant blog posts, so it covers everything important regarding a particular topic.

When preparing this type of content, make sure that you focus on providing the best and most accurate information to your audience. 

What is the Aim of Cornerstone content?

The goal is not to sell your offering, rather empathizing with your readers and offering the most helpful information about a particular topic. Moreover, you can use this content as an opportunity to communicate your business values and mission perfectly subtly. Using long form content, you can establish your business authority online. You can pull in more organic visitors and raise brand awareness in your target audience.

You can use a blog post or a web page as the cornerstone of your website. However, make sure to update the content with the most relevant keywords you want to rank, appropriate links and accurate information periodically. 

Top of the Funnel Content Marketing

Cornerstone articles are beneficial for top-of-the funnel marketing. It means that you need to make them accessible and readable for all for free. You can not ask your visitors to sign up to your newsletter or subscribe to your membership plan in order to access the cornerstone information. Rather, it should be easily accessible and free for all. Since the real goal of cornerstone marketing is to create a positive first impression, free access is the best. Free access to cornerstone articles gives a warm and welcoming feeling about your brand to your website visitors. The positive experience registers your brand as a trustworthy one in your audience’s perception. Thus, the visitors are more likely to turn to you and convert in the future. 

Why are cornerstone articles so important?

Cornerstone blogs and web pages play a significant role in enhancing your SEO impact. High competition keywords are hard to rank for but you can use cornerstone articles to tackle the cut-throat competition on search engines. Similarly, the cornerstone article sets a direction for your associated content creation efforts. Thus, the more content you produce relevant to your foundation content, the more chances of ranking your website you will have. Similarly, you can improve your internal linking structure, which establishes a better website authority on search engines. 

Here are some other benefits of using cornerstone articles on your website:

• Boost brand awareness
• Invite relevant website traffic
• Build natural internal linking
• Feeds your marketing funnel 
• Deliver positive brand sentiment
• Establish brand trust and authority

Why does Google Love Cornerstone Content?

Google’s new helpful content update prompts content creators to look into the details of every topic. Cornerstone articles are all about targeting very specific topics and offering a thorough understanding of the issue at hand. Cornerstone posts are created when:

• You are fact-checking a particular topic
• You are addressing low-stake questions
• You’re trying to figure out specific pain points
• You’re offering a unique solution to specific pain points

How to Select Cornerstone Content That Google will Love?

At every point, you will be going in depth of the selected topic and naturally targeting keywords throughout the length of the content.

Now, when it comes to choosing your cornerstone posts, you need to be careful and keep a few considerations in mind. Since these posts are the first thing a new website visitor will read at your website, you need to create a strong impression. So, it is recommended to target the most relevant and important information only.

Here are a few questions to keep in mind when choosing cornerstone posts:

• Which posts are the most important for your website?
• Which articles deliver the most accurate and complete information?
• What type of keywords have you targeted in these articles?
• Do the targeted keywords align with your SEO strategy goals?

Your website can have more than one cornerstone content pieces. Bigger websites usually have more cornerstones as compared to smaller websites. You can create cornerstone content for each website category.  

Can you use your Homepage as Cornerstone?

Although it might be tempting to use your homepage as cornerstone content, it is not really the main function of your homepage. Thus, you need to prepare a unique, detailed cornerstone article around a very specific topic to cover lots of in-depth information for the best results. On the other hand, homepage is more generic and does not offer much room for covering the topic in detail.

Scale Your Cornerstone Content Creation Using AI

Once you have figured out the cornerstone articles, the next step is to write cornerstone content. However, preparing long posts between 3,000 and 5,000 words can be a bit tardy. It’s natural to feel burnt out when preparing long-form content pieces. However, an AI writing Assistant, like WriteMe.Ai, can save you time and effort. Just add your keywords and choose a long form writing use case to take help from AI for writing cornerstone content like a pro!

5 Easy Steps for Writing Effective Cornerstone Content

Usually, extensive keyword research is the first step in cornerstone content writing. However, if you want to write killer, and well-presented long form content pieces to use as cornerstone, here are some tips:

Choose Keywords You Want to Rank For 

Dig out the most relevant industry keywords. Conduct a competitor analysis and see which keywords are the most important for ranking on top. Your cornerstone content shall include all the top search keywords. Use a keyword research tool to find out the head keywords for your niche. If you want more Long tail keyword suggestions, use a keyword ideation assistant.

Choose the best performing post

In the next step, go through all your existing posts and choose the top-performing articles. Figure out which keywords are bringing the most important results for your website. Filter out the keywords you want to rank for along with the best post on your website. This post will become your cornerstone after editing, improving and constant updating.

Edit, Improve and Rewrite it

Once you have selected your cornerstone article, it is time to optimize it with keywords and important information. Don’t worry about the content length when writing cornerstone content. Your goal should be to include the most important, valuable information for the readers. Include an index or Table of Contents at the top of the cornerstone article to improve reader experience. Cornerstone content will need consistent updates, so you will need to come back to rewrite and update article regularly.

Include Long Tail Variants in Other Posts

In the next step, find out the blog topics covering similar topics as your cornerstone article. Optimize these posts with relevant long tail keyword variants of the head keyword. Make sure that there is minimal information repetition. ^[1]

Improve Linking from tail to head

Internal linking is among the main goals as well as the most important practice of cornerstone article writing. Link your long tail keywords from associated articles in your cornerstone article.

Finally, promote your cornerstone content using social media, newsletters or other sharing options.

Conclusion

Cornerstone content is a great way to tell Google that you have the most important information to offer to a relevant audience. A good SEO strategy focuses on improving content expansion based on cornerstones. Make sure that your website also has a cornerstone piece to set everything in the right direction.

References:
[1] Long Tail Keywords – YOAST