Cornerstone Content and How it Can Help
Is it time to overhaul your content strategy? You don’t have to start all over again from scratch. If you have content lying around on your hard drive, you can brush it up and leverage it to build your audience. The first step is to choose your best “cornerstone content.”
Don’t worry this isn’t hard work. You most likely have it all already you just need to identify it!
Trust me, I get it. More and more work to optimize posts, write posts, create content, sell digital products, blah blah blah. It gets crazy. On my one website, I have done a decent job of establishing my cornerstone content. On my other website (GrowingPlay) it is a TRAIN wreck that is constantly a work in progress. For years, I have been creating
What Is Cornerstone Content?
Your cornerstone content is essentially your “greatest hits.” It best demonstrates the value you have to offer your audience. This is the material you want people to see first when they encounter you online.
The reason you need to identify these pieces is that they’re the most effective in helping you achieve your business goals. They have the greatest impact and that’s why you need them in key areas of your marketing.
How to Choose Cornerstone Content
Your greatest hits are pieces you’d like to appear at the top of the search engines when someone enters your chosen keywords. Think of this as your “start here” material.
This content should be evergreen, meaning it won’t become dated over time. Don’t use content that focuses on timely issues. Choose pieces that will still be relevant this time next year.
Your cornerstone material should be general because you’re trying to cast your net wide, but it should tackle a particular problem your audience faces and give them actionable steps that will help to solve this problem. If someone reads your work and sees results, this is very powerful for getting them to check you out and see what else you have to offer.
Make It Unique
It helps if this material is unique from the offerings of other content creators. Try to find something that takes a slightly unique angle or offers something no one else does. Making content unique can mean creating content in different formats than your competitors or my personal favorite anything you can create that will help someone do any skill faster or more efficiently. This can mean anything from forms and templates to organizing information in one place.
If you have material that is already published, choose something that received a great deal of engagement.
Most importantly, the content you use must reflect what you most want to be known for going forward. Define your core areas of expertise and focus on these when preparing content. Then develop a content strategy around them.
For SEO purposes, make your cornerstone content, lengthy and super informative! Take the time to create posts, videos, and images to make sure the content is engaging and effective to help your readers.
How to Use Your Cornerstone Content
How you’ll use this material depends on your business goals, but some examples would be:
- Posting on other sites with backlinks to bring new people to your site.
- As the front piece to your blog or site so that it’s the first thing people see when they arrive there. It can then lead to similar or more specific content.
- A free offer, like a free report, to entice people to sign up for your list or follow you on social media.
Remember that this content may not be text-based, but could also be a video, podcast, cheat sheet, resource guide, or a webinar.
Do you want to know more about making your existing content work for you? Check out my course, Conquer Your Content, which teaches you the A to Z of effective content management.
