What if I told you can rank on the first page of Google search results for thousands of keywords? I guess you would first ask how much it would cost. The answer is not much.
The more material you provide Google to index, the better your keyword ranks. But you must go beyond the idea of posting 1,890 words on the blog. That’s where powerful pages come in.
What are Power Pages?
The term “power page” was first coined by Brian Dean of Backlinko. A power page is a page strategically designed to rank on page 1 of Google. There are three important aspects that go into a power page:
Length: Powerful pages take long form to the extreme. They should be well above the standard 2,000 word blog post everyone is making. Think more of 4,000 words, or even 10,000-20,000 words, as a “final guide” on a topic.
Navigation: Advanced pages should be easy to navigate, with content divided into chapters, an index with anchor links, or just an easy-to-scan layout with headings and lots of images.
Audience: Powerful pages are not for your potential customers; They are for influencers in your industry. You want these people to link and share your page, which will help you improve your backlinks and reach. Therefore, the power pages should not be written at a level 101 or basic. They must be complete and contain valuable information for an intermediate or expert reader.
Powerful pages are not intended for selling; they should only exist to provide detailed information and create value. Anything more than a button at the bottom that takes the user to a landing page is too heavy for this type of content. The idea is to show your expertise, which will lead to social shares, increased traffic, and ultimately qualified leads.
As I mentioned Brian Dean, I will use one of his posts as an example. Link Building for SEO: The Definitive Guide is a page of great power:
It comes in over 4,500 words and it’s easy to navigate through the chapters:
And it appears on the first page of Google for both “link building for SEO” and “link building”:
Some stats on Brian Dean’s power page:
- It has more than 10,000 social shares
- It has more than 900 backlinks
- It ranks for 788 keywords
Well, I know I said “thousands of keywords”, but 788 is still amazing. Also, Brian Dean is a master of SEO, so you know these keywords are good.
Here’s another one: Neil Patel’sGoogle AdWords Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide:
This monstrous content is over 10,000 words long and has over 2,000 keywords. And if you search for “Google AdWords”, it will appear on the first page. This is no small feat, considering that three of the results on the first page actually belong to Google.
What do all these power pages have in common? They are the definitive or ultimate guides for a specific topic. If you are looking for information on marketing funnels, you are more likely to click on something that says “How to create a marketing funnel” or “How to create the final marketing funnel?” If you are a beginner, you can do it either way. But are you an influencer? You already know how to create a marketing funnel, but maybe not the definitive one.
However, power pages can go beyond guides. You can also post Expanded List Posts (“101 Tips for Building the Best Webinar”, “30 Marketing Conferences You Must Attend in 2021”, etc.) or Industry Briefs (“How CEOs of 45 Agencies they spend their mornings, “50 experts share the best advice they’ve ever received, “etc.). The list goes on and on. Just make sure it’s trustworthy, attracts influencers, and also has value to your target customers.
Power Pages promises to be the most informative and in-depth resource on a given topic. And those who comply are rewarded with higher Google rankings.
Why Power Pages Work
Powerful pages rely on simple math: the more words on your page, the more keywords, especially long-tail keywords, your page will rank.
More extensive content is also shared more on social media. A study by OkDork and BuzzSumo found that content between 3,000 and 10,000 words received an average of 8,859 shares:
Another benefit of longer pages is a longer length of stay – the time a user spends on your page. There may be SEO benefits to having people on your site longer, but it only works if your content is engaging enough that they stay close.
How to Create Power Pages
Powerful pages are not for anyone who just started a blog yesterday. You have to know what content works, and if you don’t have any content, you won’t know. Still. This is the step-by-step process to create content that is ranked for hundreds or even thousands of keywords on Google:
Step 1: Start with Your most Popular Pages
Open your site’s analytics tool and look at your most popular pages. Is there anything you can expand to 4,000 words or more? Are there long articles in your top 25 topics on the same topic that you could combine into a monster guide? Your high traffic pages are the ones where you will see the most impact when creating a powerful page.
For example, let’s say you sell video conferencing software and you’ve written these three articles, each with about 1,500 words:
- Video Conferencing for Beginners
- How to Get the Most Out of Your Next Video Conference
- Advanced Video Conferencing Tips
With just a little extra work, you may be able to combine all three into one advanced page in the “Ultimate Guide to Video Conferencing.”
If you don’t have popular pages yet, create some. Make a keyword list (see step 2), and hire a few freelancers to produce 800-1500 word articles about them. Then look at your analysis to see what works and what doesn’t. After a few months, you should have a good idea of what is popular, and you can decide which articles can be turned into power pages.
Step 2: Make a List of Keywords
Once you’ve identified your most popular pages, plug them into a keyword tool like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Ubersuggest (see image below) and get the top keywords that rank as well as long-tail variations of those terms :
An important note: make sure your keywords really drive traffic. It is not enough to rank for thousands of keywords. If these keywords don’t drive traffic back to your site, they are useless.
The last thing you want to do is spend time, energy, and money building a powerful page that doesn’t generate visitors or leads. Believe in someone who has already done this.
Step #3: Promote Your Content
When talking about SEO, it’s easy to take the “if you build, they’ll come” approach, especially when you know that your page was specifically designed to rank on page 1 of Google. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore the promotion process.
After posting your power pages:
- Post them on all your social channels
- Then pay to boost them
- Send an email to your subscriber list
- Buy Google Ads to take up even more space on page 1
- Don’t forget good link building
- Send them to influencers in your space
- Find people with broken links to similar content and send them yours
- Let anyone you link to on your homepage know that you did it (who knows, they might give you your money back)
Use Power Pages to Crush the Competition
More than four million blog posts are created every day. Many of these posts are between 300 and 500 words long and are written so that the website owner can boast about having content (or just having something to promote on social media). You can’t compete with that content for search traffic at that level; it’s too much.
What you can do is focus on creating powerful pages. Instead of writing fifteen 300-word blog posts that won’t drive search traffic, write a 4,500-word blog post that ranks you for more keywords. And when you start to see results on your first power page, create another. You will see your traffic increase each month as your competitors stabilize.