A content hub can be a great feather in your cap when it comes to content marketing. But what exactly is it and how can it benefit you? Read on to find out…
Digital content strategies usually incorporate many different marketing approaches. For instance, you are probably making the most of email marketing such as newsletters, or regularly publishing blogs and social media posts.
But have you ever thought of incorporating a content hub into your marketing plan? If not, you could be missing out on the opportunity to build authority and trust among your target audience.
Curious? Let’s start by looking at what a content marketing hub is.
What is a content hub?
A content marketing hub is essentially a centralised location for all of the amazing content that you produce and publish.
This content hub can be a website in its own right, but it can also be a section of a website or an entirely separate platform. It depends on how much content you have and how you want to fit it into your content marketing strategy.
It’s a little like an online library that stores your articles, videos, white papers and podcasts, becoming a go-to resource for a key topic. By having everything in one place, you make it super easy for interested people to find exactly what they are looking for – and more.
This makes it different from a blog. A blog has a broader focus and will display your content in chronological order. A content hub, however, is organised according to specific topics.
It typically has a landing page that then allows you to move onto subpages, which then link to other content in turn.
There are some variations in this structure, so you can pick the one that suits you and your business the most.
We’ll talk a little more about this later on.
What are the benefits of a content hub?
A well-organised content hub that’s packed with loads of useful information is going to give your business some definite brownie points.
Here are just some of the benefits:
A chance to demonstrate your expertise
The volume of content in a content marketing hub means that you have ample opportunity to show off your knowledge in a specific area. This means that you can show your audience that you can solve their problems, answer their questions and flag up new ideas or inspiration to them.
This will keep them coming back for more and will help you to build trust with new and current customers.
Keep visitors for longer
The comprehensive organisation of a content hub encourages visitors to stay on your site for longer. It will carefully guide visitors through your content via internal links, opening up new information and resources for them. This will increase the time they spend on your site and raise your reputation in the process.
Enjoy an SEO boost
A content hub gives you space to explore topics in depth. This is not only great for your site visitors, but also demonstrates to search engines that you are a trustworthy source of information. This can give you the edge when you want to target high-ranking (and highly competitive) keywords.
By having lots of detailed information, your content hub SEO strategy can also use your sub pages to target less competitive long-tail keywords. When these pages begin to rank for these terms, they gain authority. This authority is then passed on to their parent pages. Similarly, as parent pages begin to rank for those competitive keywords, their authority is then sent down towards their subpages.
By guiding visitors through landing pages, subpages and other related pages, you also encourage visitors to keep clicking. This indicates high engagement to search engines, and shows them that your content is relevant and useful. This can translate into better page rankings.
Generate more leads
By creating a wealth of content, you can produce material that targets customers at every stage of the sales funnel. This opens up the possibility of generating more leads for your business. By building trust with your audience, you are also more likely to be able to ask for an exchange of information. For instance, a long-time visitor may be more likely to provide their email address in order to access some gated content.
Structuring a content hub
In general, a content hub will have some kind of landing page that leads you through subcategories and then subpages. Hyperlinks then connect all of these pages.
But there are variations on this theme. You must therefore decide which structure best suits your business needs and the content you are producing.
Here are some common content hub structures.
The hub and spoke
This is probably the most common form of content hub.
In this structure, there is a landing page which features a number of static categories. These are typically links to evergreen content. As a result, this format is ideal if you’re not planning to update the content regularly.
The hub page itself can have little to no information on it, or it can be a detailed, high-level guide. If you choose the latter, you need to make good use of internal links to direct your visitors through the rest of your content.
Content libraries
In this structure, you can use a mix of evergreen and new content.
It is once again organised via categories and subcategories, which then have links to related content in each.
This is ideal for blogs and organises your content in a way that is far more useful for visitors than just a chronological list of all the articles you’ve published.
Topic gateways
A topic gateway features a hub page which contains a nice overview of the key subject matter. Beneath it are a number of subcategories, which tend to be evergreen content.
Below this, is a section with dynamic content. This gives you the opportunity to showcase freshly published content, such as your latest blog or social media post.
Content database
If you have A LOT of content, you’re going to need a content database.
In this structure, you have a landing page that allows you to find information by using filters. This allows visitors to explore your content and drill down to what they really need quickly. This means that they don’t have to click through many layers of categories and subcategories to find the right information, which could cause frustration.
Content hub examples
There are loads of good examples of content hubs out there, but here are some ones that we have spotted.
Unilever – All Things Hair
In this bespoke content hub, Unilever has set categories of haircuts, hairstyles, etc. across the top of the page. A carousel then flags up some newer content, while further sections showcase other evergreen content, from videos and articles to product reviews.
Reptile Guide
On this content hub, there are fixed subcategories relating to different reptilian creatures, which guide the visitor to the right part of the hub for them. This hub page also has several ‘spokes’ of evergreen content. This is based on their most popular content.
On this site, they also make good use of high-level guides to act as further ‘hubs’ The below example has LOADS of internal links to other pieces of relevant evergreen content to keep readers clicking.
Red Bull
Red Bull has a fine-tuned content hub that allows visitors to quickly find their relevant sport. Each subcategory then flags up both new and evergreen content to ensure visitors have a relevant and interesting choice of content.
How to create a content marketing hub
Convinced that a content hub will be a great addition to your content marketing strategy? Then it’s time to get started on making one!
To begin, you need to have a brainstorm of ideas. This will help you to create a structure that means visitors can navigate around easily, getting to the right content quickly.
You can start thinking about subcategories and subpages by using keyword tools to find out what is popular in search. Tools such as Answerthepublic may also be helpful for flagging up relevant questions that you could answer with your content.
When brainstorming, think about what type of content will be best suited to give the information. Does it need to be a blog post? Infographic? A white paper? This will again help to inform your structure.
Remember, you will also need to think about incorporating internal links and strong calls to action (CTAs) to encourage visitors to look at something else.
CTAs don’t have to just be ‘contact us!’. To keep the online journey going, you could use it to flag up a tool such as a calculator or product selector, or another relevant article.
Talk to us about content hubs
Content hubs can be powerful tools in your content strategy. But if you feel a little unsure about starting your own, we can help!
Simply drop us a line at hello@methodmarketing.org or call us on 0330 0430736.