Understanding Cornerstone Content in SEO

by our SEO Agency Optimize 360

Cornerstone content

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The world of referencing natural or SEO is constantly evolving, and one of the trends of recent years is cornerstone content.

For those who are not yet familiar with this concept, it is the cornerstone of a websiteIn other words, it is an essential element on which the entire SEO strategy is based. To help you better understand cornerstone content in SEO, here's a 10-point breakdown.

1. What is cornerstone content?

The term cornerstone literally means "cornerstone" in French. In SEO, it refers to the articles or pages that are considered to be the most important and relevant on your website. This information is generally essential for your visitors, drawing their attention to your expertise and increasing your online visibility.

2. The main objectives of cornerstone content

1. Increase your website's reputation and credibility with search engines
2. Generate qualified traffic thanks to a better position in search engine results
3. Reinforce the authority of your site as an expert in your field of activity
4. Encourage your visitors to get involved, by offering them engaging, informative and useful content

3. How can you identify cornerstone content on your site?

To determine what your cornerstone content is, you first need to evaluate all your existing content. The criteria to be taken into account in this assessment include :

• The articles or pages that receive the most organic traffic
• The number of shares and comments for each piece of content
• The relevance of incoming links to each of these contents (backlinks)
• SEO optimisation for improved visibility (keywords, title and meta tags)

4. What are the characteristics of good cornerstone content?

Effective cornerstone content must respect a number of principles, including the following:

• • It must be well structured, with a catchy title, sub-headings and short paragraphs.
  • It must contain information that is useful and relevant to your target audience
  • It must be written in a clear, fluid style that is accessible to all
  • It must be updated regularly to ensure the reliability of the information provided.

It must include strategic keywords to improve its positioning in search engine results

5. Why optimise cornerstone content for SEO?

There are many advantages to optimising your cornerstone content for natural referencing:

• Improved ranking in search engine results pages (SERP)
• Redistribution of SEO authority to other pages on your site
• Increase in targeted organic traffic, generally resulting in a higher conversion rate. conversion higher
• Opportunity to establish your reputation as an expert in your field

6. The differences between cornerstone content and regular content

While the ultimate goal is always to offer visitors the best possible experience, cornerstone content differs from regular content in several ways:

• Cornerstone content is considered to be the most important content on your website, while regular additional content meets specific but less important needs.
• The keyword landscape for attracting web users differs: cornerstone content generally targets competitive search terms, whereas regular content can target less competitive expressions.
• The quality of cornerstone content should be higher than that of regular content, as it is likely to be consulted more frequently by visitors and is representative of your expertise.

7. How do you optimise cornerstone content?

There are a number of techniques for improving your cornerstone content, with the aim of maximising the effectiveness of your SEO strategy. Here are a few tips :

1. Use keywords that are relevant and popular in your field of activity.
2. Include internal links to your other content to encourage navigation between pages and boost your site's overall authority.
3. Optimising metadata (title tags, meta description) to encourage web users to click on your content when it appears in the search results.
4. Ensuring an attractive layout and good design user experience.

8. What role do backlinks play with cornerstone content?

Backlinks, or incoming links from other websites, are one of the most important criteria taken into account by Google to assess content quality. A large number of quality backlinks pointing to your cornerstone content helps to strengthen your reputation and authority in your field. It is therefore vital to obtain these inbound links, in particular by encouraging the sharing of your content on social networks and forums or by forging partnerships with other influential players in your sector.

9. Mistakes to avoid with cornerstone content

Certain mistakes can undermine the effectiveness of your SEO strategy based on cornerstone content. Here are a few examples to avoid:

• Sacrificing the quality and usefulness of the content in favour of excessive search engine optimisation.
• Multiply cornerstone content, at the risk of drowning out important information and diluting your message.
• Neglecting to maintain and regularly update your cornerstone content, which can quickly lose relevance if the information provided becomes obsolete.

10. Tools to help you create high-quality cornerstone content

Although the creation of cornerstone content must above all be adapted to the specific characteristics of your business and your target audience, there are several tools that can help you in this process:

• Keyword generators, which allow you to identify the most popular search terms in your field.
• Dedicated SEO tools to help you optimise your content both in terms of content (keyword analysis, density) and form (metadata).
• Software to track your website's traffic and authority, enabling you to measure the impact of your cornerstone content strategy.