Why Should You Create Cornerstone Content for Your Business Blog?

Having a blog for your business is an effective way to drive more organic traffic to your website, as well as to boost engagement and conversions. In fact, several studies have shown that:

• Internet users spend 300% more time reading blogs than they do reading emails
• Brands with a business blog get 67% more leads each month than brands without a blog
• Around 84% of online consumers have made a purchase because of what they read on blogs

There are many kinds of content that you can publish on your blog other than regular blog posts — from interviews to announcements, guides, infographics, cornerstone content, and many more.

Cornerstone content, in particular, is among the best types of content to establish your authority, as well as offering many other benefits.

Cornerstone Content vs. Regular Blog Post

Cornerstone content refers to long-form articles that are usually more than 2,500 words long.

Whereas regular blog posts are between 250 and 2,500 words in length, cornerstone content is relatively long and has more in-depth coverage of a certain topic.

An example would be: “How does baseball work?” And the article will talk about all the essential information there is to know about the topic.

Its primary aim is to provide the most comprehensive information about a topic rather than aiming for conversions or sales. This is why the content in cornerstone articles is considered informative rather than persuasive.

3 Benefits of Having Cornerstone Content for Your Blog

1. Increases brand awareness and trust

Cornerstone content isn’t meant to convert readers right away. Another of its purposes is to pique the interest of readers and draw them in — a great way to raise brand awareness.

By offering them quality content that answers nearly all of their questions, readers will get the impression that you’re someone they could trust — a good strategy to position your brand as an authority in your respective industry.

2. Helps you maximize your SEO strategy

One of the best practices in SEO is to target low-competition, long-tail keywords. This is, of course, effective, but there’s also value in targeting high-competition, short-tail keywords, and you can do this with cornerstone content.

By targeting broader keywords, you get to reel in a higher volume of leads. You also get to maximize your SEO strategy because you can both rank for the most competitive keywords and less competitive keywords in your niche.

3. Eases your content strategy efforts

It’s a given that cornerstone content is meant to be evergreen — that is, its content is something that readers can revisit again and again.

The practical aspect of writing cornerstone content is that you can repurpose it into many different formats, easing your content strategy efforts.

4 Tips for Creating Winning Cornerstone Content

One thing to note is that cornerstone content can either be a blog post or a web page. Whichever option you take, here are a few tips to create cornerstone content that drives results:

1. Conduct keyword research

The first and foremost thing to do is to identify relevant keywords that are considered high competition. You can use several tools for this such as Google Keyword Planner, ​​Google Trends, and Ubersuggest.

Take note of the following criteria in your keyword research:

• Search volume: Broader keywords tend to have a higher search volume.
• Keyword difficulty/competition: As we mentioned, select high-volume, high-competition keywords for your cornerstone content.
• Trend and projection: This is optional, but it’s best to select high-volume keywords that have a favorable trend projection. You can use Google Trends for this step.

2. Plan your content

Writing a very long, in-depth article requires careful planning, which is why outlining your article is essential for a successful cornerstone content. A few things to note:

• Choose a short-tail keyword for your main topic. For example: “How does baseball work?” and your title could be “A Beginner’s Guide to Baseball.”
• Choose long-tail keywords as your secondary topics and use them as subheadings. For example: “What is the required equipment for baseball?” “What are the basic rules for baseball?”
• Put yourself in your readers’ shoes: what other things would they want to know about the topic?

You can then organize your outline/content plan in a simple Word or Google Document. However, you can also use outlining tools such as Checkvist, WorkFlowy, and ToodleDo.

3. Optimize your content

On-page SEO is critical for your cornerstone content. This refers to page-specific elements to improve the search visibility of your content.

When writing your cornerstone article, be sure to use:

• Subheadings: This is essential not only for visual breaks and organization but also for SEO. Use H2 tags for your subheadings, H3 for sub-subheadings, and so forth.
• Bullet points or numbered lists: SEO tends to favor content that has lists or bullet points. This is also a good way to optimize your content for Google’s Featured Snippets.
• Natural language: It’s best to write for human readers, not for search engine bots. Use natural language as much as possible: use simple words, write as if you’re talking to your friends, and minimize jargon. Curate your content as well to the knowledge level of your target audience.

There are also other on-page SEO elements that you need to take care of:

• Internal links: Cornerstone content is a good avenue for you to maximize your internal linking strategy. Be sure to include contextual links in your article, pointing readers to relevant content within your website.
• External links: Always, always cite your sources, especially when you’re mentioning statistical data or lifting quoted material. Use credible websites with high authority and point to the main source as much as you can.
• Specify with the right tag on WordPress: If you use WordPress and Yoast SEO for your blog, it’s essential to mark your article as “cornerstone content.” If you do, Yoast SEO will automatically create a list of them in your post’s overview, which will increase online visibility. You can find this in the block editor in the sidebar.

Image courtesy of Yoast

4. Do regular maintenance

Although cornerstone content is meant to be evergreen, changes are inevitable, and it’s important to keep your content fresh and relevant. A few things to include in the regular maintenance of your cornerstone content:

• Conduct regular content audits for your blog, and pay close attention to broken links (404 pages), especially for your cornerstone content.
• Stay updated with the latest studies and data. Replace old references — those that are more than 3 to 5 years old — whenever possible.
• Identify content gaps in your current content and update your article as needed.

Create a Solid Content Marketing Strategy for Your Brand

Blogging is an important part of your content marketing strategy, but often, this is an arduous task, especially for startup companies with limited resources. And blogging also goes hand in hand with SEO and many other marketing strategies such as graphic design.

If you need any help in creating a solid content marketing and blogging strategy for your brand, Ilfusion is here for you. We’re a full-service creative agency catering to brands of all sizes, and we offer a variety of digital marketing services — from copywriting, SEO, and graphic design needs, to professional photography and videography.

Drop us an email at [email protected], or give us a call at 888-420-5115 to get started!

Categorized in: Articles