How to Create 'Pillar Pages' That Will Make Your Web Traffic Take Off

You’re an insurance advisor. You have an important story to tell. It’s super exciting when you get your website up and running. You have a ton of ideas about how the site will work. You’re thinking that, now that you are “online,” customers will flock to you.

Of course, this is until you realize that people won’t just come to your life insurance, annuity or holistic planning site because you have one.

(Related: 5 Advisor Marketing Mistakes to Avoid)

There are many straightforward steps you can take that will help you increase your organic traffic and visitors to your site in under 30 days.

In this article, I’ll focus on one great, basic first step: creating “pillar pages.”

“Pillar pages,” or “power pages,” are relatively long, in-depth pieces of content that draw visitors in. They are usually more than 2,500 words long, and they often fall into one of three major categories: the Definitive Guide, the Crowdsource Post and the Extended List Post.

1. The Definitive Guide

The Definitive Guide is essentially everything you can find out about a specific subject. You shouldn’t leave any stone unturned, and the information should be expressed in a way that comes from your personal point of view.

This guide should answer just about any question someone might come up with and explain the topic in extreme detail.

My first Definitive Guide (which you can check out here) was about how term life insurance works. It’s more than 8,000 words long.

It might sound like overkill, but, if you read this guide, you will know everything about term life insurance. Even if you just want to skim through it, it’s easy to navigate.

2. The Crowdsource Post

The Crowdsource Post is the easiest of any Pillar Page to build: All you have to do is come up with a great question and then ask people with experience to contribute.

For instance, your question for other agents could be, “What’s the number 1 excuse your customer gives for not buying life insurance?”

3. The Extended List Post

Like a traditional list post, an Extended List Post will list several things, such as, “10 Things You Should Know Before Buying Universal Life Insurance,” or “10 Things to Know About Annuity Crediting Rate Options.”

However, along with listing those 10 things, you will also explain, in detail, how to obtain each of those 10 things.

This is one of my favorite types of Pillar Pages to create, because it takes a ton of research, and you can easily outdo your competitors.

If you find a post that with the subject line “10 Things You Should Know Before Buying Universal Life Insurance,” you can make a post with the subject line, “50 Things You Should Know Before Buying Universal Life Insurance.”

Not only do you have more “things” on your list, but you will also be able to rank for more keywords.

Even if you can only create one of these in 30 days, you will start to see a substantial increase in traffic.

Once you have a Pillar Page, you are going to want to create “long tail content” around it to support it.

Next week, I’ll talk about ways to create great long tail content.