Key Takeaways 

• A website launch isn’t a light switch — it’s a full-blown production. Rushing it risks broken links, lost SEO, and a digital hot mess you’ll be cleaning up for weeks. 

• Prep like a pro: Audit content, map redirects, QA everything, and set up analytics.  

• Launch smart: Choose a low-traffic time for launch, double-check functionality, and announce the launch. Submit your sitemap to Google, verify redirects, and make some noise on social and email. 

• Post-launch isn’t the end — it’s the beginning. Monitor traffic, rankings, and UX, and then optimize relentlessly. Your site isn’t something you can set and forget; it’s a living, breathing conversion machine.

You’ve finally wrapped your arms around your brand’s new website. It’s sleek. It’s fast. It makes your old site look like a MySpace profile circa 2006. But before you hit that big shiny launch button and cue the champagne, let’s have a little heart-to-heart about what can (and will) go sideways if you don’t plan this thing properly. 

Launching a website isn’t just flipping a switch. It’s more like choreographing a halftime show — every beat matters, every light has to hit just right, and one rogue backup dancer (read: broken link or missing redirect) can blow the whole thing up. 

So whether you’re refreshing a current site, migrating a website to a new domain, or launching a brand-new one, here’s everything you need to know about planning a website launch — complete with research, examples, and the checklists you need to make your project manager weep with joy. 

A bad launch can tank your traffic and SEO and leave your team playing digital Whac-A-Mole for weeks as problems pop up. 

Common pitfalls we see when businesses rush launches include: 

• Broken links and 404 errors. 

• Incorrect redirects (or no redirects at all). 

• Missing metadata. 

• Slow page load speed. 

• Analytics not tracking properly. 

Let’s fix that, shall we? 

Before you even think about going live, this is your prep kitchen. No one wants to serve raw chicken. Here’s your mise en place: 

1. Perform a content audit.

Start your content audit by crawling your current site with a tool like Screaming Frog. This helps identify what pages exist; what’s ranking; and what should be migrated, updated, or given a proper Viking funeral. 

Action step: Create a spreadsheet that includes: 

• URLs. 

• Page titles. 

• Meta descriptions. 

• Traffic data (via GA4 or Google Search Console). 

• Backlink value (via Ahrefs). 

• Keyword rankings. 

• Appearances in AI SERP features. 

• Referral traffic from AI-driven search platforms. 

Keep what works, ditch what doesn’t, and rewrite what’s outdated. 

2. Create a redirect map.

Every old URL that’s going away needs to be accounted for. If not? Say goodbye to your SEO equity. 

Action step: Create a redirect map using 301 redirects (not 302s unless temporary). And keep redirects relevant. Sending an old blog post to your homepage is lazy and confuses users and search engines. 

Use tools like Screaming Frog’s redirect checker to test your setup before launch. 

3. QA like your digital life depends on it.

Because it does. Mobile responsiveness, page load speed, browser compatibility — it all needs to be tested. Twice. Then once more for fun. 

Test for: 

• Mobile responsiveness. 

• Core Web Vitals. 

• Cross-browser performance. 

• Form functionality. 

• CTA tracking. 

Pro tip: Assign different team members to “break” the site on different devices and report anything funky. Develop and document a QA process for regularly monitoring site health. 

4. Set up analytics tracking.

Few things are worse than launching your shiny new website and realizing you’re not tracking a thing. 

So before you go live, get your data ducks in a row. That means setting up GA4, Google Tag Manager, and any heatmapping tools (like Hotjar) ahead of time. 

But here’s where a lot of people stop — and where you’re going to be smarter. 

Yes, GA4 and GTM are must-haves, but your marketing automation platform also needs to be connected from the jump. Think HubSpot, Pardot, Marketo — the whole martech band needs to play in sync. 

Why? When your forms are connected to your MAP and built with hidden fields (like UTM parameters, source, campaign, and referrer), you’re capturing true attribution. You’ll know exactly where leads are coming from, and you’ll be able to track the entire buyer’s journey beyond just the form fill. 

Make sure: 

• GA4 is properly configured with event tracking (like form submissions, button clicks, scroll depth, etc.). 

• Google Tag Manager is installed and firing correctly. 

• Conversion goals are set up (including micro-conversions). 

• Filters and views are double-checked (because your internal IP shouldn’t skew your data). 

• Marketing automation is fully integrated and forms are passing data seamlessly. 

• Hidden fields are capturing key attribution data (source, medium, campaign, etc.). 

• All lead activity from your site is feeding into your CRM or MAP for downstream nurture, scoring, and sales enablement. 

Bottom line: Analytics + automation = marketing visibility nirvana. When everything’s stitched together properly, you’ll not only know who converted, but you’ll also know why, how, and what to do next. 

It’s go time! Here’s your website launch day checklist to see the best results: 

1. Launch during low traffic times.

Middle of the night or early morning. Not Friday. Never Friday. You don’t want to discover a 500 error at 4:59 p.m. before a long weekend. That’s how ulcers are born. 

2. Perform post-launch QA.

Go through your checklist again. Crawl the site for errors. Check that your XML sitemap is submitted to Google Search Console. Verify that redirects are working. Test key user paths. 

Pro tip: Use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for a post-launch crawl to catch any missed issues. 

3. Tell the world (and Google).

Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console. Ping Google with Fetch and Render. Share the launch on social, email your subscribers, and pat your dev team on the back — they’ve earned it! 

Don’t launch your site and walk away. This is your follow-up era. 

Monitor: 

• Traffic patterns in GA4 (and compare to pre-launch metrics). 

• Keyword rankings (via Ahrefs or Semrush). 

• Bounce rate, time on site, and conversion paths. 

• Technical health. (Crawl weekly for the first month.) 

Iterate: 

Use heatmaps, user session recordings, and user feedback to continuously improve the user experience. Your launch is a chapter, not the whole book. 

A website launch is your digital debutante ball. Don’t show up with broccoli in your teeth. With a solid strategy, ruthless attention to detail, and a team that knows what they’re doing, you can make your launch a chef’s kiss moment that sets your brand up for long-term success. 

Key Takeaways 

• Amazon Prime Day 2025 is approaching fast, and brands that don’t plan ahead are going to get flattened. The winners will be the ones who prep now: forecasting inventory, locking in deals, testing creative early, and building custom landing pages that convert.

• Amazon’s A10 algorithm places an increased emphasis on external traffic compared to past iterations of the search algorithm. Leverage Meta ads, TikTok creators, Google Search, and email to drive off-Amazon engagement, and track it all with Amazon Attribution (beta) for a shot at higher rankings and stronger sales.

• Don’t stop after Prime Day. Retarget browsers, request reviews, upsell past buyers, and analyze your data so your Q4 strategy isn’t a guess — it’s a battle-tested strategy. 

Amazon’s Big Spring Sale just wrapped up, and the summer Amazon Prime Day 2025 will be here before you know it. 

If you’re planning to just wing it with some last-minute pay-per-click advertising and a prayer, prepare to get steamrolled by brands that did their homework. 

And this year, Amazon isn’t just pushing deals — it’s pushing a new algorithm. 

External traffic is an increasingly important ranking factor, thanks to Amazon’s A10 algorithm update. So both enterprise brands and SMBs are expanding beyond Amazon PPC and investing more heavily in external channels, including social media and traditional media (enterprise) and SEO and social media ads (SMBs). 

If you haven’t optimized your Amazon strategy in light of the new algorithm updates, you’re falling behind. 

The good news? You still have time to prepare for Amazon Prime Day. The better news? We’re handing you the playbook. 

You don’t prep for Black Friday the week before Thanksgiving. Same logic applies here — Prime Day success isn’t a fluke; it’s a product of planning. If you’re hoping to cash in, here’s what you need on lock in advance: 

• Inventory forecasting: Pull historical data from past Prime Days, the previous quarter, and seasonal spikes to predict demand. Then, over-order — not by a mile, but just enough to cover an unexpected surge. If you run out of stock mid-event, your listing will tank in ranking.

• Deals submission: Lightning deals and Prime exclusive discounts require approval weeks in advance. Set internal deadlines now to finalize pricing, bundle strategies, and submission details before Amazon’s deadlines.

• Ad creative and copy testing: Launch pre-event campaigns four to six weeks out to test different angles (discount messaging, urgency, user-generated content vs. product-first visuals). Use click-through rate and conversion rate data to kill weak creative and scale the winners. Bonus: You’ll warm up your pixel and audience pools before the big day.

• Landing pages and A+ Content: If you’re leveraging external traffic (and you should be), build Prime Day-specific landing pages with countdowns, product comparisons, and direct CTAs. Get those approved and published early. 

Plan like it’s the Super Bowl — because in e-commerce, it is. 

Amazon’s A10 algorithm prioritizes external traffic. If you’re not bringing shoppers from outside the platform, your rankings (and your revenue) are going to suffer. Here’s how to make it work for you: 

• Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram): Build segmented audiences now — past buyers, page engagers, email lists — and create lookalike audiences based on high-value purchasers. Test static, carousel, and video formats to find what drives the cheapest but highest-quality traffic.

• Short-form video (TikTok and YouTube Shorts): Start seeding products with micro-influencers today. Look for niche creators with loyal followings, not just big numbers. Bonus if they’ve shown success driving affiliate revenue. Make sure your ask is simple: fast, hooky product demos or quick-hit reviews.

• Google Ads (search and shopping): People absolutely search for deals outside of Amazon on Prime Day. Bid on branded and product category terms, and send traffic directly to your Amazon listings (with attribution tags).

• Email marketing: Segment your audience — past purchasers, subscribers, couponers — and create a three-part Prime Day sequence: tease, launch, last chance. Include product-specific CTAs, and make sure you include your Amazon link, not your website link.

• Amazon Attribution: If you’re brand-registered and not using Amazon Attribution (beta), you’re missing out. It’s your shot at getting algorithm credit for external traffic. Set it up, tag everything, and track performance. 

You could bring in a stampede of traffic, but if your product page is not high-quality and optimized, next to none of it will convert. You’ve got to look ready for Prime time with stellar content and next-level visuals. That means: 

• Keyword-rich titles and bullets: Use keyword tools (hello, Helium 10) to stack your titles and bullets with high-intent, relevant phrases. But keep it human — no one’s buying from a keyword salad.

• Product photography: Hero images need to pop even at thumbnail size. Add high-quality lifestyle photos, comparison shots, unboxing images, and annotated graphics (features, size, etc.).

• A+ Content: This is where you close the sale. Drop in comparison charts, lifestyle imagery, FAQs, and feature/benefit breakdowns.

• Review management: Push review requests now. Use post-purchase email flows, Amazon’s “Request a Review” button, or a tool like FeedbackWhiz. More (and better) reviews = more trust = more conversions. 

Prime Day isn’t a two-day sprint. It’s a launchpad for Q3 and Q4 momentum — if you do it right. Most brands ghost their customers once the sale ends — don’t make that mistake. Here’s how to squeeze every last drop of Amazon ROI out of Prime Day: 

• Retargeting ads: Set up dynamic product ads to hit site visitors, page engagers, and cart abandoners within 24-72 hours of Prime Day. Offer a follow-up deal or bundle to sweeten the second chance.

• Review and loyalty sequences: Trigger automated flows after purchase to request reviews (critical for social proof) and offer loyalty perks, such as subscribe and save, early access to future drops, or referral codes.

• Upsell campaigns: Build segmented lists of Prime Day buyers, and retarget them with complementary products. Example: If they bought a portable blender, pitch a single-serve smoothie recipe book or a travel case the following week.

• Analytics deep dive: Pull Amazon and ad platform data to dissect what worked — creative, audience, timing, and placements. Use those insights to optimize for Q4 and beyond. 

If you want to win Prime Day 2025, you can’t just show up — you have to show out. The brands that will crush it aren’t the ones chasing last-minute trends or blindly boosting posts — they’re the ones with full-funnel strategies, airtight listings, and traffic pipelines already pumping.  

Amazon changed the rules with A10. Now it’s your move.

Key Points

• B2B vs. B2C: Traditionally, B2B focuses on logic and long decision-making, while B2C targets emotions and quick decisions.
• The emergence of B2P: Business to person (B2P) focuses on personalized, human-centric experiences.
• Key B2P strategies:
  • Develop personas to understand decision makers.
  • Craft customer-centric messaging.
  • Ensure user-centric website experiences.
  • Implement sales enablement tools for better customer engagement.

For decades, using “B2B” and “B2C” to distinguish how a business markets and sells its products or services has been the industry standard. Today, B2B, in particular, is experiencing an ongoing shift in identifying how buyers consume information and their expectations around those interactions. This often means a broader view, with more personalized, human-centric experiences.

As the distinctions between the marketplace and home have continued to lessen, the one-way-or-another view of B2C vs. B2B marketing has ultimately been shifting into something new.

As B2B marketers, we’re always seeking out ways to achieve greater connection. We have recently found ourselves intrigued by an emerging approach called B2P, “business to people.” It embodies principles that we have long embraced.

B2C (business to consumer) products or services originate directly from the producers of the product or service and are delivered directly to the end user.

This customer is typically the sole decision maker or influencer. An example is buying a Coke based on firsthand knowledge or convincing someone to buy you a pair of Nikes based on the brand’s reputation.

B2C marketers tend to group consumers based on broad demographics — like college-educated women aged 25-40 or retired men from the Midwest. B2C favors emotion to influence its audience by highlighting the benefits of its products and services and explaining how they solve problems.

B2B (business to business) involves the influence of one business to another (typically manufacturers and wholesalers).

The decision-making process is usually longer than a direct-to-consumer context. B2B marketers understand that more than one person is typically involved in the buying process for a business —  budget holders, decision makers, influencers, and end users. Overall messaging, however, tends to consider them as one group. B2B favors logic to influence its audience by highlighting how its products and services solve a problem or add value, like saving time, money, and resources.

Because of what has inherently been seen as a fundamental opposite in approach, B2C and B2B have been seen as an either-or model that marketers must choose.

That’s changing.

The foundation of B2P means transcending the fundamentals of B2C and B2B by recognizing the individual at the center of the buying process. This means placing emphasis on the unique goals, pains, preferences, and habits of all decision makers, whether for personal or professional consumption.

By considering a B2P approach to your B2B strategy, you expand your view of the collective of influencers within the industries you market to and use an examination of the unique needs and interests to drive your strategy. Understanding the decision-making patterns of more than one demographic leads to deeper, more detailed customer insight that allows your creative team to provide more relevant and effective content.

Let’s dive into how to incorporate a B2P mindset into your business:

• Personas: These are composite profiles that identify each ideal prospect and can help you move beyond selling to a “business title.” Personas are created by walking you, the seller, step by step through exercises that explore and test how well you know each person in the buying process. It highlights their preferences, communication styles, challenges, and aspirations and identifies ways your company can communicate more effectively — and on a human level.
• Messaging: Every brand should have its own story, and the focus should always be on the customer, not the brand. Participating in a deep-dive exploration such as a brand story exercise can help pinpoint your ideal customers’ specific challenges and examine how your brand rises to meet and address those challenges and the best ways to connect and communicate with each buyer.
• Website: Your website is the place that all of your marketing efforts point back to. The B2P element here is ensuring everything on your website is delivering a user-centric experience. Beyond optimizing functionality so that all buyers can find the information and resources they need, it means considering each persona you’ve created and tailoring your content to their preferences. This will ensure they know how to take the next step and engage with you.
• Sales enablement: Once you know who you’re selling to, the next step is to create a solid strategy that appropriately empowers your sales team. Sales enablement tools — content, technology, and processes — provide a more customer-centric experience that can maximize marketing and deliver significant ROI.

Infusing your business with a B2P mindset has a few key benefits:

• Human touch: It’s simple: The more personalized the content is, the more genuine the connection is and the bigger the impact. Testimonials and pieces of user-generated content that are specific and sincere, for instance, are more effective than company claims alone. In fact, 44% of B2B buyers agree with the statement that “peer reviews and user-generated content are playing a greater role in the purchasing decision-making process.” (Check out this resource to learn how to ask customers for reviews.)
• Better targeting: Understanding the decision-making pattern of each target audience, while labor-intensive in the beginning, generates great benefits that pay off in the long run. This allows you to reach beyond mere awareness and consideration campaigns and tap into something deeper.
• Standing out: With so much potential exposure and emphasis on following trends, brands in the same industry can begin to look alike. It is essential to differentiate yourself in a crowded field. Utilizing the tools and strategy will organically lead to appropriately personalized language and images that best reflect and appeal to your specific audience.

To reap the rewards of B2P today, there are a few steps you can take right away.

• Leverage small opportunities for greater engagement. Utilizing a chat feature on your homepage is a way to spark a conversation, especially with a new visitor. Social media posts that pose a question or invite followers to contribute to the conversation are significantly more engaging than ones that merely promote goods and services.
• Provide more value. Find something you can offer for free. Thought leadership pieces like blog posts and whitepapers can boost your reputation as an innovator in your field. Providing access to useful tools or free trials can help you gain a reputation as a generous organization.
• Organize your data. It’s one thing to create personalized materials; it’s another to effectively utilize them on an ongoing basis. There’s no need to start from scratch for every new campaign or call for materials. Create a database that can be easily accessed at the start of every new campaign that will serve as a storehouse for high-quality, tested insights.

Customers aren’t just overwhelmed — they’re drowning in options. And in the chaos, brand positioning is your flare gun.

If your product isn’t instantly clear, relevant, and different — congrats, you’re invisible. Brand positioning isn’t fluff. It’s the lens through which people decide whether you’re worth clicking, buying, or ghosting.

Want to actually compete? Nail two things:

Points of parity: what makes you legit in the space.
Points of differentiation: what makes you irresistible in the space.

Match the table stakes. Then, flip the table.

When you launch a product, there are baseline features you have to include just to get a seat at the table. These are your points of parity — the non-negotiables that customers expect across your industry.

Take cell phone service. Nobody’s impressed that your plan lets them make calls, text, and use data. That’s not innovation — that’s table stakes. If a provider can’t check those boxes, they’re out before the conversation even starts.

Points of parity don’t make you special. But they do make you viable. They get you considered, but they’re not the things that make your audience choose you.

Points of parity get you in the game. Points of differentiation win it.

They’re the things that make you stand out — the reasons someone chooses you over the other options out there.

Let’s go back to the cell service world. Everyone offers 5G. That’s expected. But T-Mobile? They flex the largest 5G network in the country. Same category, way bigger footprint.

It’s not just about having what everyone else has. It’s about doing it better, bigger, faster, or with way more flair.

Points of parity and differentiation are a moving target. What sets you apart today might just be the bare minimum tomorrow.

Case in point: Remember when Verizon dropped its unlimited data plan? At the time, it was a bold move — a clear point of differentiation. But competitors weren’t about to let that edge last. Fast-forward a few years, and now unlimited data is a point of parity. Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, and what’s left of Sprint all offer it. The playing field leveled fast.

That’s the game: Your edge gets copied. Your lead gets neutralized. And if you’re not watching, your once-brilliant differentiator becomes background noise.

So what do you do? You evolve — constantly. You track your positioning like your market share depends on it (because it does). If you miss a shift in parity, you fall behind. If you lose your differentiation, you vanish.

And let’s be honest: None of this matters if no one knows you exist.

Your positioning means nothing without visibility. That’s where we come in. At Intero Digital, we build full-funnel strategies that make your brand both discoverable and desirable. SEO. GEO. Content. PR. Video. Paid media. The works.

Ready to stop blending in? Let’s make you unmissable.

Just like cake, public relations has layers, and the layers only make it better.

When thinking about PR for business, press releases might be the first or only layer that comes to mind. But this is just the starting point. Let’s dive into the other valuable layers of PR and learn how to savor every bite.

Are you only utilizing press releases — without any other types of PR content — in your content marketing strategy? If so, you’re missing out on all the value that other types of PR content can bring to help you work toward your company’s content marketing goals, whether those goals include thought leadership, lead generation, sales enablement, or search.

Press releases can be viewed as a form of traditional PR, which includes mass-produced templates exchanged for quick wins. By no means is this a bad or ineffective strategy, but PR has evolved, and so must your content marketing strategy if you want to execute on up-to-date modern PR strategies.

Unlike traditional PR centered on generating exposure for a brand, event, or product, modern PR involves building mutually beneficial relationships with online contributors, influencers, and thought leaders and delivering true value to the audiences you share. It includes several types of content, including press mentions, informational interviews, features, and podcasts. Press releases have a place in a content marketing strategy, but investments in additional types of PR can be even more beneficial.

Now let’s dive into the layers of PR beyond press releases that can maximize your content marketing strategy by positioning you as a credible thought leader in your industry. Try adding these four types of PR content to your digital marketing strategy for a multilayered approach, and take a look at the PR content examples to get an idea of what these content types look like:

1. Press Mentions

Press mentions are, well, mentions of you or your company in the press. For example, a press mention could look like a journalist quoting you as an expert source in a piece of content related to your industry. Or it could involve a contributor to a publication using a tactic your company has covered in its on-site content as an example to illustrate their point.

Mentions in the press can help brands build lasting credibility and trustworthiness with their target audiences. (Check out these tips on how to acquire press mentions.)

2. Informational Interviews

Informational interviews represent a type of PR that does not always result in an immediate mention in the press, but it’s equally important because it builds important relationships with journalists, contributors, and editors and establishes you as a thought leader who can be called upon to provide expert advice.

For interviewers, an informational interview is an effective research tool that helps them see where you and your valuable insights could fit into an upcoming story. Additionally, it’s an informal opportunity for you to establish yourself as an expert without the added pressure of it being a formal interview. For those reasons, these interviews are mutually beneficial.

3. Features

Does your company have a compelling story to tell, or is your brand doing something unique and newsworthy that you could talk on and on about? This is where feature articles come in.

A feature is an in-depth article that highlights a particular person, company, or news event. This type of PR content dives deeper into a story than a regular press mention, and for that reason, it proves highly valuable for the business featured. After all, there’s no better method of proactively establishing a trustworthy brand reputation than by highlighting the company at its best.

4. Podcasts

As podcasts continue to grow in popularity, it’s no surprise that this medium has become a valuable PR content opportunity for thought leaders.

Unlike interviews for online publications, a benefit of podcasts is that listeners get to know you by hearing you talk in your own voice using your own words rather than reading your insights that have been filtered and interpreted by a media outlet. Plus, being a guest on a podcast is an opportunity for link building and boosting search rankings, as most podcasts have a website featuring summaries, contact information, and resources — and sometimes backlinks to your website.

Public relations professionals nearly unanimously track media coverage or placed stories as measures of success. But no matter what other metrics they choose to track, they’re all trying to measure success against a few overarching goals. Below are our essential top-line goals for PR and a few tips for more effectively measuring the ROI of your PR strategy:

Website traffic:

• If a link is included in press content, you can monitor referral traffic.
• Looking at direct traffic and organic traffic can help you determine whether your website saw a boost in visitors after readers saw your press.

Lead generation:

• If your site is optimized to drive leads, you can track which visitors came from your press and turned into a lead. (Tip: Marketing automation systems like HubSpot make this easier to track.)
• To learn more about your lead generation efforts’ efficacy, take some time on sales calls to dig into why a lead reached out: Had they seen any of your recent press? This anecdotal insight helps you gather the information that is not always quantifiable or trackable and can help you determine whether you’re on the right path with your efforts.

Brand awareness:

• One key way to measure brand awareness is through social mentions and engagement on social: shares, likes, and comments, especially from leaders in your industry.
• Press secured can be used to help establish thought leaders’ credibility when applying for speaking gigs and awards, which can lead to further press opportunities and greater brand awareness and credibility.

Press is a valuable opportunity for you and your company to be positioned as a thought leader because the media’s goal is typically to help add context and insight on a topic from an expert.

When it comes to maximizing your PR efforts, you have more options than you think. Whether your business goals include thought leadership, lead generation, SEO, or sales enablement (or all of the above), there’s a layer of PR that will help you achieve that goal, which is the icing on the cake!

Key Takeaways

• Pillar posts are not just long blog posts. They’re strategic content hubs designed to organize and connect related content. Slapping 3,000 words into a doc doesn’t make it a pillar; structure and internal linking matter.

• You don’t need to create all-new content every time. Repurposing and refreshing existing assets is fair game. The key is consolidation and context, not starting from scratch every time.

• Pillar posts don’t kill SEO with keyword cannibalization. When done right, they help by signaling content hierarchy and boosting topical authority across your site. It’s about coordination, not competition.

Nessie. Bigfoot. La Chupacabra.

Chances are you’ve heard or read something about these mythical creatures. You might fall on one side or the other in terms of how “mythical” you think said creatures are.

But that’s beside the point. Myths become so because they operate in equal parts fact and fiction. There’s just enough truth to hook people but just enough iffy information to keep people from fully buying in.

So where do myths and pillar blog posts intersect? Pillar pages are a highly effective, sometimes misunderstood, element of the content marketing toolbox. To maximize their potential, dispelling any myths and confusion surrounding them is a must.

A pillar post is an in-depth blog post, to be published on a company blog, that covers all aspects of a specific topic and is optimized for traditional and generative search.

Let’s dive a little deeper into the definition of a pillar post:

• How long is a pillar post?

A pillar blog post is usually 1,500 to 3,000 words long.

A 2,000-word post is a big’un as far as blog posts go. But pillar posts can afford to go long because they are, at their core, comprehensive and informative pieces of content. While a whitepaper might chew up just as many words (or more) as a pillar post, it’s usually gated with an intent to capture downloaders’ information. A pillar post is more effective as an accessible forum to go in-depth on whatever subject warrants the space.

• How thorough is a pillar post?

Pillar pages have the word count and room to explore the full range of a topic. To put it into perspective, let’s temporarily stray from myths and stay in the fiction realm.

Think about your favorite season of your favorite TV show. In some cases, there’s one season-long story arc that carries viewers from point A to point Z. A pillar post is kind of like the outline of that arc. It lays everything out, provides direction, and generally gives readers all the context needed to get their arms around a topic.

For example, a client we worked with wished to rank and be the industry leader for the keyword “security infrastructure automation.” Although it wasn’t a new concept, we worked with the company to create a basic pillar page that would leave security infrastructure automation novices with all the info they needed to understand the subject.

• How do pillar posts help SEO?

Search-optimized content is a must-have for companies looking to invest in content marketing. With the added length a pillar post affords, companies have the room to not only discuss their desired topics at length, but also rank in search results for unique and insightful keywords. Plus, generative search engines love including in-depth, well-researched content in their answers and summaries.

The all-encompassing nature of a pillar post means that a topic will be covered from every angle. From the “why” behind it to the challenges it faces to the benefits it provides to potential action steps, pillars aim to inform. Optimizing them with keywords that people are searching for allows those searchers to find the information they’re looking for and learn from your expertise. And generative engine optimization (GEO) helps your content reach your audience in AI-driven search results.

Look, myths are fun. They explain the seemingly unexplainable, they can build community, and they can even be allegorical in a way akin to our favorite books and fables. And though pillar posts most likely won’t feature tales of forest dwellers, farmland nuisances, or sea creatures, they, too, can teach lessons and educate the world.

The following are actual pieces of feedback we’ve heard from clients regarding pillar posts. Here, we’ll clear up the myths surrounding pillar posts to hopefully display what these pieces of content bring to the marketing table.

1. “Isn’t this just three or four shorter blog posts combined?”

When you create a pillar post, you don’t just take a few related blog posts and smash them together.

Pillar posts cover multiple facets of a subject at a high level. Then, you take a topic cluster approach and create shorter related blog posts that dive into those individual areas more specifically — these are called cluster content. All of this cluster content links back to the pillar post and vice versa. This creates a web of helpful content for readers, and it creates a linking ecosystem to give your site an SEO boost and help your target readers find your insightful content more easily.

2. “This feels like keyword stuffing.”

In the same way an authentic voice and unique insights are paramount to credible content marketing, a thorough optimization research process that uncovers organic keywords is a must. At Intero Digital, our content and SEO teams conduct quarterly keyword research to figure out where our clients should steer their content to remain relevant to their target audiences.

From those findings, content topics are developed that allow our teams to identify corresponding keywords that can help the pillar page content appear in the target audience’s search results and move the conversation forward. The sheer length of a pillar post means that research will yield a lot of SEO findings. But the goal is to apply the same thinking to SEO and keywords as general thought leadership — the more authentic and genuine it is to the subject at hand, the better. It’s more like “keyword peppering” than “stuffing.”

3. “It’s too long. Nobody will read this.”

When confronted with this piece of feedback, one of our teams countered by comparing a pillar page to a menu for a site’s visitors. When scanning a menu, you might see an item that catches your fancy. With a pillar blog post, the same flexibility allows readers to jump from the longer post to a smaller blog post or an article that goes into more depth within a shorter word count.

So even if a reader doesn’t finish a pillar post, it’s likely that something from that post will intrigue them enough to click away to a shorter piece of content that still aligns with and illustrates your expertise.

In other words, it’d be great if everyone finished reading a pillar post, but its worth isn’t defined by reading it end-to-end. If half — or even a quarter — of a pillar post engages a reader and it brings visitors to your website, the post has done its job.

By no means do pillar blog posts pique the public’s imagination and curiosity in the same way as the Bigfoots and Nessies of the world. But by grounding them in the real content marketing value they provide, pillar posts are an effective tool for anyone who’s trying to bust through search results and establish credibility.