SEO
Meta Brings Transparency To Electoral & Political Ads

With the midterm elections upon us, consumers in the United States (and around the world) are calling upon social platforms for transparency.
Combating misinformation sharing is an uphill battle.
Meta (formerly Facebook) responded to consumer concerns with an announcement of updates to its ad transparency tools.
Jeff King, VP of Business Integrity at Meta, introduced new measures for better ad transparency to the following tools:
- Facebook Open Research and Transparency (FORT) tool
- Facebook Ad Library
Specifically, the ad types that will be affected include:
- Social issues
- Electoral
- Political
Updates to these tools will be available to all countries that currently have Meta’s ad authorization and disclaimer tools available.
While these updates are driven by consumer feedback, there will be an impact on advertisers. Let’s dive into the changes and how advertisers can prepare.
Facebook Open Research and Transparency (FORT) Tool
The Facebook Open Research and Transparency (known as FORT moving forward) tool is not available to the public, but to vetted academic researchers.
First launched on January 11, 2022, the goal was to provide a tool for researchers to understand Meta’s impact on society.
The tool is a cloud-based research platform that is cost-efficient, flexible for researchers, and secure when it comes to storing data.
Starting at the end of May, the FORT environment will include detailed ad targeting information (such as interest categories) for social issues, electoral, and political ads.
Detailed targeting information will be available at the ad level for affected ads.
Facebook Ad Library Changes
The Facebook Ad Library, in contrast, is available to the general public.
Updates to the Ad Library will be available July 2022. If your ads fall into one of the three categories above, consumers will now be able to see the following:
- Summary of targeting information for each affected ad
- Location
- Demographics
- Interests
- Total number of targeted ads in the three categories a Page has ran
- Percentage of ad spend on social issue, political, or electoral ads
- Whether a Page used Custom audiences
- Whether a Page used Lookalike audiences
What This Means For Advertisers
It’s no secret that Meta is cracking down on detailed targeting.
While you still have the ability to target by demographics such as age, gender, and location, you may see a lot more ads disapproved depending on the ad content.
Even if your ads don’t directly fit into social issues, electoral, or political categories, you may still be affected moving forward.
If you feel like all hope is lost for Meta audience targeting, don’t fret! Below are a few tips and tools to try out.
#1: Start With Broader Targeting
Even if you know exactly who your target market is, you may not be able to use demographics in the same ways you used to.
A tip for wider reach and awareness is to create a large “interests” category that’s not separated out by demographics.
You may see an initial higher CPA while in the learning phase, but it often doesn’t take long for Meta’s algorithm to find your highest quality targets.
#2: Use Remarketing To Your Advantage
If you’re starting with broad targeting (above), keep track of folks who are engaging with your ads!
Quick video ads are a way to gain awareness, but did you know you can create remarketing lists from people who engage?
If you don’t have video content, try creating a remarketing list of people who have previously engaged with your page.
This takes the demographic targeting out of your ads, and into a more qualified audience who is more likely to purchase from you.
#3: Use Custom Audiences
While users will now be able to see whether you’ve used Custom or Lookalike Audiences, this is less likely to phase them if they are a past customer, for example.
As long as you’re populating these lists from first-party data, you shouldn’t have an issue with getting ads approved.
Source: Meta
Featured Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock
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SEO
8 Pillar Page Examples to Get Inspired By

Pillar pages are high-level introductions to a topic. They then link to other pages, which are usually more detailed guides about parts of the main topic.
Altogether, they form a content hub.
But not all pillar pages look the same.
In this guide, we’ll look at eight examples of pillar pages to get your creative juices flowing.
Key stats
Estimated organic traffic: 1,200
Backlinks: 6,900
Referring domains: 899
This is our very own pillar page, covering the broad topic of search engine optimization (SEO).
Why I like it
Besides the fact that I’m biased, I like the custom design we created for this page, which makes it different from the articles on our blog.
Even though the design is custom, our pillar page is still a pretty classic “hub and spoke” style pillar page. We’ve broken the topic down neatly into six different chapters and internally linked to guides we’ve created about them. There are also custom animations when you hover over each chapter:
We’ve also added a glossary section that comes with a custom illustration of the SERPs. We have explanations of what each element means, with internal links to more detailed content:
Finally, it links to another “pillar page”: our SEO glossary.
Takeaway
Consider creating a custom design for your pillar page so that it stands out.
Key stats
Estimated organic traffic: 92,200
Backlinks: 21,600
Referring domains: 1,700
Diet Doctor is a health company focusing on low-carb diets. Its pillar page is a comprehensive guide on the keto diet.
Why I like it
On the surface, it doesn’t exactly look like a pillar page; it looks like every other post on the Diet Doctor site. But that’s perfectly fine. It’s simply a different approach—you don’t have to call out the fact that it’s a pillar page.
Diet Doctor’s guide is split into 10 different sections with links to its own resources. The links bring you to different types of content (not just blog posts but videos too).
Unlike the classic pillar page, Diet Doctor’s guide goes into enough detail for anyone who is casually researching the keto diet. But it also links to further resources for anyone who’s interested in doing additional research.
Takeaway
Pillar pages need not always just be text and links. Make it multimedia: You can add videos and images and even link to your own multimedia resources (e.g., a video course).
Key stats
Estimated organic traffic: 5,600
Backlinks: 2,800
Referring domains: 247
Wine Folly is a content site devoted to wine knowledge and appreciation. Its pillar page, as expected, is about wine.
Why I like it
Wine Folly’s pillar page is a classic example of a “hub and spoke” style pillar page—split into multiple sections, with some supporting text, and then internal links to other resources that support each subsection.
This page doesn’t just serve as a pillar page for ranking purposes, though. Given that it ranks well and receives quite a significant amount of search traffic, the page also has a call to action (CTA) to Wine Folly’s book:
Takeaway
While most websites design pillar pages for ranking, you can also use them for other purposes: capture email addresses, sell a book, pitch your product, etc.
Key stats
Estimated organic traffic: 11,100
Backlinks: 3,400
Referring domains: 457
Yoga Journal is an online and offline magazine. Its pillar page is an A-Z directory of yoga poses.
Why I like it
Yoga Journal’s pillar page is straightforward and simple. List down all possible yoga poses (in both their English and Sanskrit names) in a table form and link to them.
Since it’s listed in alphabetical order, it’s useful for anyone who knows the name of a particular pose and is interested in learning more.
What I also like is that Yoga Journal has added an extra column on the type of pose each yoga pose belongs to. If we click on any of the pose types, we’re directed to a category page where you can find similar kinds of poses:
Takeaway
The A-Z format can be a good format for your pillar page if the broad topic you’re targeting fits the style (e.g., dance moves, freestyle football tricks, etc.).
Key stats
Estimated organic traffic: 115,200
Backlinks: 3,200
Referring domains: 860
Atlassian is a software company. You’ve probably heard of its products: Jira, Confluence, Trello, etc. Its pillar page is on agile development.
Why I like it
Atlassian’s pillar page is split into different topics related to agile development. It then has internal links to each topic—both as a sticky table of contents and card-style widgets after the introduction:
I also like the “Up next” feature at the bottom of the pillar page, which makes it seem like an online book rather than a page.
Takeaway
Consider adding a table of contents to your pillar page.
Key stats
Estimated organic traffic: 114,400
Backlinks: 2,900
Referring domains: 592
Muscle and Strength’s pillar page is a massive database linking to various categories of workouts.
Why I like it
Calling it a pillar page seems to be an understatement. Muscle and Strength’s free workouts page appears to be more like a website.
When you open the page, you’ll see that it’s neatly split into multiple categories, such as “workouts for men,” “workouts for women,” “biceps,” “abs,” etc.




Clicking through to any of them leads us to a category page containing all sorts of workouts:
Compared to the other pillar pages on this list, where they’re linking to other subpages, Muscle and Strength’s pillar page links to other category pages, which then link to their subpages, i.e., its massive archive of free workouts.
Takeaway
Content databases, such as the one above, are a huge undertaking for a pillar page but can be worth it if the broad topic you’re targeting fits a format like this. Ideally, the topic should be about something where the content for it is ever-growing (e.g., workout plans, recipes, email templates, etc.).
Key stats
Estimated organic traffic: 39,100
Backlinks: 1,100
Referring domains: 308
Tofugu is a site about learning Japanese. And its pillar page is about, well, learning Japanese.
Why I like it
This is an incredible (and yes, ridiculously good) guide to learning Japanese from scratch. It covers every stage you’ll go through as a complete beginner—from knowing no Japanese to having intermediate proficiency in the language.
Unlike other pillar pages where information is usually scarce and simply links out to further resources, this page holds nothing back. Under each section, there is great detail about what that section is, why it’s important, how it works, and even an estimated time of how long that stage takes to complete.
Another interesting aspect is how Tofugu has structured its internal links as active CTAs. Rather than “Learn more” or “Read more,” it’s all about encouraging users to do a task and completing that stage.
Takeaway
Two takeaways here:
- Pillar pages can be ridiculously comprehensive. It depends on the topic you’re targeting and how competitive it is.
- CTAs can be more exciting than merely just “Read more.”




Key stats
Estimated organic traffic: 890
Backlinks: 4,100
Referring domains: 1,100
Zapier allows users to connect multiple software products together via “zaps.” It’s a 100% remote company, and its pillar page is about remote work.
Why I like it
Zapier’s pillar page is basically like Wine Folly’s pillar page. Break a topic into subsections, add a couple of links of text, and then add internal links to further resources.
In the examples above, we’ve seen all sorts of execution for pillar pages. There are those with custom designs and others that are crazily comprehensive.
But sometimes, all a pillar page needs is a simple design with links.
Takeaway
If you already have a bunch of existing content on your website, you can create a simple pillar page like this to organize your content for your readers.
Keep learning
Inspired by these examples and want to create your own pillar page? Learn how to successfully do so with these two guides:
Any questions or comments? Let me know on Twitter.
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