Before we plan new content, we grade what a brand already has. Most sites have coverage across many subjects and depth in none. Most brands with a content problem do not have a volume problem. They have published for years. What they do not have is depth in any one subject that an engine recognises as authority. Coverage and authority look identical in a content calendar. They look nothing alike to a model deciding who to cite.
9 min read
By Alex Jordan, Founder
Before we plan anything new, we grade what already exists. The Analyzer crawls the site's current content and assesses each pillar and the cluster supporting it — which subjects the brand genuinely owns, which ones it has touched and abandoned, and which ones have volume but no structural relationship between the pieces.
This runs before the Pillar Cluster Engine, and the order matters. Generating a content plan without first grading the existing library produces a plan that competes with the site's own pages, splits authority across near-duplicates, and buries the two pillars that were actually working.
One accidental pillar. Some subject where a brand published four or five genuinely good pieces years ago, never called it a strategy, and now quietly ranks and gets cited for it. Recognising that and building deliberately on it beats starting a new pillar from zero almost every time.
And two or three abandoned ones. Subjects with a strong opening piece and nothing under it. Those look like failures and are usually the cheapest wins available — the hard part was already done.
It is the step that most often tells a client to publish less. Consolidate four thin pieces into one, redirect the rest, and the pillar starts holding weight.
That is a difficult recommendation to make when you are paid to produce content, and it is one of the more reliable ways to tell whether an agency is thinking about your results or its own retainer.
The Pillar Analyzer is the fourth of the nine tools in our method. See all nine, in the order we use them →
Authority Cluster — knowing what depth exists before deciding where to build more.
Your free AI Perception Report grades the pillars you already have.
Firon's Pillar Analyzer answers that by grading what already exists before anything new is planned. It crawls the site's current content and assesses each pillar and the cluster supporting it. The output sorts subjects into three groups: the ones the brand genuinely owns, the ones it touched and abandoned, and the ones that have volume but no structural relationship between the pieces. Volume alone is not authority. A lot of posts on a subject with nothing connecting them is the third group, not the first.
An accidental pillar is a subject where a brand published four or five genuinely good pieces years ago, never called it a strategy, and now quietly ranks and gets cited for it. Firon's Pillar Analyzer usually finds one. Recognising it and building deliberately on it beats starting a new pillar from zero almost every time. The Analyzer also usually finds two or three abandoned pillars: subjects with a strong opening piece and nothing under it. Those look like failures and are usually the cheapest wins available, because the hard part was already done.
Often less. The Pillar Analyzer is the step in Firon's method that most often tells a client to publish less: consolidate four thin pieces into one, redirect the rest, and the pillar starts holding weight. That is a difficult recommendation to make when an agency is paid to produce content. It is also one of the more reliable ways to tell whether an agency is thinking about your results or about its own retainer. The free AI Perception Report grades the pillars you already have.
The Pillar Cluster Engine runs next, and the order matters. The Cluster Engine reads the site and proposes three to five pillar pages, each with six to ten clusters, ordered by what to ship first. Running it without the Analyzer first produces a plan that competes with the site's own pages, splits authority across near-duplicates, and buries the pillars that were actually working. With the Analyzer's grades in hand, the plan builds on the accidental pillar and the abandoned ones instead of starting from zero.
Alex Jordan
Founder, Firon Marketing
15+ years scaling brands. A strategic partner for high-growth founders, focused on sustainable revenue models and long-term equity value.
