---
aliases: ["Write 10 Pillar Articles"]
Is A: Project
Belongs to: "[[24q2]]"
Advances: "[[responsibility-content-production]]"
Status: Done
Owner: "[[person-luca-rossi]]"
---
# Write 10 Pillar Articles

## Overview

This project focused on creating 10 long-form "pillar" articles — comprehensive, SEO-optimized pieces targeting high-traffic search terms in the engineering leadership and developer productivity space. These articles serve a dual purpose: they drive organic search traffic to the Refactoring website (feeding [[measure-subscribers]] growth) and establish topical authority that supports [[2024-reach-50k-subscribers]].

Each article was 2,500-4,000 words, thoroughly researched, and structured for both readability and search engine performance. Topics were selected based on keyword research using Ahrefs, focusing on terms with decent search volume (1K-10K monthly) and moderate competition. The articles were published on the Refactoring blog and cross-promoted through the newsletter over [[24q2]].

## Goals

- Research and select 10 high-value keyword targets using Ahrefs
- Write 10 articles of 2,500-4,000 words each, with clear structure and internal linking
- Optimize each article for on-page SEO (meta descriptions, headers, image alt text)
- Publish on a bi-weekly cadence throughout Q2
- Achieve first-page Google ranking for at least 3 target keywords within 6 months

## Key decisions

- **Evergreen topics only.** All 10 articles target topics that will remain relevant for 2+ years (e.g., "how to run effective 1:1s," "staff engineer vs. engineering manager"). Avoided trending or news-driven topics that would decay quickly.
- **Newsletter-first drafts, then expanded for SEO.** Several articles started as popular newsletter issues that were expanded with additional depth, examples, and structure. This reduced research time and ensured the topics had proven audience interest.
- **No freelance writers.** Considered outsourcing some articles but decided that the Refactoring voice is too distinctive to delegate at this stage. [[person-sara-ricci]] edited all 10 pieces, which maintained quality while freeing time for drafting.

## Notes

- Writing 10 pillar articles in one quarter while maintaining the weekly newsletter was extremely demanding. Weeks 5-8 were particularly brutal — the output quality dipped on newsletter issues during that period. In hindsight, 7-8 articles would have been more sustainable.
- The article on "Engineering Manager vs. Tech Lead" became the highest-performing piece, ranking on page 1 within 8 weeks and driving ~3,000 monthly organic visits. This single article accounted for about 30% of the total organic traffic from all 10 pieces.
- Internal linking between pillar articles and existing newsletter content created a noticeable boost in site-wide SEO metrics. Average session duration increased by 40% during Q2.
- This project directly informed [[topic-content-strategy]] and established the content pillar framework that was later extended in [[25q1-newsletter-seo-sprint]].
