Pillar pages make your site a go-to resource by building authority, boosting SEO, and encouraging deeper content exploration.
A well-crafted pillar page has the power to drive serious traffic, enhance user experience, and boost SEO — all while showcasing your brand as a trusted authority. If done well, they can be essential to your content strategy.
In this guide, we’ll break down what makes a great pillar page, the components you need to include, and 10 exceptional pillar page examples to inspire your own.
- What Is a Pillar Page
- Figma: Color Meanings
- Pacaso: Best Family Vacation Spots
- QuickBooks: Types of Business Structures
- Kraken: A Beginner’s Guide to Cryptocurrency
- Alan’s Factory Outlet: Metal Carports
- Typeform: Brand Awareness
- Wine Folly: Wine 101
- HubSpot: Inbound Marketing
- Pet Cube: Puppy Care 101
- Qualtrics: Guide to Employee Engagement
- What Are the Benefits of Creating a Pillar Page?
- What Are the Cons of Pillar Pages?
- Elements of a Successful Pillar Page
- Showcase Your Brand’s Topical Authority With A Pillar Page
What Is a Pillar Page?
A pillar page is a content hub that organizes information around a central theme. Its goal is to give readers everything they need about a specific topic in one convenient place, making it easy to explore related subtopics through interconnected content.
The key components of a pillar page include:
- Pillar content: Broad content that introduces and explains the main topic.
- Cluster content: Supporting articles that dive deeper into specific aspects of the main topic.
- Hyperlinks: Links that connect all the content together, helping readers seamlessly navigate between sections.
Together, these components act as a comprehensive guide by enhancing the user experience and helping search engines understand the relationship between the content, improving the page’s overall ranking.
Note: These are not to be confused with landing pages. Landing pages help connect readers to products and services and are often the result of clicking on a “try our demo” button.
We’ll show you our favorite examples of pillar pages below and why they work so well.
1. Figma: Color Meanings
Figma’s Color Meanings page is a great example of a pillar page because it provides an in-depth and visually engaging resource for anyone interested in color psychology and theory.
The page is informative and highly interactive, allowing users to explore various colors and their meanings through intuitive design elements.
By offering both educational content and engaging examples, Figma achieves a sleek, comprehensive guide — a key characteristic of an effective pillar page.
Try this: Blend interactive design with detailed information to engage readers, like collapsable tabs.
2. Pacaso: Best Family Vacation Spots
Pacaso’s Best Family Vacation Spots is a great example of a pillar page. It provides a comprehensive guide to various family-friendly vacation destinations, breaking down each location with practical details and helpful travel tips. The guide covers vacation spots to fit every type of traveler, whether they prefer water, desert, mountains, or city adventures.
This pillar page covers the topic broadly while also linking out to relevant articles and travel guides, offering readers more in-depth information on specific destinations or travel planning advice.
Try this: When building out guides, link to relevant articles wherever you can to help give the readers as many resources as possible.
3. QuickBooks: Types of Business Structures
QuickBooks excels with its Types of Business Structures page, which makes more technical topics easier to understand and digest. It provides readers with a detailed overview of various business structures with practical examples. The page also makes sure to link to more in-depth resources for each.
This format helps readers quickly grasp the key differences between structures and decide which is best for their needs. It also directs users to additional content and tools, such as guides on tax implications and business management, to help business owners make the right decisions for their goals.
Try this: Break down complex topics into manageable sections, each linking to more detailed guides or tools that provide deeper insights and next steps.
4. Kraken: A Beginner’s Guide to Cryptocurrency
Similar to QuickBooks, Kraken’s pillar page, A Beginner’s Guide to Cryptocurrency, helps make a technical topic easier (and more engaging) to read. The page covers everything a beginner needs to understand the wide world of crypto, including what it is, its history, how to buy and use it, different types, and more.
The copy is very scannable on this page and links out to more specific related content for each topic. To make things more engaging, Kraken incorporates emojis to help make the techy topic easier to connect with.
On top of that, the design is very sleek which makes large sections of text easier on the eyes.
Try this: Use engaging elements like emojis on your pillar page to help make a technical topic less dry.
5. Alan’s Factory Outlet: Metal Carports
The Metal Carport page for Alan’s Factory Outlet is a successful pillar page because it provides a helpful and organized guide for readers seeking to understand, pick out, and purchase a carport for their home.
The page covers all essential aspects of carports, including size options, materials, pricing, customization, and installation details, making it a one-stop resource.
What stands out about this pillar page is the use of video to help demonstrate different types of carports and put their sizes into perspective. The page also includes a section titled “helpful resources” for further reading or calculators.
Try this: In addition to imagery, try including videos that the reader can watch to help understand a topic or get a better look at a product.
6. Typeform: Brand Awareness
The Brand Awareness page for Typeform is a well-rounded guide that digs into the importance and strategies of building a solid brand presence.
While the guide itself is long, Typeform makes sure that the copy features very short paragraphs. They also state the read time at the top of the page so the reader knows how much time they need to dedicate to the guide.
This pillar page organizes everything the reader needs to know into clearly defined sections, like the basics of brand awareness, how to track, and how to measure it, alongside some actionable tips. This helps the readers to explore the topics on their own with the flexibility to dive deeper into more specialized articles.
Try this: For longer pillar pages, be sure to include an estimated read time at the top of the page to give readers an idea of how in-depth the guide is.
7. Wine Folly: Wine 101
For readers who want to learn more about wine, Wine Folly’s Beginner’s Guide to Wine is the perfect place to start. The page is structured to guide readers through the fundamentals, including wine types, flavors, pairing basics, and tips for tasting.
Each section offers clear explanations, helping readers feel informed and more confident with a complex topic. To keep the content engaging, Wine Folly includes various infographics, such as a wine and food pairing guide and a breakdown of wine grape anatomy.
Try this: Break up text with a mix of colorful infographics to make the page pop and more immersive.
8. HubSpot: Inbound Marketing
HubSpot’s Guide on Inbound Marketing immediately engages readers who are looking to learn more about inbound marketing with their out-of-the-box formatting and visuals. This guide first prompts users with a call to action to sign up for their free course.
Then, it goes into straightforward sections that include a general overview of the topic, how it works, and key takeaways that readers can apply to their specific use. Overall, HubSpot’s pillar page is scannable and includes plenty of related keywords, and internal linking to help with SEO.
Try this: In addition to links to your topic clusters, include call-to-action buttons to other helpful content, like free demos or courses.
9. Pet Cube: Puppy Care 101
Knowing how to care for a puppy can be complicated, but Pet Cube aims to make pet parenting more approachable with its Guide for the First Time Pet Owner pillar page.
This guide starts at the very beginning of the pet ownership process and works its way through sections like how to pick the best breed for you, how to train your new pup, and what kind of pet food to buy.
PetCube informs readers even further with their frequently asked questions (FAQ) section at the end of the post. These can boost the user experience by addressing common questions that readers may have upfront. A well-built FAQ section can also help your post rank in the “People Also Ask” section of the SERP for your target keyword.
Try this: Add an FAQ section to help answer common questions directly, boost engagement, and increase your chances of ranking in the “People Also Ask” section of search results.
10. Qualtrics: Guide to Employee Engagement
Qualtrics aims to give its readers everything they need to know about how to engage their employees with its Guide to Employee Management pillar page. Right away this guide provides a simple way to navigate through sections with their table of contents.
This table of contents is effective because it uses sticky navigation, remaining fixed on the side as the reader scrolls down the page.
This pillar page also features several charts and tables to break down definitions and themes.
Try this: Use tables or charts to display data or explain concepts — this improves readability, illustrates topics more clearly, and aids search engines in understanding your content structure.
What Are the Benefits of Creating a Pillar Page?
Creating a pillar page is beneficial for your website for many reasons, like establishing your brand as an authority to improve user experience and SEO. Here are the top pros of implementing a pillar page strategy:
Show Your Brand’s Authority
A pillar page will help you shine as an authority and boost your E-E-A-T in the space you’re creating content. It accomplishes this by highlighting valuable and comprehensive resources for a given topic.
Showcasing these pages demonstrates your expertise on the topic, which can help readers see you as a trusted source and want to come back to your site if they need more help in the future.
Provide a Better User Experience
Since a strong pillar page organizes topics in clusters and provides helpful links to related topics, users will have a much easier time navigating through your site. This streamlined structure keeps visitors engaged and encourages them to explore more of your content.
Optimize Your Content for SEO
Creating a pillar page helps boost your SEO performance in multiple ways. First, it makes your content more likely to get links, as other websites often reference comprehensive guides and robust information.
The more authoritative your pillar page, the more likely others will link to it as a resource, strengthening your domain authority.
Pillar pages also create a large internal linking network, as cluster content links back to the pillar page and to each other. This structure helps Google understand the relationship between your pages and determines the most relevant and important ones.
Lastly, these pages give you ample opportunity to incorporate relevant keywords throughout both the pillar and cluster content. By strategically placing these keywords, you increase the chances of ranking higher for various search queries related to your topic.
What Are the Cons of Pillar Pages?
Although there are many benefits that pillar pages give you, there are some things you should consider when building them:
Competing With Product Pages
If not executed properly, topic clusters have the potential to create overlap and compete with your product pages. Product and pillar pages are different and should not target similar topics. If you have too many pages that are very similar in topics, Google will get confused and may flag it as duplicate or cannibalized content.
Sometimes, you can make the distinction by changing your URL or anchor text, but it’s best to avoid this kind of overlap when building out your pages.
Pillar Pages Are Too Niche
Sometimes, a pillar page can become too niche for your brand. For example, if you force a pillar page for a topic that’s too specific, you may not have enough supporting copy or related articles to make it a comprehensive guide.
You’ll want the topic your pillar page goes after to be very broad, like a guide on “social media marketing strategy” versus “Instagram marketing strategy.”
With that in mind, executing pillar pages for brands that are highly specialized and have a very niche audience can be challenging.
Pillar Pages Are Too Broad
Broad topics are definitely preferable over specific topics, but you have to be careful about getting too broad. Topics that are too general can give the reader information overload and prevent them from finding the answer that they’re seeking.
Pillar pages that try to tackle too much can feel cluttered and affect the quality of your content, which can result in bounced users. This could look like trying to tackle a topic like “productivity,” which covers many broad topics in itself.
Elements of a Successful Pillar Page
A strong pillar page covers a topic comprehensively and provides a user-friendly experience that’s easy to navigate and optimized for search engines.
To make your page effective and stand out amongst competitors, here are some pillar page best practices:
- Engaging intro: An effective pillar page captures the reader’s attention by outlining the topic and setting expectations for the reader. You should aim to include a brief overview of what will be covered, hooking readers and encouraging them to dive deeper.
- No paywall: Your page should be accessible to everyone, so don’t make your readers have to sign up or pay to view the content. A pillar page should be easy to read and access.
- Plenty of copy: Since you’re providing extensive resources on a broader topic, you’ll typically want longer copy to support these resources. It should be long enough to properly inform the reader without being overwhelming — be sure to break up long text with paragraph breaks or visuals.
- Short-tail target keyword: To boost SEO, focus your keyword research on high-volume, short-tail keywords that define your page’s scope. For example, if your topic is social media marketing, using “social media marketing” as a primary keyword enhances relevance, helping search engines rank it for users seeking general information.
- Plenty of interlinking: Your pillar page should also provide plenty of links to your cluster pages since the goal is to be a comprehensive guide. Effective linking enhances the reader’s journey, helping them find more information while signaling to Google the relationships between your pages.
These elements may seem small, but when combined, they have the power to create a well-optimized pillar page that will rank well and stand out on the SERP.
Showcase Your Brand’s Topical Authority With A Pillar Page
Weaving well-designed pillar pages into your content strategy can considerably boost both your site’s user experience and SEO. By focusing on creating a comprehensive hub around a central topic, you’ll help readers easily navigate through your site and find the resources they need.
If you’re ready to elevate your content but unsure where to begin, explore our web design and content strategy services to see how we can help you achieve your goals.
