65. Do I Need to Mark My Cornerstone Content?

[00:00:00] Stephanie: We've all seen that checkbox in our SEO tool, inviting us to mark a blog post as cornerstone content. But what does that mean? What actually happens when you check that box? Let's chat about it. Welcome back to the podcast. This month we're diving into some of those check boxes and fields in our SEO plugin that we often skip over because we just aren't really sure what they're for.

[00:00:38] This week's episode is inspired by a listener question. This listener said, I would love a refresher about cornerstone content. I see it as a toggle switch within the Yoast plugin and a category when I view my posts in WordPress, but I'm not sure if I'm making the most of this feature when it comes to helping Google understand what my website is all about.

[00:01:01] And I absolutely love this question because that cornerstone content box is something that I've skipped over a lot before I actually took the time to learn what it meant. If you're not familiar with the term cornerstone content, you can likely get a feel for what it means, based on context clues or your own knowledge of cornerstones in general.

[00:01:27] But let's just take a quick refresher from Wikipedia. A cornerstone is the first stone set in a masonry foundation. All other stones are set into the foundation in relation to that cornerstone. So now let's take that over to the blogging world, and a piece of cornerstone content on a website is a blog post that all other blog posts in that same topic are going to reference back to.

[00:01:57] Let's say that I have a website where I blog about different thematic units for preschool. I would write a piece of cornerstone content, like the ultimate guide to using thematic units in preschool. Now, every post that I write about specific thematic units could link back to this ultimate guide, so my post about spring units would link back to that post,

[00:02:24] my post about holiday units would also link back to that ultimate guide, you get the idea. But there's one thing I don't love about referring to these blog posts as cornerstone content. If you've ever looked at a masonry building, you can easily locate the cornerstone because it usually has some sort of engraving for the date it was installed. And there's often a ceremony for the setting of a cornerstone,

[00:02:51] it's a whole thing, and due to this, there is just the one cornerstone in a building's construction. However, most blogs will have multiple pieces of cornerstone content. That's why some bloggers think of cornerstone content, more like a wagon wheel, and so the hub of the wheel is what we would call the cornerstone content.

[00:03:16] Then all of the other posts related to that piece of cornerstone content are the spokes of the wheel, but then you also have the outer ring of the wheel that connects to the spokes on the other end, and this kind of helps you visualize how these posts can also connect to each other. You can link between these related posts, but ultimately all of the spokes must be connected to the hub of the wheel in order for it to turn properly.

[00:03:50] And just like those old farms that have wagon wheel fences, your website can have multiple content wheels, and so whatever analogy makes sense to your brain, cornerstone, wheels, the important thing is to know that cornerstone content is a very important part of your blogging strategy, and we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into why that is.

[00:04:16] We've talked on the podcast before about just how important it's to use internal links to make connections between your pieces of content. Because this can keep people on your website longer, and it sends signals to Google about the importance of each piece of content. In the eyes of Google, posts with more links pointing to them are more important than others.

[00:04:41] And this can boost Google's understanding of your website and content, making it easier for them to recommend your posts in search. So going back to our example, if you want to be known as an expert on preschool thematic units, you'll want to have a really important piece of content that's focused on thematic units.

[00:05:03] And the way you show that this piece of content is important is by linking to it from each of your posts on this topic, and this increases the authority of the post, which then in turn boosts your authority because you are the one that wrote this really important piece of content on this topic. And so this can have a really positive impact on all of the content that you've written on this topic because you are now developing your authority.

[00:05:36] Now that we know what Cornerstone content is and how important it's for SEO, let's talk about that little checkbox on Yoast. So first, where do you find it? It's in the Yoast section at the bottom of the blog post editor. So you're in the page where you're editing your blog post, scroll down, and find the Yoast settings.

[00:05:58] And then towards the bottom of the Yoast options, you're going to see a menu for cornerstone content. If you expand that menu, you'll see the checkbox where you can mark the post as cornerstone content. If you use Rank Math, you'll find the checkbox under the space where you can add your focus keyword for the post, and that's where you can mark the post as pillar content,

[00:06:25] so it's called something different, but it serves the same purpose. Now that you know where to find it, let's talk about what happens when you mark content as cornerstone content. Well, I'll tell you what it doesn't do. That box in and of itself doesn't give any indication to Google that this is important content on your website.

[00:06:46] It won't directly impact your SEO in any way. Because some of the boxes that we check and the fields that we fill in, those do get added to the HTML of our page, like to the code that then is crawlable, but that's not the case with the cornerstone content checkbox. Instead, marking that box as cornerstone content, it just helps you keep better track of it.

[00:07:14] Once you mark a post as cornerstone content, you'll notice when you go back into your list of blog posts that there is a new filtering option at the top. So normally you'll see the option to filter by published posts, drafts, and so on. But when you use your Yoast plugin to mark something as cornerstone content, you can filter your blog post list to just show those important posts.

[00:07:44] I also believe that marking your posts as cornerstone content can come into play if you pay for a premium version of the Yoast plugin. I don't use premium plugins, so I can't really speak to that, but I do believe once it's marked as Cornerstone, when they do internal linking suggestions, they'll make different suggestions for your cornerstone content,

[00:08:06] um, anyway, we'll actually dive more into that later this month. But even with the free plugin, this feature can be a helpful way to find and track the cornerstone content on your website. I wouldn't say that it's necessary though, because you can just as easily mark your cornerstone content in your blog post spreadsheet, or whatever method you use to plan and track your content.

[00:08:33] The important thing is that you know which of your posts are going to be the different hubs for your wheels of content, and that way you can make sure that you link to them from every related post you write. Over time, this will have a very positive impact on your SEO. I hope that this episode has served as a helpful refresher on cornerstone content and the impact it can have on your blogging strategy.

[00:09:02] And I wanna thank the listener that submitted such an awesome question for us. If you would like to hear your own question answered on the podcast, just head over to my website. You can go to stephanie royer solutions.com/podcast, and you will see a button there that you can click to fill out the submission form with your question. And you can feel free to ask me about all things blogging, Pinterest, or any other organic traffic topics.

[00:09:31] I can't wait to hear from you.