Content Silos and Cornerstone Content for Blog SEO
December 29, 2020 | Category: SEO, SEO Blog Writing
Over the past several years, content silos and cornerstone content have become increasingly important for search engine optimization (SEO).
More specifically, they both play roles in organizing blog content. This organization of content is crucial because it helps website visitors find the information they’re seeking. We need to make it as easy as possible for them.
When someone asks about a product or service our company offers, we want to be appearing in their search results with the answers they seek.
Having content silos and cornerstone content can score big ranking points with search engines like Google and Bing. It shows them that your website is organized with a variety of information for a specific topic. We’re not sure how much of an impact they make, but we know it’s becoming more critical over time.
Your website can have the most informative and relevant blog content on a topic, but it doesn’t matter if you do not appear in search results.
This article will discuss content silos, cornerstone content and how they work together to improve your website’s search engine optimization.
What is a Content Silo?
Content silos categorize and organize content, making it easier for users to find what they’re looking for.
Have a look at the image at the top of this blog. It should help you visualize what content silos should be on your website. Each silo represents a topic and is filled with informative blogs and link to each other.Inner linking between them is vital for showing search engines that your content is related within a silo. Whenever it’s logical, you should be linking to credible external sources and your cornerstone content.
By linking smaller, specific articles back to cornerstone articles, you create a pyramid of sorts. All of those links point to one main article, making it appear extremely important to search engines.
For example, this article is part of our SEO Blog Writing silo. This topic is just one piece of what makes for effective SEO Blog Writing.
We can explain content silos further. Imagine if newspapers didn’t have sections like the local news, sports and neighbourhood news. Content would be randomly spread throughout the entire paper. Readers would need to work much harder to find what they want to know.
We use this newspaper analogy because that’s precisely how search engines think about online blog content. Their sole purpose is to give users the information they want. When we organize this information in silos, we have a better chance of being considered a credible source on a topic.
If your website does have information people are searching for, that’s an excellent start. However, if it’s not organized within content silos, it won’t rank as well as it could.
What is Cornerstone Content?
Moving on from content silos, cornerstone content is another critical element for having blog content rank well.It is the solid foundation that an entire silo is built upon. The term cornerstone means the chief foundation on which something is constructed or developed. To be clear, it’s an essential part of any content silo.
Cornerstone content articles lightly cover everything related to a topic. These articles tend to be longer but don’t go into too much detail for each subtopic. In total, cornerstone content is typically 1500-5000 words long, depending on the topic. One or two paragraphs per subtopic is generally a fair amount of writing.
Each of these separate topics should be elaborated on in smaller future articles. They need to link back to the original cornerstone content on your website.
For an example of cornerstone content, you can visit our SEO Blog Writing guide to see ours. As mentioned above, this article is a piece of our SEO Blog Writing silo.
In Conclusion
Search engines are constantly evolving to connect searchers with the best information. Our goal is to create the information and share it with our ideal audience when they look for it.
As the internet grows with more content over time, organizing it will only become more critical in both users and search engines’ eyes. Content silos and cornerstone content play an essential part in the organization.Utilizing content silos and cornerstone content takes some extra time to plan upfront. However, that investment will repay you over time. If you execute an effective content strategy with high-quality content, search engines will reward you with organic traffic to your blogs. As a result, your website will attract more leads and new customers.
Whether you’re just getting started with SEO blog writing or already have some blogs, we strongly recommend using content silos and cornerstone content for SEO.
For more knowledge on creating great content, read our guide for SEO blog writing.