Cornerstone content is the focal point of your website. Ideally, someone should be able to click straight from your homepage to this content.
Your company’s core message is a small set of concise points like the tip of a pyramid. The next level down is your cornerstone content. It is the best, most important information about your products or services. It defines and provides basic details using the key points of your core message.
Good cornerstone content delivers three important benefits:
- This is where your website establishes your expertise.
- High level content is another important factor for boosting web traffic.
- Cornerstone pages should be the navigational hub of your website. This boosts your UX, users experience.
- All three are major SEO factors too.
These benefits are tightly integrated. This may sound overwhelming at first. The good news is most websites already have some of this information. But has it been designated as cornerstone content?
If you have your core message established you have your starting point. If not, this is a good time to define your core message. This comprehensive message used consistently gives your company communications a very distinct voice and message.
Websites need relevant information for all your company’s products and/or services. Before you begin marketing your messages must define who you are, what you do, and why they can trust you.
Define the points very concisely. Use them consistently. As your business grows and changes, keep them fresh, and updated.
These few points are the topics of your cornerstone content! This is how your SEO ranks higher.
Establishing Expertise
Cornerstone content is usually longer, well written informative articles. The objective here is to show expertise.
These documents are where you show your knowledge of the topic. It should clearly address all the major points in the topic with a good basic explanation. Sales and marketing documents can refer back here to create trust and credibility.
Do not get bogged down into too many details about any one point. These details go on a sub-page or a document the reader can download. White papers, e-books, and articles are factual educational documents which make good downloadable documents. (See more here)
High Level Content Creates More Traffic
A cornerstone designation helps your SEO by showing this is high level content. Secondary documents provide more details, a different perspective, or something that supports the cornerstone information.
SEO experts agree that your keyword focus must be specific to rank higher in search engine results. Having multiple cornerstone documents on topics very specific to your business allows you to optimize multiple keywords. Each page that supports the specific cornerstone points broadens your coverage of the topic.
A document about a specific topic naturally leads to more content about a similar topic. More pages increase the probability of having the keywords that will bring searching prospects to your web page.
Easily Accessible Quality Content Develops Trust
Knowing you can provide the product or service they need is important. Connecting to your customers and creating trust is the vital next step. Easy access to your information comes from a good navigation structure.
Insights from different documents including blogs and marketing material on the subject should be connected with internal links. All these documents linked together create a powerful knowledge base. This demonstrates your expertise and develops trust. The “My” Connection article goes into more detail on creating trust.
Once they visit your website you want to make it quite easy for them to find additional information. The ideal website design provides related material in three clicks or less.
The proper structure shows visitors and search engines what is your most important content. With the cornerstone as your hub, you will discover the elaborate linking structure is quite organic. The internal links on each cornerstone topic should flow down from the cornerstone page with some lateral links within the topic.
Combining everything that is important about a specific topic in a single thread also simplifies your menu structure.
Cornerstone Content Summary
- Key message points should state the focus of your company. These points should run consistently through all your communications.
- On your website, these should be integral parts of your cornerstone content.
- Your supporting documents provide depth and details about your cornerstone content. These radiate from the cornerstone hub and crosslink for easy access.
Cornerstone content determines the strength of your site. It affects your SEO, your traffic, your subscriptions, and your sales. When you have cornerstone content, your job gets easier, and your website visitors’ user experience is better. That is how you create a good website.
Isn’t having a good, user-friendly website the ultimate goal?