When it comes to SEO and improving the Google search ranking for your website, one tactic or approach does not necessarily suit everyone. However, ensuring your website design includes high quality evergreen content (content that remains relevant at all times) is one of the most beneficial things you can do to raise your online profile. If you’re using a WordPress website with the SEO Yoast plug-in or similar, this type of content may be referred to as a cornerstone article.
What is a cornerstone article?
A cornerstone article is a foundational piece of content that defines your specific product/service/brand. If someone was to stumble across your website with no previous knowledge of what you do, your cornerstone articles would be the puzzle pieces that make up the visitor’s first impression of who you are and what you do.
Why do you need cornerstone articles?
With cornerstone articles in place, you can not only help users find the information they really need, but by enhancing the link structure of your site and ensuring the presence of quality evergreen content, SEO will be improved, helping to increase brand awareness and establish brand authority. With the right content, you’ll also see more relevant site visitors too!
What are my cornerstone articles?
To be effective, you’ll want to have several cornerstone articles that are based on the main themes of your website. Ask yourself: what are the first pages that I’d like a new visitor to view? These should usually be your most authoritative and important pieces of content.
Keyword research for your cornerstone articles
Think about what the desired outcomes are from the article and what people would be searching for to achieve this. Are enough people searching for that keyword to make this content worthwhile? Be sure to think about keywords when creating your cornerstone articles and choose the most appropriate keyword for your specific content.
Only the best for SEO
You might have a lot of posts on a similar subject and all feature important keywords. In situations like this, you’ll need to prioritise in order to create and select your cornerstone articles.
Keep content relevant
Once you’ve chosen your best articles as website cornerstones, make sure they stay relevant. Do this by updating these pages regularly as your business evolves and prioritise change. Note that the length of the article doesn’t matter to search, so long as it is relevant.
Landing page
Your landing page or homepage is the first thing any visitor will see so only the best content should be on it. Make sure your cornerstone articles are accessible on your home page via a link. Not only is there a chance that more people will see them, but their placement also tells Google that they’re important articles, therefore boosting SEO.
Linking to your cornerstones
When you choose your best articles to use as cornerstones, don’t forget about the rest! Make sure these are optimised and link from this content back to your cornerstone articles to remind search engines which pages are the most important and need to be seen.
Need help creating evergreen content and cornerstone articles for your website? Or need help with content writing or technical SEO and web design? Contact us today.