True Or False? Pillar Pages Make Landing Pages Obsolete

False. Pillar pages do not make landing pages obsolete simply because they both serve very different purposes. They are both still required for any quality digital marketing strategy and should be used as needed. Any 

Is A Pillar Page A Landing Page?

No, pillar pages and landing pages are very different. You generally want to use pillar pages to reinforce your authority in a specific niche. They help to get content out there that is relevant to your industry. Content like this helps to get organic traffic to your site, and doing so can lead to this traffic trusting and potentially buying from you. In comparison, landing pages are made specifically to get sales and do not reinforce your authority at all. Both types of pages are beneficial, but they both serve very different purposes.

What Is A Pillar Page?

Pillar pages need two parts to work effectively. The most important part is the pillar page itself; to rank the pillar page, however, you also need cluster pages. A pillar page is made just as a way for you to inform your target audience about a relevant topic. They allow you to get your brand in front of your potential clients at various stages of the buying process. Getting in front of your target demographic is insanely essential for your success. In much the same way, content marketing, replying to reviews, and even getting mentioned in your local news, are all great ways to get in front of more people.

Pillar pages generally aim to help educate your potential clients and stay top-of-mind so that when they are ready to buy, they think of your brand. Pages like this help to enforce your authority in Google's mind, ensuring that you rank more highly, get more organic traffic, etc. The best way to grow your organic traffic is by properly building pillar pages and surrounding them with relevant cluster pages. 

A pillar page should generally cover the main part of a topic, while leaving many aspects to be covered in the cluster pages. Structuring your content in this way has many names, but the most common phrase is a silo.

What Are Cluster Pages?

Cluster pages are pages that help to expand your pillar page. Cluster pages will have content relevant to the pillar page. Your ideal cluster pages will be optimized for phrases with decent traffic. You generally never want to create any pillar pages and or cluster pages that don't get a decent amount of traffic, so do your research before creating these pages! For example, this article is a cluster page for our main pillar page that deals with Grand Rapids SEO. It has helped our page tremendously!

What Is A Landing Page?

A landing page differs from pillar pages in that a landing page serves on purpose - getting a sale. You aren't trying to educate your traffic with a landing page. Your goal is to capture as much traffic as possible. Once you have that traffic, your next goal is converting as much of it into sales as possible. Landing pages are much simpler than pillar pages, as you don't have to create an entire infastructure around them. 

What Are The Key Components Of A Landing Page

A landing page is just like any other page, so we're not wasting your time discussing aspects of a landing page that exist on any other page, such as your navigation, NAP, headings, etc. There are three main things on a landing page that you need in order to ensure your success.

First and foremost, you need exceptional sales copy. You need to have the best sales copy you can create to inform your visitor of your offer and compel them to learn more and take you up on it. You'll need a short, easy-to-use form to gather more information from them and, finally, a great CTA. Each aspect ensures that your visitors have the greatest chance of converting, and you cannot afford to slack on any of them. You'll also want to ensure that the keywords you are considering are going to bring you a decent amount of traffic. If you go after keywords that no one is searching, you are making a landing page no one will find, which is obviously something you want to avoid!

When Should You Ungate Content?

You generally want to ungate content if you see conversion rates of less than 2-3%. Anything less than this tells you that either your content isn't appealing enough to get them to go through your gates or there isn't enough demand for them to warrant the hassle. Regardless, you can alter your content and keep things gated or ungated. It is up to you, but ungated content will almost always allow you to enjoy more traffic immediately. So you may need to weigh your options to determine which makes the most sense for your goals.

Why Is It Considered Best Practice To Include An Image Or Video On A Landing Page?

The reason this is considered best practice is two-fold. For one, video and images have been proven to increase the time visitors spend on your page, increasing vital on-page metrics. These on-page metrics show Google that your content is more valuable, and you will be more likely to rank higher and get in front of more people. 

In addition to this, videos give your website a significant boost in credibility. Increasing your chances of converting your traffic into customers. Images do as well, but less effectively than quality video content. So not only can you stand to potentially improve your rankings by adding video and photos to your landing page, but you can also stand to improve your conversion rate.

What Are The Areas You Need To Consider When Building A Call To Action?

There is a lot of debate on this topic, but ultimately it comes down to where makes the most sense for your content. Some pages it will make more sense at the start, and some at the end. You'll have to think logically about where CTA's make the most sense. You'll ideally have more than one, and they should be at varying levels on the page. One at the top, one at the bottom, and one in the middle of the page isn't a bad way to go, but it can be challenging and does really warrant some thought. You want your CTA's to be practical, well thought out, and for them to not appear too spammy. You really don't want to overdo this.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article helped you understand the difference between landing and pillar pages. To recap, again, you need both to achieve different goals. They both help get your business/website more traffic, but they achieve very different goals.