This post originally appeared on tBL member Joshua Lyon’s blog Joshua Lyons Marketing Blog and is republished with permission. Find out how to syndicate your content with theBrokerList.
If you are involved in the world of digital marketing in any capacity, you may have heard the term “content hub” thrown around. While its concrete definition may vary slightly from person to person, there’s no denying that the use of content hubs in your marketing strategy can be greatly beneficial if they are done correctly. In this article, we hope to clarify what, exactly, a content hub is, offer some deeper insights as to how one might support your marketing efforts and showcase some of the best practices that will help you to make the most of yours.
What is a Content Hub?
Websites and blogs can both be easily misidentified as content hubs, but, in fact, a content hub is typically smaller than a website and bigger than a blog post. Its main purpose is to act as a destination where a visitor can find heaps of information on a very narrow and specific topic. The information is generally organized in an attractive and concise manner that creates an easy and user-friendly experience for the visitor.
The well-defined structure of a content hub creates a natural flow of information and guides the user through every step of the journey. Content hubs might use a combination of digital media, articles, videos, infographics, audio, slideshows, papers, et cetera, to give a broad audience access to a vast array of information in the format that is most easily accessible to them. They may also use a combination of homegrown content, curated content, user-generated content, social-media and/or advertising.
You may be asking yourself, why this instead of just a regular website? In order to answer that, you’ll need to more fully understand how a content hub can affect your bottom line.
How Does a Content Hub Support Your Marketing Strategy?
According to a survey done by Demand Gen Report, “96% of B2B buyers would like to see more content from industry leaders,” and Adobe reports that “38% of readers become disengaged when a site layout is unattractive.” These statistics alone should begin to explain some of the benefits of creating a content hub, but it’s also beneficial to see exactly how your hub can directly support your overall marketing strategy. Content hubs can help you to:
Build Expertise
Consistently providing your site visitors with quality content on a particular topic will help to expand their faith in you as a trusted expert on the subject matter and keep them coming back.
Increase Your Exposure
In turn, your high-quality content and consistency will help your pages to rank higher in organic searches from all of the major search engines.
Control Your User Experience
While the algorithms on your social media accounts are determining how much exposure your content is getting, you have the ability with a content hub to control what your visitors see, where they go next and how they engage with you.
Increase Engagement
Content hubs offer ample opportunities for your users to engage with you through reading, attending, buying, sharing, signing-up, trying, and more.
Generate New Leads
Each of these engagement tactics creates a new chance for you to get your audience’s information, understand them better and further educate them.
Constantly Improve
Analytics reports will help you to gain new insights as to how you can interact with your visitors in more organic and appealing ways. Understanding what your audience wants will allow you to create more quality content that will continue to feed this cycle.
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How to Create & Use Your Content Hub
How to Create & Use Your Content HubNow that you understand the benefits of a content hub, it’s time to get a better understanding of the steps involved in creating one.
Pick a Topic
Obviously, the first step in creating a successful content hub is to determine its purpose. What topic will you be gathering information on and what related sub-topics do you want to offer access to? Armed with this information, you can choose a name for your hub, as well as create a concise description that will let visitors know what they can find there.
Research Your Topic
Next, it’s time to do your research. Use keyword tools to determine the right keywords to use for your chosen topic and categorize your findings by intent. Also do some research to see how well you and your competitors rank on search engines for the keywords you’re most interested in. This way you will better understand what your audience is seeing when they search for your services. And you can see what types of content they are looking for, whether it be videos, articles, or something else?
Determine the Type
Content hubs come in many different shapes and sizes. Research some of the different options and ideas to decide what format works best for your intentions and choose the content management system you will use to host your hub.
Create a Flow Map
Based on the type of content hub you’ve chosen decide how best to organize the information you plan to offer and begin the process of putting it all together (you may want to hire a professional here to help ensure that your hub is visually appealing, well-organized and easy to use).
Launch
Once you have your content hub formatted, it’s time to hit launch and invite the world to see what you’ve put together.
Promote
Spread the word using as many pertinent platforms as you can think of. The more positive interest you can generate in your hub, the faster your SEO rankings and exposure will begin to climb.
Update as You Go
Just launching your content hub doesn’t mean your job is over. Routinely go back to the research step to ensure that you are still using the most up-to-date keywords. Also, always be sure you’re reaching your audience in the most effective ways. Make use of analytics tools to further educate yourself on what your audience wants and needs and be sure to regularly offering high-quality content.
Closing Thoughts
Follow these simple guidelines and you will be well on your way to building your audience. This is done by offering them access to a wide variety of superior content in one, convenient location.
If you need help with content creation, or your digital marketing strategy in general, let us know! You can connect with us via the contact form below, or through our contact page.
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