What are pillar pages and why do you need them? [B2B examples for SEO]

Pillar pages have been a mainstay of content marketing strategy for many years. They are used to educate and inform your audience but also to demonstrate 'topical authority' to the search engines and AI platforms that increasingly control the flow of traffic to our websites. Here’s what you need to know about pillar pages and how they work.

What are pillar pages?

Pillar pages are pieces of long-form content on your website intended to act as the ultimate guide, or central piece of contenent, to  'core topics' of central importance to your customers and your business.  

They contain the kind of information and insight you regularly share with prospects and customers to help them with their buying decisions.

Packaged into dedicated pages, supported by clusters of blogs, they provide more information about a topic to further educate your audience.

Creating a pillar page can be an integral part of your content strategy. For example, your pillar page could be on ‘Outsourcing medical device manufacturing.’ Among other topics, you’d cover the pros and cons of outsourcing, the logistics of how it works, and how to choose an outsourcing partner. 

From your pillar page, you would add links to cluster content - blog posts that dive deeper into those topics covered on your pillar page. 

Think of the pillar page as a content hub from which readers can be guided to more specific content pieces.

How do pillar pages help form topic clusters?

With so much content out there, there’s a lot of competition to get your voice heard.  Pillar pages form the heart of different ‘topic clusters’ on your website.  These clusters are there to demonstrate the range of expertise you bring to your customers and help them with their decision-making. 

Typically, a business will choose around 6 or 7 central topics that they want to own as a business and be 'found for' online. Google must quickly identify the most remarkable content and, at the same time, disregard anything it deems irrelevant, redundant or unethical.

Although a pillar page is usually based on a broad topic, it links to narrower subjects that support the overall content - in other words, more opportunities to satisfy the searcher's query.

Because a pillar page is saturated with helpful, supporting content, in a variety of formats: blogs, infographics, videos etc, it makes sense for Google to present this to the user as one of the top sources since it embodies so many branching topics.

If you look in detail at this website, for example,  you'll see the central topic clusters that we think our prospects and customers are looking for help and advice with:

• Marketing for B2B Manufacturers
• Brand Positioning
  
• Content Strategy
  
• ABM
  
• Sales Enablement
  
• Inbound Marketing

And within those clusters, you'll see extensive information about each particular topic, with links to all relevant, supporting topics.  Ideally, Google then considers each page a rich, authoritative and helpful source - and pushes it further up the search results.

What's on a pillar page

Pillar pages typically include video, infographics and written content. They should be easily scannable by the reader exploring your site or landing on your page from a specific search query.

Uncluttered and simple to navigate, they contain bi-directional links to those supporting clusters of related content.

Above all, they should give your customers accessible answers to all the burning questions they have about the core topic in hand, sharing your expert knowledge in a helpful and comprehensive way.

But, remember, this is NOT a sales pitch or a brochure for the services you offer.

You should endeavour to consistently update your pillar page by adding new links. This can be achieved by identifying content gaps and creating additional content to support your topic cluster. So take advantage of this opportunity and do all you can to keep the fire of your pillar page burning.

You need to do everything you can to maintain or acquire your status as a thought leader, an authoritative source, to stand out above all of that information.

How long should a pillar page be?

In the early days of content marketing, pillar pages were often chunky bits of work totalling anything between 6,000 and 10,000 words - but in this age of content overload - experts say they can be much shorter than this and still have the required effect.

As Samuel Schmitt of the AI company Thruuu points out:

"The recommended word count for a pillar page is 2000+ words. Note that word count is not a ranking factor. The length depends on the topic and the kind of structure your pillar page has."

Nowadays, successful pillar pages are often relatively short, hitting the key points of a topic, as an introductory primer for an interested audience, and then linking off to more detailed blogs (sometimes between 1,000 and 2,000 words) if the reader wants to explore further.

Can you give me an example of a great pillar page?

Yes.  Here’s one of ours, based around the core topic  ‘Marketing for B2B Manufacturers’.

Our rationale for choosing this as a pillar topic is clear, it's a subject that's central to our business offering.

We know from keyword research there are 100s of professionals, like you, who are searching for help with this specific topic and related subtopics every month.  And we believe we have the expertise and insight to support them as they persuade the C-Suite to invest in marketing.

To help with this we built a pillar page that covers that topic broadly, but with links out to the web pages and blog posts on our site where you can explore the different areas of that topic in more detail.

These clusters of blogs include titles like: 

• Tapping into growth opportunities: Market sizing for B2B manufacturers
• 23 ways to generate great blog ideas for manufacturing

And, of course, the blog post about pillar pages that you are reading right now!

Think of the original pillar page as a tree trunk from which various branches—smaller, more specific pieces of cluster content (like this one) —extend.

And, to push the metaphor even further, think of your visitors and web crawlers as squirrels using the central tree trunk and branches to navigate the entirety of the ‘tree’—gathering the information they need as they explore its furthest reaches.

Maybe that's a bit much.  But you get the point.

Here's a less fun image, that illustrates the same point:

This image is from HubSpot’s own site, part of a series reproduced in this blog, demonstrating how their own approach to pillar page creation has changed over time.

Why is topic clustering important?

Organising content topic clusters like these with pillar pages at the centre of them makes it easier for site visitors and search engines to access your expertise and find answers to their questions in the fastest way possible.  

Pillar pages and topic clusters are great ways of consuming content

Pillar pages and topic clusters are great for improving user experience by organising content in a way that’s easy to navigate.

They group related topics together, making it simpler for users to find all the information they need in one place. By including different kinds of digital content—like videos, infographics, and blogs—these pages can become more engaging and interactive, offering a richer, more interesting experience that keeps users exploring and sharing content.

How do pillars and clustering help with SEO?

The way we search online has changed a lot since Google first started taking off in the early 2000s. People are submitting longer, more conversational search queries. And Google’s algorithm has become more sophisticated. It can now better understand the context and intent behind a search query. Not to mention, AI-driven search is becoming more prolific as people take to tools like ChatGPT to find the answers they need. 

In the old world, content was added to your website in a linear way with blog posts and pages written and optimised around specific keywords. 

As they were not linked together by anchoring, topical pillars, results from these blog posts matched our keywords but not always our intent.   We'd often have to trawl through search results to filter results for greater relevance.

Nowadays, Google has become capable of dealing with semantic complexity just like a human being does. AI powered search intelligently interprets what we are looking for and crawls sites for blogs and pages that most precisely answer that intent.

As a result, Google says, businesses shouldn’t just focus on keyword optimisation but on the overall quality of the content they are producing, ensuring web crawlers can see the relevance and depth of a site’s expertise when searching for answers to specific queries.

The internal links from pillar pages to related questions and sub-topics, show Google that your website possesses a whole network of knowledge in this area.  They offer the search engines the fastest route to find important content, relevant to specific topics.

Google must be able to determine what your content is about, so that the rest of the world can. It should be presented in a clear, concise, and universal manner. This is ultimately how Google ranks its content.

This kind of web structure, together with Google's advanced semantic understanding, makes the search engine capable of ‘snippeting’ the most relevant answers from the most authoritative sites in response to our queries in their SERPs. 

It makes them capable of picking out related questions, which they can offer to you in the ‘People Also Ask’ section.

Now, Google is also creating its own AI overview of certain topics at the top of its search returns, creating mini-pillars in its own words, but citing and linking to the websites that demonstrate that expertise.  

Pillar pages are going to be very important in helping with AI-assisted search.

How to create a pillar page

Creating a pillar page requires careful planning and execution to ensure that it effectively covers a broad topic and links to related subtopics. 

Here's a step-by-step guide to creating a pillar page:

1. Choose a broad topic: Start by selecting a broad topic that you want to rank for. This could be something related to your industry or a topic that your audience is interested in.
   
   
2. Conduct research: Before you start writing your pillar page, conduct research to gather information on the topic. This could involve reading articles, watching videos, and exploring other resources to ensure that your pillar page is comprehensive and accurate.
   
   
3. Determine subtopics: Once you have a solid understanding of the broad topic, identify subtopics that relate to it. These subtopics should be more specific than the main topic and should cover specific aspects of it.
   
   
4. Organise content: Organise your research and subtopics into a logical structure for your pillar page. Consider using a table of contents to make it easier for readers to navigate the content.
   
   
5. Write the content: Start writing the content for your pillar page, keeping in mind the subtopics and structure you have identified. Make sure to include high-quality, relevant information that is helpful to your audience.
   
   
6. Add visuals: To make your pillar page more engaging and visually appealing, consider adding relevant images, videos, infographics, or other visual content to break up the text.
   
   
7. Add internal links: Within the pillar page, add internal links to relevant cluster pages (i.e. blog posts) that cover specific subtopics in more detail. This will help improve the overall SEO value of your content.
   
   
8. Optimise for SEO: Finally, optimise your pillar page for SEO by including relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and title tags. This will help improve its visibility in search engine results pages.

Summary

In today's rapidly changing digital landscape, staying on top of SEO best practices is crucial to ensuring your website is visible to your target audience. The shift towards longer, conversational search queries and Google's increasingly sophisticated algorithm have led to the rise of pillar pages as a powerful SEO tool. 

By organising your content around a central topic and linking to high-quality cluster pages, pillar pages can help improve your website's search visibility, authority, and user experience. 

Creating a pillar page is a time-consuming process that requires careful attention and regular maintenance. But the effort can lead to improved SEO, increased traffic, and better audience engagement. By following the tips in this article, you can create a valuable and comprehensive resource that boosts your website's search visibility and provides value to your audience.

Editor's note: This blog was first written in November 2024 and has been updated in December 2025 for relevance and accuracy.