Cornerstone content is different from awesome research based content. With cornerstone content you can demonstrate your authority within the industry. It also helps you to attract new readers by giving them essential guidelines that they might be interested to seek after.
Cornerstone contents can be on anything – a tutorial on how to blog, social media marketing for beginners, etc that can serve as a relevant, useful and compelling foundation around which a strong site can stand around.
These are the type of content that stay relevant for a long period of time. If approached in a right strategic plan, then the content can help your website to rank well in the search engine.
To build this five strategy plan, what you need is a proper list of all the essential elements.
The things that will make your flagship content both SEO friendly and user friendly –
#1 – Keywords
Keywords help your content to reach out to people who are searching for it. Therefore, it is important that you choose keywords that can answer the relevant questions asked by searchers.
So select your keywords carefully. You need to choose at least 8 to 12 keyword phrases. Use it to build a keyword optimized cornerstone content.
Note – When choosing a keyword, make sure that it defines your area of expertise. Apart from helping you build your authority, the right keywords can also funnel down your lead-pick strategy and helping you to find the right target customers.
#2 – Title
According to Nathan Safran of Moz, a title of your content can determine how readers react to it. Almost 80 percent never make it past the title, while the traffic is said to vary as much as 500 percent based on a simple title.
That is why, it comes as a ‘no surprise’ when SEO practitioners spend a lot of time debating about what will work and what won’t.
What goes in a headline? Well, when you are writing a headline, you need to keep in mind that you are trying to promote a content and make readers look into it.
You may want to answer a query made by a target lead in the search engine, or write your headline with a never-heard-before fact. In other words, you choose words that help you to speak to your prospective buyers in your own chosen words.
In addition, make sure that you have one relevant keyword in your headline. The title of the page should prominently reflect the answer that a searcher seeks for after typing a query. Besides, a headline can sometimes make a reader return or refer it to somebody else using just the title. In that case, make sure that you also add a link anchor text to your content.
Note – The link anchor text is an essential component of a particular search algorithm.
#3 – Introduction
An introduction is a short explanation that a content requires from the standpoint of user-gratification.
This should be inspirational enough to instigate your readers to take action. So what does the introduction part of cornerstone content include?
- A Story
- A Question
- A Metaphor, Simile or Analogy
- The Mind’s Eye
- A Relevant Statistics
#4 – Subheadlines
Long chunks of words do not happen to be reader friendly when read online. That is bullet points are said to be good SEO practice. With bullet points, you can break down the content into little paragraphs that are easy to go through and remember.
Now using subheadline is even better than bullet points. Subheadlines do not just break the text into little points but also highlights the benefits to entice the readers. In addition, subheadlines also help to determine the topic of the content.
Besides, the rules for writing subheadlines are same as writing the title of your cornerstone content.
Here is a list of benefits that subheadlines can help you obtain from your cornerstone content –
- List of benefits/offers
- Proof and explanation data
- An upcoming teaser
- Selected chapters of a module or training course
#5 – Conclusion followed with a Call-to-Action
All cornerstone contents must end with a conclusion and a call-to-action. When you are writing this final section, your ultimate goal should be to make the readers do what you want them to do. And what do you want them to do? Take the call to action.
You can ask readers –
- To sign up for free newsletters or e-books
- Access the content library
- Download an app
- Or, start a new trial
#6 – Social Share Buttons
Social share buttons are as important as your Call to Action buttons. They are not only great marketing tools but can be excellent social influencers. The importance of social share buttons goes beyond just increasing engagement, traffic and online presence. They help to make your marketing operations flow systematically.
Now that you are done writing your cornerstone content, the next step is how you promote it. Again, getting good results require proper strategy.
Here are some strategies that you can try out in your cornerstone content marketing strategy –
Highlight Your Content on the Sidebar
Whether you are using a landing page or the website, highlight the content link at the sidebar. You can simply create small banners and then use them to link to your post or put textual links along with a brief description.
Link the Content to Your Guest Post
Linking your cornerstone content is a great way of proving readers with an essential link to more information.
You can use the guest post to talk about the benefits and facts on a particular thing and then use the cornerstone content to give away essential tutorials. It’s a great way of making readers go through a one-spot marketing channel instead of making them run looking for information here and there.
Use the as a Means of getting More Lead Information
Cornerstone content can become the gateway to lead information. Customers
Conclusion
Cornerstone contents need to be relevant and useful to the website. At the same time, it should also be both compelling and comprehensive to excite visitors and to link them back to the main page.
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