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Let’s face it: getting consistent blog traffic is really freakin’ hard.

It seems like no matter how many posts you write, and how much you promote them, the initial spike of traffic after you hit publish never lasts.

You get tons of traffic the first few days, then your post collects dust on your blog for the rest of eternity.

What gives?

Do your blog posts actually suck (and no one’s had the guts to tell you)?

I asked this same question for years after spinning in circles trying to generate consistent blog traffic.

I got so frustrated that I actually almost quit blogging altogether.

I thought building a successful blog was the equivalent of hitting the lottery—and the big blogs out there just happened to win a game of chance.

But after hearing about cornerstone content one day, I decided to stick it out for a few more months.

I launched a massive experiment with one of my clients.

If this cornerstone content thing really worked, I’d keep blogging and would rebuild my entire strategy from the ground up.

The results of the experiment shocked me…

After completely buying into this new strategy, my client saw massive traffic growth.

I’m talking hockey stick growth—his traffic grew from 20k to 150k/month.

All this to say…

If you’re frustrated with your blog’s lack of consistent traffic, keep reading.

Don’t give up until you’ve tried the cornerstone content strategy I’m about to show you.

It can truly change your life. 🙂

Table of Contents

  1. What Is Cornerstone Content?
  2. Why You Should Focus on Cornerstone Content
  3. How to Create Cornerstone Content
  4. Cornerstone Content Examples

What Is Cornerstone Content?

In essence, cornerstone content is the foundation of your website. It’s the best, most important content you have—the content you really want to rank in Google.

Cornerstone articles are usually long-form pieces of content ranging from 1,000-2,000+ words (sometimes like 6k words) and contain some of your best insights. They’re like your business’s highlight reel.

Whether they’re a literal page or a blog post doesn’t matter. What matters is it’s the best stuff you have and you keep it updated to give it the best chance to rank for the most competitive keywords in your industry.

All Content on Your Blog Needs to Be Cornerstone Content…Here’s Why

In 2013, Google had a major algorithm update called Google Hummingbird.

This introduced Semantic Search which made the algorithm able to understand the context and intent behind a search someone performs.

Why is this important?

It allowed a single post to rank for tons of different long-tail keywords and keyword variations.

Google could now understand that a search for “blog post writing” or “steps to writing a blog post”, for example, were very similar to “how to write a blog post”, and would rank the same post for all three keywords.

And thus, cornerstone content was born.

Baby Cornerstone Content Johnson

Michael “Cornerstone Content” Johnson, 6.2 lbs.

Since that fateful day, in-depth content targeting a of keywords (cornerstone content) started driving massive amounts of traffic from thousands of different keywords.

Like this cornerstone article from one of my clients that ranks for 4,300+ keywords:

Cornerstone Content Keywords Example

So, as a blogger, you need to change your mindset when it comes to your blog if you want to drive traffic from search engines in 2018 and beyond.

You need to start thinking of your blog as an inbound marketing channel rather than a place to share your thoughts.

In other words, every piece of content you publish on your blog needs to be SEO-focused and keyword-driven.

You can’t afford to write posts about whatever cool ideas come to your mind (even though those are super interesting).

I know this sounds kinda scary…but I promise it isn’t as bad as it seems.

All you need to do is rethink your content strategy.

I made the same shift a few years back and created this 5-step process to creating killer cornerstone content you can use to do the same:

The Simple 5-Step Guide to Creating Fantastic Cornerstone Content

1. Find the Best Keywords in Your Niche

Finding high-value keywords—those that have high monthly search volume (the actual number depends on the size of your blog) and low competition—is arguably the most important part of creating great cornerstone content.

That’s why I recommend doing in-depth keyword research before you create any content.

Spend time looking for as many keywords as you can find both in your niche and shoulder niches (those that are related to yours).

That way, you can find all the best keyword opportunities in your niche and create content specifically designed to rank for them.

Here are some resources that can help you do this:

Keyword Research Resources

How to Determine What “The Best Keywords” in Your Niche Are

You’re probably thinking, “Hunter, what the heck does a “high-value keyword” look like for my blog??”

Fair question.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a definitive answer.

Everything depends on:

  • The size of your blog (do you get 100, 1,000, or 10,000+ visitors per month?)
  • Your Domain Rating
  • And your ability to create great content for a certain keyword/topic.

Here are a few rules of thumb to follow that will help you spot the best keyword opportunities for your blog:

  • If you don’t have much traffic, a 100 searches per month keyword might be worth going after.
  • With 10,000 visitors per month, you might need to only focus on keywords with 1,000+ searches per month.
  • A keyword with a KD value less than 10 is generally low competition.
  • If your Domain Rating is 40+, you can likely rank for keywords with KD values in the 20-30 range.
  • Look at KD values first, then look at traffic to see if the monthly volume constitutes the time and effort required to write a cornerstone piece.

With these rules of thumb in mind, highlight the best keywords you find and move on to step 2.

2. Decide on Your Cornerstone Content Format

Alright, so you’ve picked a keyword to create cornerstone content for.

Awesome.

Now it’s time to figure out how to best structure your content.

This is an important decision.

Your content’s structure and format are kind of like salt.

The right balance makes your already great content even better. The wrong balance makes great content seem worse than it really is.

I’ve found the easiest way to get this right is by putting yourself in your reader’s shoes.

Ask yourself:

“What would I want in a post on [Keyword]?”

Would you want:

  • Tons of research?
  • Other experts’ opinions?
  • Great visuals?
  • A step-by-step, proven process?
  • A lot of quick tips?

Take your answers to these questions and look for the best cornerstone content format to match it with.

There are 4 main types of cornerstone content that I’ve used to generate great results (there are tons of others out there):

  1. The Ultimate Guide

This is a 3,000+ word guide that shows you how to do something. This works great for tutorials and step-by-step processes.

  1. The Case Study

This is the story of an experiment you ran and the results you got.

Usually, this is best when you have a keyword topic that benefits from both a tutorial/process AND a bit of convincing (as far as recommending certain tactics and strategies to your reader).

  1. The In-Depth List Post

This is where you list the top strategies, tips, products, places, etc. for a certain topic and give in-depth information/examples for each list item.

These are generally best for keywords that include words like “best” and “top”.

  1. The Expert Roundup

This is where you include other influencers’ opinions on a topic in your industry. These are great for posts that list the top strategies or tips for doing something.

I cover these in more detail in Part 2 of this post on writing a blog post.

Each of these content formats sounds great, right?

They are…

So, how are you supposed to know which one is best for the specific cornerstone article you’re working on?

The answer is much simpler than you might think:

By Googling your target keyword and seeing what format the top 5 articles use.

The concept of Search Intent (what the user searching a query is looking for) is getting more and more important as time goes on.

That’s why it’s crucial to know what both searchers AND Google are looking for with each specific query you want to target.

As you look through the SERPs for your target keyword, take note of the format most articles use.

Are they mainly listicles, roundups, guides, something else? 

Whatever trend you see, you’ll need to match it with your content. That doesn’t mean you have to (or should) copy your competitors’ content.

It simply means Google and users are looking for a specific type of content, and you need to provide what they’re looking for in order to drive results.

And within the format Google expects, you can provide unique and valuable content. 

Wow, what a transition…

3. Make Your Cornerstone Article as Unique and Valuable as Possible

“Create great content” might be the biggest platitude in the marketing world.

People say it all the time but no one tells you what that actually means.

And in part, no one will truly ever be able to say exactly what it means because “great content” is largely subjective.

But I’ve learned over the last 6+ years in the industry that there are several timeless principles you can use to create “great” cornerstone content.

And if you use these principles as the foundation for all of your content, you’ll set yourself up for success.

Compelling content is…

1. Clear – it’s both easy to digest AND understand.

2. High-Value – it provides immense value to the reader by solving a problem, entertaining them, or helping them do something.

3. Unique – “High-value” content is always unique—it offers a unique perspective, proprietary data, or a better user experience than other content (or a combination).

4. Empathetic – finally, great content meets people where they are. It understands exactly what people are dealing with and wanting at that specific time and it gives it to them

Your job is to find out the definition of these 4 principles in your industry.

And that takes knowing what’s going on in your industry and understanding your customers incredibly well.

As you get to know your target audience more and more, you’ll begin seeing where other pieces of content are lacking as you research the content you’ll be up against.

Maybe their articles don’t cover everything about a subject.

Maybe their articles aren’t actionable enough.

Or maybe their articles don’t include unique insights from the author’s experience (which could be because they don’t have that experience).

The cornerstone content game is all about giving Google what it wants/expects while also making the best, most unique pieces of content out there.

And one of the easiest ways to do this is to simply read through the top 3-5 ranking articles for your top keyword and take note of:

  • Topics/sections Google and searchers expect in your content
  • What your competitors do well (be specific – is the content engaging, detailed, well-written, etc?)
  • What your competitors don’t do well (what do they skimp on, what specifics are they missing, is their content clear and actionable?)
  • Specific ways you could fill in the gaps and use your (or your team’s) experience and insights to provide the internet with a unique cornerstone article

Use these insights to create exceptional, in-depth cornerstone pages for your site.

This is the level of research, intentionality, and investment it takes to get results today with content marketing.

And my article on how to write a blog post can help you execute this once you begin writing.

4. Optimize Around Relevant Long-Tail Keywords

Every great cornerstone piece has sections specifically designed to target related long-tail keywords.

So, let’s say your main keyword is “how to ride a bike”.

There are literally hundreds of ways to ask this question. 

“How do I ride a bike?”

“How do I learn to ride a bike?”

…you get the idea

The crazy thing is you can rank in Google for 90% of these keywords with a single article if you optimize it the right way.

(Copy/pasting them into your article won’t cut it.)

How do you optimize your article the right way?

Here’s the simple process I follow for every cornerstone article I write:

1. Find out which keywords you can actually rank for with your article. 

You can do this quickly with a tool like Ahrefs.

Simply search your target keyword and copy/paste your URL into the Ahrefs Site Explorer. Then, click organic keywords to see which keywords the article ranks for.

2. Determine how you need to target them based on how successful articles do it.

Think through the Search Intent behind each of the potential secondary keywords you see and determine whether they’re variations or subsections.

Variations are simply different ways of saying the same thing (i.e. “how do I ride a bike”).

You can usually target these with your cornerstone article by simply including them in the body and headings.

Subsections are smaller topics within the broader topic of riding a bike (i.e. “how to balance on a bike”).

You usually need to include a short section specifically addressing these if you want to rank for them.

3. Add them to your outline.

Building on the bike example, let’s say I decided to focus on these long-tail keywords:

  • Learn how to ride a bike
  • How to ride a tandem bicycle
  • How to ride a mountain bike
  • Bike riding tips
  • Easiest bikes to ride

I would add each of these to specific parts of my blog outline based on whether they’re variations or subsections.

Specifically, I’d add a place for each of these keywords specifically in the outline where it makes sense:

  1. How to ride a tandem bicycle
  2. How to ride a mountain bike
  3. Bike riding tips
  4. Easiest bikes to ride

These are subsection keywords because they are their own topics within themselves, so I’d need to flesh out content specifically addressing these if I wanted to rank.

Then, I’d simply make a note to include the variation “learn how to ride a bike” somewhere in the article.

5. Finish Up with On-Page SEO

You have your post finished and in WordPress, now it’s time to make a few On-Page SEO tweaks to give your content the best chance to rank.

Be sure you:

  1. Make your url only contain your main keyword (example: /what-is-cornerstone-content/ instead of something like /steps-to-creating-cornerstone-content-for-your-blog/)
  2. Include your main keyword in your title
  3. Add your main and long-tail keywords to your image alt tags
  4. Include long-tail keywords and keyword variations in headings and the body of your post (like we talked about)
  5. Write a compelling SEO Title and Meta Description containing your main keyword
  6. Add internal links to relevant articles on your blog
  7. Add internal links to your new cornerstone content from other articles on your blog

Excellent Cornerstone Content Examples

Here are some of my all-time favorite pieces of cornerstone content:

Can You Afford NOT to Create Cornerstone Content?

Cornerstone content can change your blog’s life.

Instead of only getting traffic when you publish a new post, you can generate consistent traffic every month without active promotion.

And that’s freakin’ amazing.

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Hunter Branch is the founder of Rank Tree, an SEO agency that works with New York Times best sellers, brands, and small businesses to generate traffic and leads from Google.