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- 3-2-1 Friday: The right length for content, choosing the best topic for your pillar page, and content strategy for a new blog
3-2-1 Friday: The right length for content, choosing the best topic for your pillar page, and content strategy for a new blog
Welcome to today’s issue of Efikó, a weekly newsletter by me, Dozie Anyaegbunam, with a focus on content marketing, writing, social strategy, and living your best life. THANK YOU for being here! I appreciate you.
Hullo, 👋
How are we doing?
I have never taken this amount of DayQuil and NyQuil in my 30+ years on Earth. But it’s all good. All systems are green again.
Dodo did start coughing at some point. But after a day, everything went back to normal with him.
The only thing that comes to mind when I think of how kids’ immune systems handle the virus is a Rolls Royce.
Now to the content groove!
3 Things I learned This Week
i.
So, what’s the right length for content? It depends on the following:
Your audience. Because you don’t want to write a 10,000-word blog post for a C-suite executive who barely has time to read all the reports on their desk.
The content format. Because if the SERPs show that 900-word blogs with a sprinkling of images and videos are holding the fort, pounding out a 5,000-word article doesn’t guarantee you the top spot.
The topic. Because if you can share a unique or valuable point of view on the topic in 500 words, why bother adding fluff?
Look, there are no hard and fast rules here. You can decide to go ahead and pound out a massive guide even if the winning SERPs are short essays. But the questions you have to answer before doing that are:
What are they doing well?
What are they doing poorly?
And how do I make my piece of content easier to consume?
ii.
Topic clusters are in vogue. So are pillar pages. And these are the basic foundations of any topic cluster strategy.
A pillar page is a blog page that covers a topic in-depth and links to clusters of related content.
Now, not all topics are suitable for pillar pages. Here’s a simple framework for deciding on the topic of your pillar page:
It should have enough subtopics you can write about. A good rule of thumb to use is between 10 and 20 subtopics. Too broad, and you can go on and on.
The search traffic (not search volume) is worth the effort. Use an SEO tool to see the traffic the top five results get before you commit to creating a pillar page on any topic.
It's an informational keyword, not a transactional one. A pillar page aims to educate. So, study the search intent of the top results on the SERPs. If product landing pages dominate the SERPs, Google is telling you people looking for that topic are looking to buy, not learn.
iii.
Starting a new blog can be daunting. What sort of content do you create? Well, you can start with:
Educational content (tips, short guides, pain-point focused blogs)
Then introduce case studies and MOFU blogs (us vs. them)
And as your blog matures, you can graduate to creating content hubs for your buyer personas.
2 Things I am Thinking About
i.
Wealth is sweet; accomplishment is satisfying.
ii.
Money is a terrible way to define happiness. But it’s essential.
1 Book Recommendation
I haven’t gotten to reading it. But the reviews are great. I believe the New York Times called it the “riveting pick-me-up we all need right now.” HumanKind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
Content Writing Jobs
I am also looking to hire an SEO writer. Send me a message if you’ve got the right chops.
All the best, folks. Could you please share with any of your friends/colleagues who might find this helpful?
If you would love me to review your writing and give you feedback, you can book a time here. Or just hit the reply button.
Thanks for reading this far. I am grateful!
Be good out there. If you can't be good, be careful
I’ll be back on 4/22.
Dozie
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