How Las Vegas Businesses can Create Cornerstone Content for SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the primary and most cost-effective method for businesses to drive traffic to their websites. However, it’s a competitive world out there. Ever-changing algorithms and evolving user expectations mean you need an agile SEO content marketing strategy to keep pace. If SEO and content marketing isn’t your thing, it can be a daunting task to tackle this alone – reaching out to our LAS Vegas SEO agency would be a great place to start.

Watch this video to learn about the Digital Authority Partners approach to local SEO!

What Is Cornerstone SEO Content?

Let’s kick off by clarifying what cornerstone content is, then we’ll get into how you can use it to create massive SEO impact. 

A cornerstone is something important, indispensable, essential, or fundamental. In terms of content, that refers to the most valuable content on your website. Such as the information that users need to know to understand your business, what you offer, and how you can impact their lives. Essentially a cornerstone piece should increase traffic, drive brand awareness, and get visitors excited about reading. 

The article you’re reading right now is a prime example of SEO cornerstone content. Our cornerstone content is an article about creating cornerstone content – is this inception? 

How to Create Cornerstone Content

     1. Finding The Right Topics

Sometimes referred to as evergreen content, cornerstone SEO works best when you can create articles that answer the questions your target audience most frequently searches. For example, if you’re a video marketing agency, create an article titled “The Basics of Adobe After Effects” or answer the question: what is the best video camera for beginners?

Choosing hot topics relevant to your business provides your potential target audience value. As a result, you lead them to understand that you're an expert and they need your services – that's the aim. 

     2. Keyword Research

So, you’ve chosen the perfect topic and written your article. However, you’ve noticed no difference in your website traffic, and no one is seeing your new cornerstone piece. You probably skipped the keyword part. Without keyword research, you won’t create compelling work both users and Google love. 

Google presents the most relevant information based on the search terms – you need to use popular keywords that your website can rank. However, suppose you're a relatively new website attempting to rank for broad key terms alongside big industry names; you're fighting a losing battle. 

Using keyword search tools such as Semrush and Ahrefs will give you data such as search volume, keyword competitiveness, and the likelihood your site will rank for each term. Utilize this data to select your chosen keywords, and don’t just incorporate short and broad terms. Long-tail keywords are perfect for articles, blogs, and cornerstone pieces.

     3. Plan Your Content

If there’s one thing that most content marketing tips articles don’t tell you, it’s to make a plan. Before metaphorically picking up your pen, you need a sense of direction, a word count, defined sections, and an overall message you want to convey. Without this, you’ll likely end up off-track, writing about subjects that aren’t directly related to your initial topic. Therefore, you’re reducing the impact this cornerstone piece will have on your audience. 

Once you’ve set yourself a target word count, you can begin to separate your article into multiple sections. Decide how much you will write for the introduction, the subheadings you will use and how much body content for each, and how you will sign off, including the calls to action you will use.

Now your sections are defined, write a list of bullet points of the most important things you need to cover. This crucial step will keep you focussed on everything you need to include – it will also keep your article concise, to the point, and impactful. 

The planning stage is also the ideal time to consider the internal and external links your article will include. Remember, links are crucial for SEO and content marketing.

     4. Write Your Cornerstone Piece

You’ve put in all the leg work – now the fun begins. If you’re unsure how to write SEO articles, the steps you’ve already completed will make this abundantly easier. However, if you’re still lacking direction, take a look at how others have done it. Never plagiarize – take inspiration from the articles that rank highly for the topic you’re covering. 

Stick to your well-thought-out plan, and you can’t go wrong. Once you’ve finished writing, using a tool such as Grammarly to check spelling, grammar, and delivery is recommended – an article filled with errors isn’t a good look.

     5. Promote & Optimize The Article

Congratulations – you’ve written and published your article. You can sit back and wait for all the traffic to come to you. Ok, maybe you can’t. It’s time to get other websites to link to your article – it tells Google that your content is valuable and sends you flying up the rankings. 

Begin promoting it and encouraging people to link. While this isn’t easy and is often time-consuming, it’s definitely worth the effort. Backlinks from high authority domains will cement your place at the top of the rankings and make it harder for your competitors to take your place.

However, you can’t rest on your laurels just yet – continuous optimization is crucial to maintaining your position. Updating your article frequently shows Google your information is still valid and up-to-date, giving them no reason to penalize you.

In Summary

Cornerstone content has the power to attract copious amounts of relevant and engaged website traffic. If written and delivered correctly, it should get people excited about your brand and consider them to convert there and then. Alternatively, you'll be the first business that springs to mind when they need a product or service your company provides. 

Provide value, answer popular questions, give the user knowledge they need that they didn’t have before, and make sure Google knows about your fantastic work. If you need assistance creating an SEO content marketing strategy, the Digital Authority Partners team is ready and waiting to give you expert advice and guidance.