A content hub is a collection of niche content created so you can build a library of content to grow your business. Content hubs let you structure your content in a specific way so it’s more easily found by searchers. It’s a form of digital marketing that helps search engines better understand the content you’re writing about.
It’s definitely something you want for your content because it can help improve SEO and increase traffic for your web pages.
In this post, we’re talking about how content hubs work and how to create them:
- 6 steps for creating a content hub
- Benefits of content hubs
- Content hubs in social media
- Content hub examples.
Let’s go!
What Is A Content Hub?
A content hub is a content library for one topic you cover in-depth. You have the main hub page and then subtopics around it.
For example, a blog post-based content hub around personal finance may include subtopics like:
- Budgeting
- Debt payoff
- Investing
- Retirement planning.
Content hubs are an inbound marketing strategy that is very effective at establishing authority for yourself or your business in a niche.
Another example would be creating a content hub of articles around golfing for beginners. You would write articles around subtopics related to golfing for beginners, which could include interviewing golf teachers, creating content for tips, best practices, advice, strategies, equipment, etc.
This content hub shows search engines you are an expert authority on this topic.
Types of Content Hubs
This curated collection of content isn’t just limited to articles. Content hubs can be created around:
- Blog posts
- Infographics
- Publications or online magazines
- Videos
- Podcasts.
Blog Posts
This is written content in the form of short-form or long-form articles. It’s focused and written around a specific niche or topic. You can write blog posts yourself or hire a freelance writer to create the content for you.
Blog posts are a great way to create a content library for your audience. You can organize your content into a blog post content hub, regularly update the content, and engage with your audience through comments and messages.
Here is an example:
Systeme has a content hub around email marketing, showing people relevant content on how to grow their email list and master email marketing.
Infographics
Infographics are visual representations of content. They present complex data or a lot of information in a more digestible and easily understood way. You can take existing content and repurpose it into an infographic.
Here’s an example from the American Heart Association:
If you have dense information or technical content with a lot of steps, creating an infographic is a great way to present the data without it being too overwhelming for your audience.
Infographics work well for content hubs for many reasons:
- Great way to repurpose existing content
- Visuals capture attention and garner engagement
- Lead generation opportunities.
Publications
Publications or digital magazines are content collections. Think about magazines you might see on store shelves today, like Glamour, Forbes, or Entrepreneur.Â
Each publication is targeting a niche audience.
Glamour is for beauty and lifestyle. Forbes is for business, finance, tech, and leadership.
And Entrepreneur is for business.
Online publications can do the same, creating content around a specific niche. Publications are great because they can serve a diverse audience. They offer focused content in a variety of different formats, like blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.
VideosÂ
Creating short or longer-form videos is an awesome way to appeal to visual viewers. It’s easy to break out your smartphone and start filming a video.
You can post videos on your website and create a video library. You can also publish on video platforms like YouTube and attract an audience there.
Podcasts
I like to think of podcasts as independent radio. Today, anybody can start their own podcast. You can join free or paid podcast networks, publish your show and attract an audience of audio-based listeners.
Podcasting also opens up a new way to monetize your content from show sponsorships and other kinds of revenue you can develop.
Here’s the step-by-step process for getting set up with podcasting for business.
Examples of content hubs online include:
- IBM’s Think Blog: You’ll find a collection of blog posts around technology, business, and innovation
- Adobe’s CMO.com: This is a collection of stories and blog posts around business, marketing, and leadership.Â
How To Create a Content Hub
Here’s the step-by-step outline for creating a content hub…
Step 1: Choose A Topic
First, you’ll start by choosing a topic. This is what your content hub will be about—the foundation behind it all.
This will ideally be a topic you’re very knowledgeable about and the content hub can be your platform to build your expertise on.
Step 2: Perform Keyword Research
Next comes keyword research. There are tons of different keyword tools available, free and paid, that you can use to help you research keywords.
Here are some examples:Â
When it comes to keyword research, following this 4-step process will help you find low-competition, high-volume keywords.
- Brainstorm seed keywords
- Use those seed keywords to find more keywords
- Find low-competition keywords with niche keyword modifiers
- Analyze first-page Google results.
Step 2: Choose Subtopics
Subtopics are a big part of the content hub creation process. This will help you expand on your core topic and cover all related areas of interest.
When choosing subtopics, you want to make sure the subtopic you choose is relevant and valuable.
For example, for the topic of hydroponic gardening, a relevant subtopic would be aeroponic systems, which use misting or fog to deliver plant nutrients, and an irrelevant subtopic would be traditional soil gardening.
You can choose a mix of evergreen and trending subtopics to help create a well-rounded content hub.
Step 4: Create Content
Now comes the content creation process. You can use one kind of content, like blog posts only, or go with a mix of content types, like blog posts, infographics, videos, etc. Then, craft your content around a specific topic.
There are many ways you can create content.
- Create content yourself
- Hire a team or freelancer with content experience
- Use PLR content and edit.
This ultimate content creation guide will be super useful in this step to help you follow a guide for creating content.
Step 5: Add Internal Links
The link-building is like the glue that holds it all together. You’ll internally link each piece of content to a related article you create.Â
Using a tool like LinkWhisper would be incredibly valuable here. It helps identify relevant internal pages on your website to link to, helping you save tons of time trying to find these internal linking opportunities on your own.
Check out this LinkWhisper case study showing how 7 site owners use this tool to grow their sites.
Step 6: Optimize For SEO
The final step is SEO optimization. You will optimize the content for SEO to ensure it’s ranking in search engines and is set up to have the best visibility possible.
Tracking your content hub’s performance over time is an essential part of this, too. You can uncover insights about traffic, engagements, trends, and more.
Tools like Google Analytics work really well for this.
What Are The Benefits Of A Content Hub?
Using content hubs is a smart content marketing strategy to use for your business.
Content hubs have a ton of benefits, which is why businesses create them.
Here are the perks:
- Centralized hubs for niche information
- Opportunities to become a brand authority
- More website traffic
- Increased audience loyalty and engagement
- Opportunities to generate leads and make sales
- Can serve as an educational resource for customers.
First, content hubs can serve as a centralized hub for information. This is where you can build out your knowledge center and make the search and discovery process easier for customers.
Next, content hubs win for building your brand authority and establishing thought leadership. Consistently create high-quality content around a specific niche or topic and use the content hub to show off your expertise, share you insights and provide valuable information with your community.
Grow your organic traffic from search engines and increase the number of repeat website visitors the website gets. Plus, increase audience engagement and build a loyal audience that continues to come back repeatedly, for more information. This opens up the opportunity to get leads and sales, plus provide an educational resource for customers.
You can gain valuable insights about the data and performance. Learn about your audience, their behavior, engagement, patterns, and trends. Look at bounce rate, conversions, and other data to optimize your content and improve results.
What Is a Content Hub For Social Media?
A social media content hub uses social media to build out your centralized content repository. If you want mixed media, social media is the perfect place for building content hubs:
- Text-based posts
- Graphics
- Videos
- Images.
You can create, curate, and schedule out your social media content. Then, you can interact and engage with your audience.
For example, Astroscope on TikTok has 1.8 million followers and tons of TikTok videos about their niche, astrology.Â
And Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich channel on YouTube is a content hub for personal finance and spending habits.
Using social media as a content hub is something I’ve personally done on TikTok, too, so I can brand myself as an authority or expert in my niche.
From 2020 until 2024, I’ve built out my TikTok presence to over 90,000 followers on the foundation of the platform’s short-form videos. I’ve received millions of views on my content, and it has helped drive traffic and sales for my business!
Content Hubs vs Websites
Content hubs and websites are different, but a content hub can be part of a website.
Websites have these features:
- Branding: Sites are branded, and the branding serves as their identity. This branding is cohesive across the business and includes products, services, and messaging.Â
- Information: Websites are an information hub, sharing information about their purpose, products, services, resources, and other important details and features.
- Interactive: Websites can be interactive, creating an engaging experience for website visitors. Features like online quizzes, contests, videos, and other elements can create a truly engaging customer experience.
- SEO: Websites are optimized for SEO to improve visibility and attract more web visitors.
- Sales: Websites can serve as a sales platform, allowing customers to purchase, sign up for their newsletter, download resources, or reach out to the organization via contact form.
Content hubs are about creating a curated content experience for web visitors:
- Content Curation: Curated articles, blog posts, videos, case studies, and other content around a specific topic or niche.
- Audience Engagement: Content hubs aim to attract and engage target audiences by providing valuable, informative, and entertaining content that addresses their interests, needs, and pain points.
- Thought Leadership:Â Content hubs can build industry authority and thought leadership by consistently producing this educational material.
- Community Building: This is an opportunity to form relationships with the community, interact with peers and audience members, and engage through polls, discussion, and open forums.
- Lead Generation: An excellent way to create leads by developing nurturing relationships with the target audience and capturing leads through email signup forms, subscriptions, and gated content.
Final Word on Content Hubs
As you see, there’s a lot that can go into content hubs, but they can be very worth it. Organically build up your online authority and expertise in your field. Grow traffic around a niche and drive leads and sales without having to invest a penny into ads!
Not to mention the valuable resource of information provided to consumers and website visitors!
It’s one of the smartest ways to do online marketing!
Would you build a content hub for your business?
