The internet never seems to be running short of content. But the quality of that content varies considerably, making it tough to find information that's actually useful. People tend to search for content that pertains to a specific topic, only to find themselves overwhelmed with countless results that have very little to do with the results they need.
It is vital for an organization to realize that building a brand is not about flooding the internet with content. It is more about designing a unique browsing experience that users or potential customers can appreciate. This is the same feeling as walking into a bookstore and finding a well-organized library where all related books are carefully stored on shelves arranged by their subjects. This is what hub-and-Spoke content marketing is all about.
The hub-and-spoke marketing strategy is designed to assist customers in breaking down even the most complex issues into much more digestible formats. By doing this, businesses have the potential to transform their websites from a random collection of pages with little authority into a comprehensive and credible resource.
What Is the Hub-and-Spoke Model for Content Marketing?
The hub-and-spoke model places the marketer's focus on a single topic before expanding into subtopics once the pillar of the primary content has been established. After that's accomplished, you can then work on improving brand visibility and SEO. A product of these efforts is a better user experience since the content collectively becomes a rich resource of helpful information.
Below are the key components that make up the hub-and-spoke model:
Organized Content Framework
Hub-and-spoke models organize content around a specific pillar page, referred to as a hub. This pillar page covers a specific overarching topic. For example, your business may focus its efforts around a primary topic like “SEO." This then provides ample opportunities for other sub-categories to connect to it.
The spokes would then be the individual content pieces that go deeper into the topics surrounding this hub. This creates a better content flow overall, allowing each reader to move from a high-level idea to more granular information. This structure lets the reader make sense of the subject matter and keeps taking in large amounts of information that are much more manageable.
Keyword Hierarchy
From an SEO perspective, the hub-and-spoke approach works on developing a strategic keyword hierarchy. The hub page targets broad, high-volume keywords, designed to cast a wider net to attract an audience. The spoke pages focus on niche, long-tail keywords, that are more targeted to specific user queries and search intents.
Using this dual approach maximizes search visibility by catering to both general and specific searches, improving the site's overall search engine ranking capabilities.
Strengthening Topical Authority
The main goal of the hub-and-spoke model is to target and enhance your topical authority. This helps to signal to Google that your site is an expert on certain topics. By building out a subject with an organized network of interrelated content, Google sees that your site is a helpful resource on a particular subject.
As a result, more people trust your business and with more credibility often comes better ranking positioning on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
Why Is the Hub-and-Spoke Model Important for SEO and Content Marketing?
It’s not only about developing content because it brings visibility but also organizing it to bring authority and engagement. This is the reason why the hub-and-spoke model is so helpful for today's businesses. Below are some of the specific benefits of using this model:
1. Improves Topic Authority
Developing a comprehensive content ecosystem shows you have a deep understanding of a given topic. By breaking down a topic from various perspectives, businesses highlight their expertise, building trust with both search engines and their audiences.
2. Increases Keyword Rankings
A significant advantage of the hub-and-spoke model is its ability to increase keyword rankings. Businesses will be able to attract a large audience due to the volume of keywords for which their hub pages are optimized. This effort can be even more improved through well-designed spoke pages, as they'll likely cover more specific long-tail search intent.
3. Strengthens Internal Linking
A hub-and-spoke model increases the internal linking capabilities of a site by building a web of interlinked content pages. This level of structural integrity increases site usability, which improves the flow for users and the crawling process for search engines. Individual pages can be linked together so that businesses can pass on their own link equity to improve the indexing and ranking of their site.
4. Enhances User Experience
If a website has structured pathways that make sense, visitors are more likely to stay longer on it and explore additional pages. This is important for reducing bounce rates. By creating a central location for organizing pages, businesses make it easy for users to find relevant information, improving user experience and increasing retention.
Step-by-Step Process for Implementing the Hub-and-Spoke Model
Step 1: Keyword Research to Understand Search Demand
Effective hub-and-spoke strategies rely on keyword research as their basis. The research is done to uncover any relevant keywords relating to the topic and the audience. This includes
- Identifying high-volume keywords: This will strategically target a broader audience looking for basic topic information, which will be captured in the hub page.
- Finding long tail variations: Assisting the customer with more niche or specific search queries will be handled through spoke pages. These search terms are often low in search volume, but high in specificity.
- Competitor research: This assists in showing any apparent gaps when finding keywords and creating more competitive content creation strategies.
With a good understanding of keyword options, a business can develop content that solves the user’s needs while increasing website visibility in search engines.
Step 2: Deciding Which Spoke Topics to Write About
After the main keywords are validated, deciding on the spokes that will optimize the hub are next. This process should consider several variables:
- Business relevancy: Spoke topics shouldn't lack relevance to the business's primary focus or the products or services being offered.
- Search volume: Content creation should be justified based on an adequate amount of potential traffic volume it can expect to see.
- Competitor gaps: Discover where competitors are ranking well for certain keywords and look for ways to outshine them in both length and quality of content.
- Emerging trends: Be proactive when adopting new content marketing strategies that are proving to be successful.
By taking these steps, businesses can build a complete ecosystem of spoke topics by catering to user-specific search queries as well as any guidelines laid out by search engines.
Step 3: Creating Hub and Spoke Content
The next step is content development, which includes writing and designing both the hub and spoke pages.
Hub Pages
Hub pages are the backbone of the content strategy. They should provide a broad understanding of the main topic and contain rich content features. These should be viewed as an introduction for content pillars that could be made up of step-by-step guides, insightful reports, or whitepapers and ebooks. During the research stage, these pages should be optimized for the broad high-volume keywords that were identified, and have a well-structured internal linking format to individual spoke pages.
Spoke Pages
In spoke pages, detailed subtopics related to the main topic are explored further from what is provided in the hub. Each spoke page focuses on capturing long-tail informational queries and providing insights. To blend the content and improve navigation, every spoke page should link back to the hub page naturally.
Step 4: Optimizing Internal Linking
Internal linking is the critical bridge users will use to navigate to and from hub and spoke pages. How you approach this process can significantly improve your SEO and facilitate a much more seamless user experience.
Structuring URL formats
Take the time to acknowledge and set the clear page hierarchy while creating the URL structure of your website. This helps both users and search engines to understand the relative importance of each page.
Strategic interlinking
Developing the right interlinking plan is critical. Below are some of the key ways to approach this:
- Hubs to spokes: All relevant spoke pages should be linked in the hub pages to help the users gain more specific details on the topic and to strategically distribute link equity.
- Spokes to hubs: All spoke pages should link back to the main hub page to enable users to return easily to the center theme of the spoke page topic being discussed.
- Cross-linking between spokes: Spoke pages that capture relevant information should be interlinked together to further enhance the value of the content pages. Doing this strengthens the context behind certain topics.
Anchor text optimization
Ensure you provide descriptive anchor text that matches exactly what the page being linked to covers. This means there's less ambiguity for users, and also helps search engines understand the nature and purpose of the linked content when ranking it in SERPs.
Step 5: Promoting Hub and Spoke Content
Writing quality content is just the beginning, marketing that content effectively is equally important. This typically requires multiple approaches, including SEO, link-building, and content marketing.
When building backlinks to your hub pages, make sure they only come from reputable sources. Guest blogging, digital PR campaigns, and other link building efforts can help with this effort. Quality backlinks help indicate authority, which improves its rankings and can increase organic traffic.
In addition to this, you can use other platforms to spread your content and give it more visibility. You can post your hub and spoke page links on X, Facebook, and other social media platforms, or you could distribute them directly through email campaigns. Make sure to check Google Search console for data on how your content is ranking to refine your approach over time.
Step 6: Measuring Performance and Refining the Strategy
The impactfulness of any content you create and market should be regularly measured and improved upon over time. In order for your hub-and-spoke system to work, it's important to track important KPIs and constantly refine your approach.
Some of the steps you can take in this regard include:
- Look for changes in traffic and keyword performance to determine how your strategy is performing.
- Review both the websites' backlinks and your domain authority to gauge the overall strength of the website.
- Monitor conversions on pages referred from hub and spoke pages to see how effective the content is at achieving your desired goals.
- Refresh or fix sections of content that are failing to perform, by improving link structure and updating older, irrelevant content.
All of these steps allow your hub-and-spoke model to continue producing results, while helping to build more credibility around your brand.
Elevate Your Content Strategy Moving Forward
Hub-and-spoke content models are a great way to help your business create more visibility online and increase organic web traffic. By strategically interlinking central content themes with detailed subtopics, you’ll be able to increase your site authority, improve search rankings, and develop a user-friendly experience that can lead to long-term sustainable business growth.