How To Write Great Blog Content – The Pillar Article
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I was writing an article the other day and I needed a reference to what is good blog content. I realized despite being (I think) the blogger to coin the phrase “Pillar Article” I’ve never actually published a definition of it to my blog. Time for that to change.
The below is my definition and examples of the Pillar Format, taken directly from the Blog Profits Blueprint. This is based on my original thinking of what goes into making good blog content.
The concept was first used in this guest post on Problogger back in February 2006, where I suggested the following tip for finding more blog readers -
Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.
The Pillar title was later joined by similar phrases to essentially describe the same thing – good blog content – such as “Flagship Content” by Chris Garret and “Cornerstone Content” by Brian Clark, two articles definitely worth reading if you want to know what makes a good blog a good blog.
Now here’s my definition and format examples of how to write good blog content.
What Is A Pillar?
A pillar is blog content, usually an article, which does some very important things:
- It will bring in a rush of new readers and backlinks (other sites linking to your blog).
- It will continue to bring in more readers over time as you and other people refer to it, even though it may be buried in the archives of your blog.
- Eventually it will bring in traffic from search engines (this is largely because so many other web pages link to it).
- You can list it in a separate area (like an articles page) with all your other pillars so your best content can easily be accessed and your value clearly demonstrated.
- It is not time dependent, so in twelve months’ time it will still be relevant and popular.
How Do You Create A Pillar?
There is no exact formula for producing an article that will become a pillar, however there are definitely some key characteristics you can work on. You may be surprised when articles you write become pillars when you didn’t expect it, or the reverse where you pour your heart into a great article and it doesn’t do much for your traffic at all.
Here are typical pillar article concepts that you can post to your blog:
1. The “How-To” Article
This is a staple pillar article concept. Think about your industry and write an article that teaches how to do something in it. Be certain to only write how-to articles on topics you genuinely understand how to do and have experience with.
Some possible examples:
- If you are a marketing consultant, write some advice on how to market a business using no money.
- If you blog about dogs, write how to choose an appropriate dog name.
- If you blog about how to write a book, produce a how-to guide on approaching publishers.
- If you blog about food, write recipe guides on how to prepare popular dishes.
- If you blog about your life, write how-to guides on self development from the life lessons you have learnt (e.g. How you got a job, how you dealt with breaking up with your boyfriend, etc.).
It should be reasonably obvious which how-to topics are popular and relevant to your audience and which you feel capable of explaining well. Remember to tell a story if you can!
2. The Definition Article
Many industries have key concepts which new readers won’t know. If a concept is complicated, produce a pillar article that defines the concept, clearly explaining what it means and how it can be implemented.
It may seem simple and obvious to you, but remember you are an expert in your field, so explain it to the newbies in simple terms and, of course, try and tell a story as an example.
A glossary definition page is a good pillar article. If there are a handful of key concepts in your industry, write an article that lists the concepts and provides a one-paragraph definition for each. A resource page like this is good as a reference piece and often referred back to by other bloggers and websites.
You may say why bother doing this if most terms are already defined elsewhere on the web at sites like Wikipedia?
It’s okay to link to other websites for definitions, especially in the short term when you are just getting things set up, but it’s a lot better if you write your own definitions. It keeps readers on your blog, increases your pageviews (the total number of pages of your blog readers view) and visitor length (how long readers stay at your blog).
You can describe a concept in your own words, using your own unique story and voice. This helps to build credibility and trust.
It’s always smarter to include your own version of a definition if you are capable of explaining a term or concept, rather than link to other sites and drive traffic away from your blog.
3. Present a Theory or Argument
If you blog about politics, writing an article discussing your theories about communism, democracy or capitalism can make a great pillar article.
The important thing here is to present some unique thought. Give your opinion on a major issue in your industry, or even on a mainstream topic that you suspect your readers will take an interest in.
Try not to simply rehash what other people have said and clearly present your own thesis argument. Stimulate conversation, perhaps controversy, about a topic that is often discussed and is not time-dependent and you will draw traffic to your blog.
4. Create a resource like a free report, whitepaper or e-course
This is one of my favorite pillar concepts. A document such as a whitepaper (a small document, 2-10 pages, which teaches how to do something) or a series of articles combined to create a course, is a fantastic pillar.
You have a couple of options to present this information:
- Create a PDF which your readers can download. The benefit of this method is that the file can be shared easily (forwarded through email for example) and you may benefit from viral marketing effects, especially if you produce a top quality e-book or report.
- Type the content into several blog posts and interlink them together. You can also highlight them as a stand-alone series in your archives or articles page.
If you visit the articles section of my blog under the “Free Reports” heading, you will see an example of a PDF report that Brian Clark and myself put together, which is a good example of free resource pillar content.
If you can’t decide what is the best method to distribute your free resource, my suggestion is to offer it in as many ways as possible. Make a PDF available for download, publish the articles individually and make them available from an email list too. That way you maximize your exposure and cater to the widest possible audience.
The important thing with this concept is to create a complete all-in-one solution to a common problem. Similar to the how-to article, a free resource is a powerful pillar concept because it demonstrates your expertise and brings in consistent traffic.
5. One of the most popular pillar concepts is a List Article
You have probably seen many of these at other blogs. The usual titles are “Top 7 Ways To…” or “10 Tips To Improve…” etc. These work well for a couple of reasons –
- Lists are easily digested by human beings. It’s been tested and proven that articles in the 300-700 word range with lots of clear dot-point bulleted lists and a compelling headline are good traffic pullers. In this case it’s all about simplicity of consumption for people with short attention spans – i.e. most web surfers.
- Lists provide directly actionable lessons and people love to share lists with other people. Consequently list articles are often linked to by other bloggers and added to social bookmarking sites that drive traffic.
Provided your list follows all the standard pillar concept rules – timeless, original content, problem solving ideas – and you keep it directly applicable to your audience, most lists will become pillars.
Be wary of doing lists of topics well covered by other people or on really simple concepts. As usual the more “you” included through stories and a unique style, the more likely your list will perform well.
6. A Technical Blueprint
A technical blueprint is very much like a how-to or a whitepaper, but is focused on the technical aspects of a problem. Technology-focused bloggers are good at blueprint pillar articles because they love to use graphs, spreadsheets and images to demonstrate how to do something.
A technical blueprint is a step-by-step, visually enhanced article demonstrating exactly how to complete a task. Often the pictures tell the story more than the words do. Designers and programmers use this style of blog post to show how they code a website, design an image using Photoshop, code software, or simpler activities like attach a file to an email.
You can apply the principle to almost any industry that has common tasks which may be complex to understand. In this case it’s more about the imagery and less about the story.
Personally, I find it easier to write an explanation using words rather than take lots of screenshots or photographs, but this may not be the same for you. If you have access to the necessary resources, making a blueprint-style blog post that clearly demonstrates how to do something is a perfect pillar concept.
That covers some of the most basic and powerful pillar article concepts you can apply to your blog and test. If you write an article each day using one of the concepts above, you will have a solid foundation for a successful blog.
The Blog Profits Blueprint
This article was drawn from a concise report on how to create a successful and profitable blog. If you would like to read the entire document, you can download it for free from here -
www.blogmastermind.com/blueprint/
If you are brand new to blogging and haven’t set up a blog yet, visit Become A Blogger and follow the introductory training videos to set up your first blog. The videos are also free.
Yaro Starak
Blog Trainer
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A perfect example of pillar content here! It’s all about providing value to the reader.
I especially like the idea of creating a definitions page to refer my readers to. I’m definitely going to implement that one.
Great stuff here Yaro. Thanks for the article!
Great Post!
Pillar Articles – very nice term.
Now that you’ve done such a great job teaching us how to come up with quality content, I think the only question that remains is how to get people to read it.
How do you let the world know that you have something important to share? I think that getting the word out is the hardest part of blogging.
Thoughts?
Thanks again for this great post,
Mike
I enjoyed your blogs profit blueprint very much Yaro. Now I am just working on my pillar content. I have some nice ideas for it!
How do you write a pillar article that is worth while given the amount of information already on the web? That is, how do you beat Wikipedia?
Pillar content can draw consistent traffic, especially if it’s a helpful how-to type of article. These are also known as reference works which readers will visit and re-visit again and again.
How-to articles are powerful pillars which not only build consistent, targeted traffic over time, but they will also build your perceived AUTHORITY, which can be INVALUABLE, especially if you are selling products and/or opening a Interactive Learning Environment to the public online.
Yaro, it’s funny you mention having never defined it. I remember searching for it one day here and it didn’t come up in the way I was expecting. I thought “how is that possible?”
The information on pillar articles in your Blog Profits Blueprint is excellent. That book really is a great resource.
Hi Yaro
I’ve just started blogging (having converted my existing static site to Wordpress), and I’ve been following your advice very closely.
As a professional copywriter of over 10 years’ experience, I admire your model of providing high quality content as the basis of everything you do, and will try to emulate this approach on my blog.
As far as pillar articles go, it’s a good concept. I’ve lined up a series of soon to be launched interviews with the world’s top copywriters as my ‘pillar’ content – so hopefully my readers will be able to gain real value and insight from the masters.
Anyway, thanks for all your great advice.
Kind regards
Laurence James
MD, The Copy Box
http://www.thecopybox.com
Nice article. I know exactly what you mean by those where you pour your soul out and get nothing :p
I read your Blog Profits Blueprint some time ago and of course, I learned the term “pillar articles” from it.
Just a simple question, Yaro. List post usage had soared after so many blogging and social media bloggers out there recommend this method to write a compelling and attractive blog post. I write my articles in this way as well. Do you think that this method will eventually be abused and overused?
@Options-Strategery: The thing about Wikipedia is that it tries to exclude some types of content. It is meant to be an encyclopedia, not a source of all knowledge. So if you have a new and controversial idea, for example, chances are that you can write something much more engaging than is found in Wikipedia.
@Wayne – The list post will always work assuming the content within the post is of value.
The reason a list works is because it’s a good way to format an article for easy reading. The content of the article itself though still defines whether the article will be a pillar.
The day the list post dies is the day the dot point list is removed from our word processors and replaced with something else.
Yaro,
I’ve been reading this section of your Blog Profits Blueprint whenever I run into a dead end in my blogging activities. It has been enlightening and inspring each time.
And congratulations on getting back your PR6.. some data center reported it to be PR7.
Regards,
Jaxon S
I agree that the “list” style articles seems to be a more easier read when given high value. Also adding pictures to each blog post is a great eye catcher, I like to make the pic have nothing to do with the post so it makes people want to see the connection and read the it.
I find it difficult anymore to write any article and stop at 500 words. Usually Im done in the 1000 word range. The majority of my articles all tell a story of how to and why. Like you say the most read articles do not lose their relevance to your niche. I wrote one early on that still gets Google searches everyday about attitude. I also find the more you write, the more you are read, and try to let one post lead to another, a related post plug in is key to keeping a site visitor and turning them onto a site reader,
In some form or another I’ve most of these with varying levels of success. I love your examples and reasoning behind things. Very good post
I like this blog posts. I read a lot of blogs that don’t have pillar articles and are merely regurgitations of other blogs. If you are going to be an authority you have to teach.
definitely a good pillar article you got here.
I bet this will be good source of good article writing.
I also can use this technique to perform my article style writing.
Thanks
This is really great article, Yaro.
And for that reason, if you don’t mind, I would like to ask your permission to translate this article into Indonesian language and share it to our Indonesian readers. Of course I will put this original content link and your web site in the translation version.
I’m waiting for your permission, Yaro.
Thanks a lot.
especially like the idea of creating a definitions page to refer my readers to. I’m definitely going to implement that one.
Great stuff here Yaro. Thanks for the article!
Great ideas, I am about to start implementing these on my website portfolio.
Thank you for bringing all of these resources together. What a nice thing it is, to wake up to find myself included in this list of writers and bloggers.
Thanks again.
Great article, thanks for the info!
There is nothing like a well written article, but without the catchy phrases and headlines, no one will see it (or want to see it). I had this problem when I started writing and i found that using glyphius really helped me a lot.
Hi Yaro…
Thanks for clarifying the different kinds of pillar articles… sometimes I get hooked on one train of thought and it is great to hear other suggestions. The “how to” and “lists” work really well for my blog… hmmm.
Jeanne
Once again another very useful article with ideas I can use today. I am working on your other ideas & slowly but surely my blogs begin to attract better traffic. Your Pillar article concept makes good sense. Thanks
Dear Yaro,
Another excellent piece from a Blog Guru. I learned a lot from your lessons. This Pillar Article or Blueprint or perhaps also can be categorised as Masterpiece in a more artistic sense and Blockbuster in an entertaining sense.
I notice that your Pillar Article in your blog is posted in the main section where all other blog post is made. Just wonder whether it is a good idea for the Pillar Articles to be put separately in a special page(Wordpress) or page element(Blogger)?
Cheers
Hello Yaro. I have downloaded your blueprint and joined your program at blog mastermind. I stumbled through this article and just wanted you to know that the “pilar” theory is great and I am still working on it. Thanks for this. I hope I can succeed too, one of these days:)
I think this was a great article to help newbies out. I try to write at least one pillar article a week. I find myself drifting more to the list articles like 10 steps to…
I love these type of blog post because people will actually bookmark that post and go back to it over and over again. They will email the link to theri friends. it becomes very viral.
Great idea !!
I’ve started doing that on one of my website, but I guess I should really start to do that more often. Sometimes we get a stream of very good ideas for an article, then the next time around, it’s all a complete blank.
Thanks , This post made my day!!
I think the most important attribute of a ‘Pillar article’ is that it should not be topical ie it should be generic and second – the corollary of this – the article will drive traffic continuously to the site even after months of publishing despite being ‘buried’ in the archives. Great post. I love it.
Hi,
This is your great post.You have done brilliant piece of work.Writing the great content of blog just read these ten points.I like the people those who share the information with others.Thanks
I definitely agree about “how to” and “list” type articles. Almost a third of what I end up reading on blogs are how to type articles or lists that provide some value to the reader. The downside is I get sick of reading them sometimes. Lists also seem to make up a very large proportion of articles on digg and other social bookmarking sites and so they seem to be a good way of getting traffic if people pick up on them.
I am curious how this works when someone is telling more of a story…?
Yaro – great stuff – I’m currently sussing the internet via Facebook and Twitter, preparing to launch a blog. Thanks again for your XLNT content!
Great post Yaro! Thanks for sharing this.
Hey Yaro, I signed up for Blog Blueprint, but nothing came. Would you mind checking it out for me, thanks. ; )
Great article! I am just launched my blog and am writing my first pillar article as we speak. You mention 300-700 words as an optimal article length. I am already up to 1500 words and will probably end up closer to 2000+ words by the time I am done. Should I try to cut down the scope or publish it as a series? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Hi Yaro!
Either there is something cosmic going on between me and your blog, or you pay attention to what is going on in the back-end operations/activities of your blog:). I say this because I am posting this comment in response to receiving this article as a newsletter from you. And it was cool to receive it, because I have set time aside to start writing this week.
You have impressed me greatly in just a short amount of time; two months ago, I didn’t even know about the “blogosphere”.
Debra
Yaro, I can’t thank you enough for the great information you are sharing. Keep it up. Thanks again, Terry
This message about the pillars making an effective blog is great. I have read the Blog Profits Blueprint where you go into geater detail about these pillars. I believe that I have great content on my blog but I definitely need to create some pillars to hold up the foundation.
I realized the importance of pillars in only my second week of blogging (I have a new blog). Let me share my story with you! As with any blogger, I am craving traffic so people can read and benefit from my blog (and lets be honest, so I can make some money in the future). I caught a small break in my second week and a friend with an established blog linked to mine. The spike in traffic that day was incredible (for my shiny, new blog as it got nowhere to the number of hits this site gets a day). After a day or two of increased traffic I had to sit in horror while I watched my traffic dwindle. Maybe my blog just wasn’t for them but I think if I had some of these pillar articles that I could have convinced more people to become regular readers. I guess learning is part of the process and I have already started writing some pillar articles (and will hopefully finish this weekend). I plan on being prepared when I get my next break!
I just wanted to share my experience and thank Yaro for all the great work. Your information has been guiding me through my blogging experience (I am still contemplating doing the Blog Mastermind Course).
Thanks,
Nathan
Fantastic advice Yaro. I think ‘How To’ articles are a great way to build an email list. If the advice is compelling and it works without doubt who wouldnt want to find your ‘How To’ article. After all, the internet is the wealth of our combined knowledge so why not share our best ideas for the benefit of all. Camtasia videos are a great way to back up the ‘how to’ article with ‘hands on, watch how it’s actually done’ screen capture. The video can even be offered as a trade for an optin to build an email list.
Thanks for the great content Yaro.
I like this definition “Pillar Articles” it make audience feel good with our blog when them visit our blog.
I am happy to have received your email that lead me to this site.Your article here is very enlightening . I was getting sort of stuck in my blog but I will be start writiing some of these pillar article and hope they will do as what you say they will do.
Keep do your good work of sending these enlighting ezine letters they are doing what you entended them to do I read all of them.