Some time ago I wrote the post “101 Blog Tips I learned in 2006“. It received a lot of attention and positive feedback, but since the tips included are short phrases going straight to the point many people asked whether I could expand and explain a little bit better some of them. “Write pillar articles” is one of the 101 tips, and below I will try to describe what are pillar articles and how your blog could benefit from them:
Characteristics of pillar articles:
- they are longer posts
- usually above 750 words
- they offer a clear value to the reader
- their content is timeless
- their content is original and unique
- they outline the expertise of the writer around a specific topic
- they attract links from other bloggers
Pillar articles obviously consume more time and energy than traditional posts, they might require additional research around a certain subject or even the maturation of some ideas over longer periods (sometimes I will spend one week or more writing a pillar article as opposed to the 30-60 minutes I use for daily posts).
This extra work, however, is worth while. Pillar articles will give credibility to your blog and they will also contribute to increase traffic over the long term. When a reader comes across a well-written, informative and interesting article it is very likely that he will bookmark the website, subscribe to the feed or simply remember the site address to visit it again in the near future. If that was not enough pillar articles also have a higher probability of attracting links from other bloggers.
What are you waiting for? Start writing your next pillar article right now!
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