Content Hub – a way to organize content on the website

What’s the best way to sort a large amount of content on a website?

We once discussed a similar issue on our blog – we talked about cornerstone content, i.e. the key content or thematic scope in which we deal. This is an effective and proven tactic – but what to do if you have a website covering several issues, each of which would be suitable for a separate cornerstone? All we need to do is look at the matter from a broader perspective and reach for a concept that will allow us to deal with a similar situation. We’re talking about content hubs.

The idea is to create specific information centers on a specific topic, collecting all content related to it in one segregated place. Such a collection has the following structure: the “pillar” is a cross-sectional, substantive, extensive article from which we derive numerous links to content explaining particular issues.

How to create content ‘hubs’?

The starting point may be the desire to improve the current website or a situation in which we build content on a certain topic from scratch. In both cases we should follow the same procedure.

We will briefly discuss each of these three points.

1. The extensiveness seems obvious – after all, if we want to accumulate some information in one area, we must have something to accumulate. The search potential also seems understandable, because we take all actions to increase our position in the search engine – and since a given topic is interested in a very small group of people, other actions will probably be enough to achieve a high position in the SERPs. Finally – intention. Let’s check whether the results for our key phrases actually show that people are looking for knowledge and not, for example, store offers. “Building a car engine” may be such a slogan, but when typing “the best downhill skis” we rather expect links to stores.
2. Once we have identified the right topics, it’s time to look for the issues that make up them. Let’s remember to focus on those that also have some potential – that is, they are frequently searched for. This will allow us to concentrate the most important information in one place. This process may be similar to searching for key phrases when creating text. We can also check large content aggregators like Wikipedia to see what our topic is related to.
3. The last step is to ensure proper internal linking between the main article and subpages, for example using anchors. They should be legible and transparent to make the process of viewing the content as easy and enjoyable as possible. However, remember that each subpage should also contain a link to the main page. This, in turn, is an attribute for Google’s verification algorithms, which will assess our website as internally organized and easy to navigate.

What are the advantages of content hubs?

Now that we know how to build such a content center on our website, let’s also look at the advantages of such a solution. These not only concern more pleasant consumer experiences while browsing, but can also improve our rating in Google rankings.

If you can demonstrate extensive expertise in a given field – and good evidence is the creation of the above-mentioned content concentrators – then you can also gain higher thematic authority and a greater number of views. In addition, our engagement rate will improve – i.e. the amount of time an average user spends on your website; it is understood as an indicator of engaging content.

As you can see, there are many advantages. If we are struggling with the problem of large amounts of unorganized content, content hubs are a solution created just for us. It is a simple but effective method, the use of which can bring a number of benefits.