SEO
Three critical keyword research trends you must embrace

30-second summary:
- Exact-match keywords are useful for researching patterns and trends but not so much for optimization purposes
- When optimizing for keywords, optimize for intent and solve problems, don’t just match your page to the keyword
- Brand-driven keywords should be your top priority because you cannot control SERPs but you can rank assets that will drive people back to your site
- Instead of focusing on keyword strings, research your niche entities and find the ways to associate your business with those through on-site content and PR/link building efforts
If you ask an SEO expert to name one SEO tactic that has changed the most over the years, they are likely to confidently answer “link building.” Some will point out to “technical tasks”, and very few will ever think of “keyword research.”
The truth is, most SEO tasks look completely different these days but few SEO experts have changed the fundamental way they do keyword research and optimize content for those keywords.
Yes, we seem to have finally left keyword density behind (unless Google forces it back) but fundamentally nothing has changed: We run keyword tools, find relevant keyword strings and use them as much as we can throughout a dedicated page.
In the meantime, Google’s understanding and treatments of keywords has changed completely.
1. Exact-match keywords are getting obsolete
Google has a long history of trying to understand search queries beyond matching word strings in them to the documents in the search index.
And they succeeded.
It started years ago with Hummingbird being first quietly introduced then officially announced in August of 2013.
Yet, few SEOs actually understood the update or realized how much of a change to everything they knew it was.
With Hummingbird Google made it clear that they were striving for a deeper understanding of searching journeys and that would ultimately fix all their problems. As they manage to know exactly what a searcher wants and learn to give them that, no fake signals or algorithm manipulations will impact their search quality.
Hummingbird was the first time Google announced they wanted to understand “things” instead of matching “strings of words.” In other words, with Hummingbird exact-match keyword strings started becoming less and less useful.
Then, after Hummingbird came BERT that helped Google to enhance its understanding of how people search.
Image source: Google
There’s a short but pretty enlightening video on the struggles and solutions of Google engineers trying to teach the machine to understand the obvious: What is it people mean when typing a search query?
That video explains the evolution of SEO perfectly:
- Context is what matters
- Google is struggling, yet slowly succeeding at understanding “context, tone and intention”
- Search queries are becoming less predictable as more and more people talk to a search engine they way they think
- Stop words do actually add meaning, and are often crucial at changing it.
The takeaway here: Keyword research tools are still useful. They help you understand the patterns: How people tend to phrase a query when looking for answers and solutions in your niche.
But those keywords with search volume are not always what people use to research your target topic. According to Google, people search in diverse, often unpredictable ways. According to Google, on a daily basis 15% of searches are ones Google hasn’t seen before.
Every day Google encounters 15% of completely new search queries. That’s how diverse searching behaviors are.
Moving away from keyword matching, Google strives to give complete and actionable answers to the query. And that’s what your SEO strategy should be aiming at doing as well.
Whatever keyword research process you’ve been using is likely still valid: It helps you understand the demand for certain queries, prioritize your content assets and structure your site.
It’s the optimization step that is completely different these days. It is no longer enough to use that word in the page title, description and headings.
So when creating an optimization strategy for every keyword you identify:
- Try to figure out what would satisfy the search intent behind that query: What is it that searcher really looking for? A list? A video? A product to buy? A guide to follow? Even slight changes in a searchable keyword string (e.g. plural vs singular) can signal a searching intent you need to be aware of.
- Search Google for that query and look through search snippets: Google is very good at identifying what a searcher needs, so they generate search snippets that can give you lots of clues.
Notice how none of the high-ranking documents has that exact search query included:
Image source: Screenshot made by the author
2. Branded keywords are your priority
More and more people are using search to navigate to a website, and there are several reasons for that:
- A few strongest browsers allow people search from the address bar (those include Safari on both desktop and mobile and, obviously, Google Chrome)
- People are getting used to voice searching, so they just speak brand names to perform a search.
Image source: Screenshot made by the author
In other words, your customers who likely know about your brand and are possibly ready to make a purchase – those hard-earned customers are forced to search for your brand name or for your branded query.
And what will they see?
It is astounding how many companies have no idea what comes up for their branded search, or how many customers they lose over poorly managed (or more often non-existent) in-SERP reputation management.
There are three crucial things to know about brand-driven search:
- These are mostly high-intent queries: These searchers are typing your brand name intending to buy from you
- These are often your existing, returning customers that tend to buy more than first-time customers
- Both of the above factors make these your brands’ top priority.
And yet, you don’t have control over what people see when searching for your brand. In fact, monitoring and optimizing for those brand-driven queries is not a one-time task. It is there for as long as your brand exists.
- Treat your brand name as a keyword: Expand it, optimize for it, monitor your site’s rankings
- Identify deeper level problems behind your customers’ brand-driven searching patterns: What is it you can improve to solve problems behind those queries?
Image source: Screenshot made by the author
Your branded search queries should become part of your sales funnel – everything from About page to product pages and lead magnets should capture those brand-driven opportunities.
In many cases, when you see a large amount of brand-driven keywords, you may need a higher level approach, like setting up a standalone knowledge base.
3. Entities are key
Entities are Google’s way to understand this world.
Entities are all proper names out there: Places, people, brands, etc.
Google has a map of entities – called Knowledge Graph – that makes up Google’s understanding of the world.
Entities help Google understand the context and the search intent.
Image search: The beginner’s guide to semantic search
Being Google’s entity means coming up in searches where you were implied but never mentioned:
Image source: Screenshot made by the author
Through entity associations, Google knows what any search is about.
Entities should be the core of your keyword research process: What are known entities is your niche and how do you associate your brand with those entities?
Conclusion
Search engine optimization is evolving fast, so it requires an agile strategy for brands to keep up. If you are doing keyword research the old, exact-match, way, your business is about 10 years behind!
Ann Smarty is the Founder of Viral Content Bee, Brand and Community manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas. She can be found on Twitter @seosmarty.
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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.