What is Cornerstone SEO

It’s a well-known fact that first impressions cannot be taken back. While this applies to face-to-face meetings and job interviews, it can apply to websites as well. Think about when you visit a site for the first time. If you have a hard time navigating the site or trying to figure out what it’s all about, would you come back? Most likely not. If you want site visitors to turn into long-term customers, you need to have good cornerstone content to attract their attention. What is cornerstone content, exactly? Well, cornerstone content is the material on your site that you feel means the most to your company. It should contain a wealth of pertinent information, even combining context from multiple blog posts or articles. It communicates what you are about, your goals or mission, and gives visitors a general impression of your site and its purpose.

Cornerstone SEO as a Foundation

Aside from impressing site visitors, cornerstone content can also play a role in SEO. When it is done right and is effective, it can be a ranking factor. Building a cornerstone content structure can give your site a boost for specific keywords as well as some of the long-tail keywords and phrases you want your site to rank for.

Think of your cornerstone content as the foundation for your building. Once you have a good foundation, you can set up the supporting stones to build on it, expanding on the subject matter and forming a solid content structure. The building is sturdy and the support all funnels back to the cornerstone, the epicenter of your site content. So how do you create solid content that ties in with SEO?

Cornerstone SEO Ranking Factors

To make your cornerstone content rank high in SERPs, a few steps can be followed to ensure that the content creation process is beneficial to your site and makes it stand out among rankings. Keep these in mind before and during the process, and you will have solid cornerstone content that you can continue to build upon in the future.

• Establish site authority. One of the most basic concepts behind creating a cornerstone content structure is establishing site authority. To do this, research relevant keywords and long-tail words or phrases you want your site to rank with and create 3 to 5 cornerstone articles centered around those words/phrases. Keywords are a vital part of SEO ranking as well as establishing site authority. Once you achieve site authority, your site will rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
• Set up an internal linking structure. Internal linking is an important ranking factor, and providing Google with a well-defined map to follow when indexing your site is beneficial. Cornerstone articles should be linked directly from your homepage, and all related articles should link back to that cornerstone article. Each time you create a new post with a similar topic or from a new angle, link it back to your original cornerstone as well. This link structure tells search engines how to interpret the importance of all the pages, giving Google a map to follow and increasing your chances of ranking in SERPs. As an example, if your cornerstone is “Marketing,” articles such as “Marketing to Lawyers” or “Developing Effective Marketing Strategies” would link back to your cornerstone content.
• Ensure that your customers are engaged. Statistics show that if you can get a customer to stay on your site for 30 minutes, you are more likely to retain that customer—and they are more likely to recommend the site to others as well. But if a customer visits your site and is unable to find answers to their questions quickly and efficiently, they won’t last five minutes on your site, much less 30. Good cornerstone content is easily accessible, grabs and holds a customer’s attention, and keeps them coming back to your site for more. The best way to make sure that customers get and stay engaged in your content is ensuring a good foundation and structure that allows them to navigate your site easily and keep on clicking.

Making Your Cornerstone Content Stand Out

If you already have an established blog, you know which posts have been the most read and most popular. When compiling your cornerstone page, make a list of those posts and combine, then rewrite their content into one large post. You will want to update your posts and pages regularly to ensure that they remain relevant, especially with keywords. As you create more content and gain more readers or customers, you can make more compilations of cornerstone material and keep it up to date as well. You can create one page that showcases all your cornerstone content and links to all related articles—and be sure to link the articles to each other and back to the cornerstone page.

If you’re just getting started establishing a blog or site, you will want to determine what you want your cornerstone to be and go from there. This is where researching relevant keywords come in handy the most; make a road map of where you plan to take your content and proposed future posts. Creating new content around those keywords and phrases will give you content that stands out and the opportunity to keep new content relevant. Your cornerstone content doesn’t have to be just a post, either; it can be videos, podcasts, anything you like. Just remember to start with the high-ranking keywords related to your subject and you will already have a good head start.

Importance of Creating Cornerstone Content

Cornerstone content is what will establish credibility for you and your site in the world of SEO rankings. You may have several high-ranking keyword posts, but a cornerstone page will give you more relevance and boost your site in SERPs while connecting your best content. Not only does it boost your ranking, but it also allows customers to:

• Find your content more easily based on a wider variety of keyword searches
• Discover more of your content when it is linked together
• Engage with more content on your site and stay engaged
• Become return customers and bring more business with them
• Navigate your site more easily and find answers to their questions

With all this in mind, there is no reason not to have a solid cornerstone content page on your site. Unless that is, you want to stay hidden and not experience any growth. Creating cornerstone content is relatively simple, especially when you already have content that you have worked hard on and are proud of. With just a little restructuring, your site will have a useful map for customers to follow, higher SEO rankings, and more visibility.

Conclusion

In today’s competitive market, one must look for ways to stand out and stay ahead. With so much content out there, it’s necessary to do everything you can to achieve high SEO rankings and draw people in before they lose interest or switch to a site that’s more user-friendly or interesting. Following simple steps to compile and create cornerstone content gives you a leg up on the competition by streamlining your site and rankings to achieve a better SERP position and can only increase traffic. What are you waiting for?

If you like this article try out our in-depth look at How to Build Cornerstone SEO Articles.

Are you ready to create powerful cornerstone content for your site? Bright Vessel can help you reach your SEO goals through keyword research and the creation of stellar cornerstone content. Contact us today to find out how we can help.