Content Hubs: Their Types, Why Are They Important, and What It Takes to Create One

Content marketing requires creating a lot of content. Blog posts, videos, podcasts, social media posts — you create everything to educate your potential customers.

However, if your content is all over the place, it doesn’t really educate them in a way that would help them make a purchase decision. It becomes overwhelming instead.

Is there a solution? Of course, there is. The solution is called a Content Hub. It organizes your content on any particular topic in a single space to improve user experience and increase website traffic.

Sounds interesting? In this article, we’ll learn everything about Content Hub. Let’s get started!

What is A Content Hub?

A content hub page organizes content on a common topic in a highly-curated and topic-specific manner.

It’s an internal linking technique in which articles link back to a main hub page and, ideally, other related articles. For the end user, a content hub provides all the information they need about something in one place.

Typically, a content hub is bigger than a blog post but smaller than a website. On websites, it usually has its own prominent section.

Note: Content Hubs may include some pillar content-like features, but they’re not Content Pillars.

What Does A Content Hub Look Like?

There are different types of content hubs depending upon the type of content and their layouts. Let’s look over some of them with their examples:

#1. Content Database

A content database is a central location for organizing the content of various topics and content types, often with an information architecture (IA) or content discovery tools (i.e., a search form or filters).

A key distinction of these hubs is that they usually include a ton of content.

Another distinction is that these hubs are often created on a separate site instead of the company’s main website. This is done because of the huge amount of content organized in them, which may make the main website more complex.

Ex: Adobe Resource Center

#2. The Main Hub

A Main Hub is a parent page, sometimes called the “hub”, that serves as the home or library for organizing all the relevant content on various pages of the site (also known as the “spoke” pages).

These hub pages don’t contain much or any copy because their sole purpose is to organize all the existing content on any topic.

They are different from content databases because they usually contain the content published on the same website instead of a separate one, and the amount of content is also lesser.

Ex: Outdoor Living Ideas of The Home Depot

#3. Content Library

A content library classifies is like a Main Hub that organizes links included in it into various categories and subcategories.

Unlike Main Hub, a content library may have content that covers a variety of subjects that are very different from each other but ultimately related to the core topic of the site.

Ex: Coinbase Learn

#4. Topic Gateway

Topic Gateways are more sophisticated versions of Main Hubs.

In addition to useful content, these hubs usually have some text copy to describe the topic and provide links to additional resources (i.e., tools, cheat sheets, worksheets, etc.) to help the user with all things related to the hub topic.

Ex: NerdWallet Mortgages Hub

#5. Topic Matrix

A Topic Matrix organizes all content into multiple categories and subcategories while maintaining the same information architecture and hierarchy across all categories and subcategories.

If the hierarchy and architecture of information is different in each category, then it would be called a Topic Gateway or a Content Library instead, depending on the amount of text copy included directly into the hub page.

Ex: Mayo Clinic

Why Have a Content Hub?

Using content hubs to organize your content carefully has several benefits. Here are some of the major ones among them, explaining how a content hub may benefit your business:

#1. Lead Generation

Using content hubs, you can easily generate a lot of leads. If you are providing your visitors with all the information that they need on any particular topic, they won’t hesitate to provide their email addresses or other contact information through a lead-capturing form to get access to it.

You just need to be careful in placing your form on the hub page, ensuring that it doesn’t spoil the user experience.

#2. Boosts Your Authority

People show little or no trust in businesses that do not provide enough information or content about their industry.

On the other hand, by creating in-depth content around a topic that’s well-organized in a content hub, you can really solidify your position as a thought leader and expert in the eyes of your target audience.

#3. Increases Traffic

Your website’s traffic will grow due to having all your content strategically arranged within a content hub because it makes indexing those pages simpler for search engines.

This, in turn, helps increase your website traffic if some of the pages included in your content hub start ranking on the front page of search results for any keywords.

#4. Inspires Engagement

It’s one thing to generate website traffic and another to engage your visitors.

If your website is not engaging the traffic it’s receiving, you won’t benefit from the traffic you receive. Great sites not only generate traffic but also increase the engagement of the users with their content (i.e., reading, sharing, registering, attempting purchase, etc.).

A content hub with useful information can increase this engagement significantly by making people spend more time on your website.

#5. Allows for a Tailored UX

The content hub also allows you to provide a customized user experience to your visitors.

Unlike category pages or archives that arrange blog posts and content according to the date on which they were published, in a content hub, you can organize the content under various categories or subcategories based on a custom order.

Not only that, but you can also choose the design of the page as per your preferences, which can’t be done with category pages or any other kind of archive pages. This unique user experience can make learning much easier and simpler for your visitors.

#6. Allows for More Detailed Analytics

Your content hub can also provide detailed analytics about your business. By tracking the user activity on your content hub page, you can get an idea of which topics your visitors open most and least.

By analyzing this data, your content development team can learn what engages readers and what doesn’t.

Once you have this understanding, you can decide more accurately what content you need to create more in the future and what less.

What Makes a Good Content Hub?

There are mainly 3 qualities of a good content hub. They include the following:

#1. Organization

Your content hub should be organized. It should provide information in a systematic and proper order or arrangement.

The articles, videos, or other links you include in your content hub must be organized to make learning easier for the visitor.

After all, our goal is to improve user experience to educate your potential leads, right? Keep that in mind while arranging the content in your content hub.

#2. Appealing Aesthetics

They say that one should not judge a book by its cover, but no one likes to read anything that merely contains letters and doesn’t look appealing.

The same goes for your content hub. The design of your content hub should be appealing and inviting to the eyes if you don’t want to bore your visitors. Hiring a good graphic designer can help you design such a content hub.

Alternatively, you can also use a pre-designed page template that looks good using any page builder.

#3. Helps Readers Find What They’re Looking For

The last quality of a good content hub is that it helps readers find out what they are looking for.

Before creating a content hub, you should conduct keyword research and market research to find out what they are looking for.

You should know what questions they ask the most, what problems they face, and what things they should get to know. Then you can add information to your content hub.  

How Do I Create A Content Hub?

You can take 3 different approaches to create your content hub. They include:

• Creating a new website
• Creating the hub on your existing website
• Repurposing an existing piece of content as a content hub.

Here’s how to go about each of them:

Method #1. Create a New Website for Your Content

You can create a new website for your content hub if you want to keep it separate from your main website.

There are several reasons why someone may want to do so, which include the following:

1. Better Access Management: One of the main advantages of having a separate content hub is better and simpler access management. Without running the danger of unintentionally impacting the corporate website, the owner can make sure that only authorized people and not all content hub contributors have access to their official website. The official website’s access will remain available only to your internal staff, while on the content hub, you can invite contributors from across the world.
2. Uninterrupted learning experience: By using separate and more robust server resources, it is also possible to offer an uninterrupted learning experience even in the extreme situations of your main website being hacked. This also means that learners can access the content without any lag or downtime, even during periods of high traffic.
3. Easy Scalability: A different website provides for easier scaling of your content hub. Without affecting the corporate website, you can easily hire as many instructors or content producers as required. You can also upgrade the server hardware without messing up your main website. These things collectively allow you to scale the operation of your content hub as it grows.

Now you must be wondering how to create a new website for a content hub. So, the process is the same as creating any other website, and here it is:

Step #1: Choose a domain/subdomain

First, you must select the right domain name for your content hub site that aligns with your brand name.

You can create a subdomain under your existing domain name if you don’t wish to purchase a domain name.

Step #2: Choose a host

Next, you need to select a hosting platform that can host your server software and content.

This platform should also come at a cost that’s within your budget while offering enough bandwidth and network resources for browsing your content.

Once you have acquired the server of your choice, you should map your domain or subdomain’s nameservers to it.

If you chose a subdomain, you may not have to do this step because it’ll be hosted on the same webserver where your main website is hosted.

Step #3: Choose and Install your CMS

Now that you have your website, you can install the CMS (content management system) of your choice for setting up your content hub.

In most cases, you’ll be good with WordPress. So install it and set up your site to manage the content that you are about to put in your content hub.

In our detailed tutorial on how to launch a WordPress site, you can read more about this process.

Step #4: Build your content hub

Once you have your website, you can build your content hub.

Either you can use any pre-designed themes or templates, or you can hire a graphic designer to do the same, and once you are done with the site setup, you can take your step towards creating a content hub by adding all the content pages that need to be created.

Method #2: Create A Section On Your Existing Website

If creating a new website seems like a headache, you can also create your content hub on your existing website.

Here are the benefits of doing so:

1. All your content remains accessible and editable from a single space
2. The traffic you receive on your hub comes to your existing website
3. Traffic analytics and data collection become easier
4. Reusing graphics and media assets becomes easier.

To add a content hub to your existing website, you can simply create a new page and then design your content hub in it as per your design preferences.

This becomes quite easy if you have a WordPress website because, in that case, you can easily create your content hub page without any coding knowledge using a Page Builder like Elementor.

Just create a layout and a design of your choice, add organization (i.e., headings, subheadings, categories, subcategories, etc.), and then you can start adding links to your content.

Once you’ve created your Content Hub page, you can publish it. Next, you need to find the best place to display it prominently on your website.

We advise including it in your website’s primary navigation, or you can also add it to your sidebar through a large button or eye-catching graphic element.

This kind of positioning will make finding it simple for users and search engines.

You might want to make several content hubs if your website contains a lot of content on multiple topics.

Method #3: Use An Existing Piece of Content

If you have an existing piece of content that contains links to many of your other articles or content pieces on any particular topic, you can also choose to repurpose that page into a content hub.

The main benefits of this approach are:

1. Minimal effort requirement;
2. Boost in search rankings, as Google prioritizes pages updated recently
3. Can help you in generating various ideas for articles and other content as you reorganize your content.

To repurpose one of your existing content pages into a hub, you first need to identify the topics that are already covered on the page. Then, you can select some subtopics whose links can be added to the main content and add those links in relevant places.

If some existing content on the page needs to be reorganized, then that should also be done. You may also have to change the format of your content to repurpose it into a content hub.

For instance, if it’s in the format of an article, then you may have to change it into a resource center or a knowledge center while republishing its content into multiple articles so their links can be included in it along with links to other topics and subtopics on the same subject.

And you must figure out what to write to create some new content on topics that are not covered already. Once you’ve arranged all this content properly, you’ll have your content hub in an existing piece of content.

Frequently Asked Questions

Wrapping Up

Content hubs, when used right, can be very effective in boosting your traffic, brand authority, and lead generation.

We’ve tried to provide you with all the necessary information about them to ensure you do not get stuck anywhere while building your content hub.

If you still face difficulties, you can drop your questions in the comments, and we’ll try to answer them.

Also, you can bookmark this page to check it out again if you feel stuck somewhere while building your content hub.