What is a pillar page?
A pillar page is the one page on a site meant to answer the widest question about a subject. Narrower pages handle the detail and point back to it. The term comes from content marketing, and "cornerstone content" is another name for the same thing.
Length is not what defines it. A pillar page is defined by its position: other pages on the subject link to it, and it links to them. A long article with no links in is a long article.
What sets a pillar page apart
| Pillar page | Supporting page | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | The whole subject, each part in brief | One part, in depth |
| Search it targets | The widest phrase, e.g. "houseplant care" | A specific one, e.g. "why are my monstera leaves yellow" |
| Links in from the site | Many, from every supporting page | A few, from the pillar and from neighbours |
| Links out | To every supporting page | Up to the pillar, sideways where relevant |
| How often it changes | Revised whenever the subject or the supporting set changes | When its own facts change |
A pillar and its supporting pages together form a topic cluster.
Example
A plant shop's blog has a guide called Houseplant care for beginners. It has short sections on light, watering, soil, repotting and pests, and each section ends with a link to a full article on that one matter.
Each of those articles mentions the beginner's guide near the top ("new to this? start with our houseplant care guide"). A visitor who arrives on the watering article from a search can step up to the overview, and a visitor on the overview can step down to whichever part they need.
Checking its links
The usual failure is quiet: the pillar is published, new articles on the subject keep appearing, and nobody remembers to link them back. To check, count how many pages on the site link to the pillar from their body text, leaving out menus and footers, and compare that with the number of articles you have on the subject. See internal linking and anchor text for how those links should be written.
In WordPress
WordPress has no pillar setting of its own. A pillar can be a page or a post; what matters is that it is written by hand, which a category archive is not.
Hydrogen SEO adds a Pillar content switch to the SEO settings of posts and pages from version 0.0.31. Marked items carry a Pillar badge on the Posts screen, and a filter lists those with fewer than 3 incoming internal links, using the plugin's link counts; see pillar content.
Common mistakes
- Two pillars for one subject. They compete for the same search; see keyword cannibalization.
- Calling every long post a pillar. The label is useful only while the set is small enough to remember.
- Publishing it and leaving it. The pillar is the page on the subject most worth revisiting, since everything else points at it.
- Covering each part in full. If the pillar says everything, the supporting pages have nothing to add and start to overlap with it.
Common questions
How long should a pillar page be?
Long enough to introduce every part of the subject and short enough that each part is still a summary. There is no word count that search engines ask for.
Is pillar content the same as cornerstone content?
Yes. Both names describe the few central pages on a site that related content links to.
Can a product or service page be a pillar page?
Yes. On a business site the main service pages are often the pillars, with blog posts and case studies as the supporting pages that link to them.