Content hubs: an effective content marketing strategy

Whether your business operates in a B2B or B2C environment, rearranging your content into content hubs can not only form the basis of an effective content strategy, but also enhance user experience, drive targeted traffic to your site, and increase your organic rankings, engagement and leads.
In this post, we’ll take a look at what a content marketing hub is, how it differs from a traditional blog, and the benefits of them. We’ll then look at examples of three successful B2B and B2C content hubs that you can use as inspiration to start curating your own.

What is a content hub?

A content hub is essentially a page with lots of aggregated content focused on a specific topic. The supporting content can include blog articles, whitepapers, webinars, podcasts, images, social media platforms or even user-generated content.
A content marketing hub is one step further than a blog. Think of it as a destination or a sort of microsite, with the ‘home’ page (of a specific topic) linking off to your related content. Each piece of related content will link back to your hub homepage, which is not only beneficial for SEO, but it makes it easier for users to navigate around all of your related content.

The benefits of content hubs

We all know the benefits of content, and why it should form part of your overall digital strategy, but why should you choose a content hub over a typical blog?

Build your authority

If you are publishing lots of really great content on a specific topic, then you are naturally starting to position yourself as a thought leader in your area. Having it housed under one specific area like a hub – as opposed to a blog – makes it easier for users (and Google) to access all related content, further highlighting your expertise.

Increase your traffic

All of these pieces of content are providing you with an opportunity to rank for identified keywords for each specific subject on your content hub.
The more optimised, engaging content you create, the higher you will rank on the search engine results pages, which should help to improve your organic traffic. By adding in relevant CTAs to encourage people to download guides or sign up for webinars, you can help to increase your leads.

Grow your engagement

Effective content helps to increase your engagement with customers and potential customers, as you can encourage people to read, share and comment on your content. Go one step further and encourage engagement through user-generated content.
Start monitoring your content hub’s engagement metrics in Analytics, to see if your bounce rate decreases, and time on-site increases over time.

Retain control

Social media is a great way to increase brand awareness and engage with your target market, but you can’t control what is being said about you, and content that users post.
With content hubs, you can. Whether your main objective is to increase engagement or leads, you can create a funnel that encourages users to do exactly what you want them to do.
Because of this, the traffic you receive through to your content hub will be far more meaningful than the traffic your social channels receive – although this content will be great to publish on social.

Build links

If you’ve created a section on your website that has various pieces of content related to it that’s full of useful information, then you’re giving people something worth linking to. 
The high-quality sites that will link back to you as a result, will further demonstrate your authority; strengthening your domain rating and helping you to rank higher on the search engine results pages.

Things to consider when creating your content marketing hub

Before you start creating and organising your content hubs, you need to answer these three questions:

• Who are you creating your content for?
• What needs will your content will solve?
• What kind of content will you create?

Determine the key topics you want to focus on, and then create your hubs around them. Before you start coming up with ideas for new supporting content pieces, audit your existing content to see if anything can be transferred over to your hubs.
When it comes to the creation of your hub, a generic blog page isn’t going to cut it. It must be easy to use, with the experience seamless, so bring in your designers and developers early on. You will also want to create a promotional plan, to encourage the growth of brand awareness and links.

Best content hub examples

No matter whether you’re a B2B or B2C company, content marketing hubs can be hugely beneficial. Here are three of our favourites. 

Salesforce: What is CRM?

‘CRM’ is a broad keyword with approximately 40,500 monthly searches in the UK alone. And yet, Salesforce comes up as a featured snippet if you type it in Google. 
Even for the lesser searched ‘what is CRM’, which receives 4,400 monthly UK searches, Salesforce rank number one, thanks to a supporting blog within their CRM content hub.
Salesforce has opted to produce long, in-depth guides on subjects relating to CRM, such as a ‘beginner’s guide to CRM systems’ and ‘social CRM’. At the beginning of each guide is an overview of what will be covered, with links dropping down to the relevant sections.
There are CTAs throughout the guides, encouraging readers to carry out a free trial of their software, or inviting them to take a quiz to see their business success scorecard.
The result? A great example of a content hub, with lots of relevant, engaging content whilst encouraging users to sign up – ultimately generating leads.
Take a look at our guide to creating successful B2B content marketing campaigns.

Rightmove: different ways to sell a house

Rightmove has three content hub for sellers:

• Preparing to sell
• Once it’s on the market
• Other things to consider

Each of these hubs have their own supporting content that rank extremely well. For example, these are just a few keywords that all rank in position one:

• Is it the right time to sell my house
• Different ways to sell a house
• Selling business property
• Preparing your property for sale

There are links out to relevant landing pages, and arrows at the bottom of each article that takes readers to other content within each specific hub.
The design may not be as smooth or as seamless as Salesforce’s, but it’s clear that all supporting content within the hub has been well thought out, and targets the questions that Rightmove’s customers are asking.
Take a look at our guide to creating the content your users want and need.

Net-a-Porter: fashion, beauty, and lifestyle

Net-a-Porter’s 70 person content team updates their Porter content daily, with an abundance of editorial content.
Like a blog, it is split down into several sections including fashion, beauty and lifestyle, with blogs and interviews related to each of these sections.
Now, Net-a-Porter’s content hubs rank number one for a range of keywords, including:

• Statement shoes
• Fashion trend report
• How to wear a slip dress to a wedding
• Utility fashion
• Best skin routine

While the keywords targeted are aimed at customers in search of information such as ‘how to dress for success’, at the end of each blog has a carefully curated selection of garments that readers may be interested in; and is one of the best content hubs we’ve seen.
Ultimately, content hubs come in various shapes and forms, but they all work towards a similar goal: to provide the user with an engaging experience, while enabling your company to be seen as an authoritative thought leader.
See our guide to types of content that work well in the fashion industry.

Understanding your audience

The very first step to creating a successful content hub is to have a robust understanding of your customer and their needs.
Team Hallam as created a customer persona template that will guide and focus your content hub creation on what is most important:  your customer.