{"id":141151,"date":"2019-07-17T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/?p=141151"},"modified":"2019-07-16T10:05:54","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T09:05:54","slug":"3-seo-benefits-building-hub-and-spoke-pages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/content-management\/3-seo-benefits-building-hub-and-spoke-pages\/","title":{"rendered":"3 SEO benefits to building hub and spoke pages"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Content hubs help you solve the problem of related content being disconnected across your site and can help grow your organic rankings for target keywords<\/h2>\n<p>You may not be familiar with the term \u201ccontent hub,\u201d but you\u2019ve likely heard of the concept by some other name. You may have heard it referred to as a \u201ctopic pillar\u201d or perhaps a \u201ccontent cluster,\u201d but what you call it doesn\u2019t really matter.<\/p>\n<div class='postauthor si-guide-block'>\n                <div class='col-md-2 col-sm-12 si-icon-holder'>\n                    <a target='_blank' href='https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/?post_type=guides&p=5651'>\n                  <img src='https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Content-marketing-strategy-guide-106x150.jpg' alt='Content marketing strategy guide'>\n                    <\/a>\n                <\/div>\n                <div class='col-md-10 col-sm-12'>\n                    <p><strong>Download our Individual Member Resource \u2013 Content marketing strategy guide<\/strong><\/p>\n                    <p>This guide shows you both how to develop a strategy to deploy content across all your online marketing and gives practical tips to make it happen.<\/p>\n                    <p>Access the <a target='_blank' href='https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/?post_type=guides&p=5651'>Content marketing strategy guide<\/a><\/p>\n                <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n<p>Content hubs help you solve the problem of related content being disconnected across your site and can help grow your organic rankings for target keywords. Beyond this, content hubs can help you increase your on-site conversions and goal completions.<\/p>\n<h3>What is a content hub?<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portent.com\/blog\/seo\/content-hubs-seo-strategy.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Content hubs are a linking strategy<\/a> in which you:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Identify most or all content on your site related to a central topic.<\/li>\n<li>Choose a core \u201chub\u201d page that you want to rank well for the topic.<\/li>\n<li>Link all of the \u201cspoke\u201d pages back to the identified hub page and (where possible) link from the hub page out to the spoke pages.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-141189\" src=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Content-hub-700x485.png\" alt=\"Content hub\" width=\"640\" height=\"443\" \/><\/p>\n<p>So, why does the simple act of linking together similar content improve your site\u2019s user experience and organic visibility? There are numerous benefits to content hubs, but the following three are what I would consider the most important.<\/p>\n<h3>1. Content hubs build your brand\u2019s authority<\/h3>\n<p>Whether looking from the perspective of SEO, content strategy, or user experience, we know that it\u2019s difficult (if not impossible) to fully cover a broad topic with just one webpage. However, if you publish blog posts, articles, or other pages about a subject without interlinking them, your users will have trouble finding all of your content easily.<\/p>\n<p>Connecting these resources throughout your site with descriptive anchor text builds your authority on the topic by showing the wealth of subject-matter content you have. Users who discover you through a single article on a topic will have an easier time staying on your site and reading more content if you have a hub strategy in place.<\/p>\n<p>The beauty of the content hub strategy is that you\u2019re not limited to just one! I recommend building out a content hub for any and all topics that you have sufficient content for. Show off your brand\u2019s knowledge and expertise on subjects and tie those pages together so search engines and users can easily find them.<\/p>\n<h3>2. Hubs increase your site\u2019s visibility and traffic<\/h3>\n<p>There wouldn\u2019t be much point to writing about content hubs if they didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n<p>One of my industrial manufacturing clients was trying, without much success, to rank for \u2018plastic injection molding\u2019. They had a lot of great content on the topic and a solid service page, but they couldn\u2019t get it to rank for the keyword.<\/p>\n<p>Our team helped them implement a content hub strategy in December 2017 (see arrow in the image below).<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_141190\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-141190\" class=\"size-large wp-image-141190\" src=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Smartphone-rankings-700x377.png\" alt=\"Smartphone rankings\" width=\"640\" height=\"345\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-141190\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Client\u2019s averaged desktop and smartphone rankings for \u2018plastic injection molding\u2019. After a three-month ranking gap, the site climbs to ranking 9th in the top right of the graph.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>It took a few months before the hub had the impact we wanted. When it did, our client was ranking as high as the ninth position in Google results for this high-volume keyword.<\/p>\n<p>For a client starting a new streaming service, we were able to build content hubs into their website from launch. It\u2019s challenging to get organic traction when a new site is launched, but they\u2019ve experienced nonstop growth in large part thanks to content hubs.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_141191\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-141191\" class=\"wp-image-141191 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Organic-traffic-increase-700x211.png\" alt=\"Organic traffic increase\" width=\"640\" height=\"193\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-141191\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Client\u2019s organic traffic (users) by month since launch, as reported by Google Analytics.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Consolidating your internal linking around a single page helps search engines understand what you think deserves to rank for a given query.<\/p>\n<h3>3. Content hubs generate more leads<\/h3>\n<p>In addition to increasing organic traffic, content hubs can help move users through your site in a way that increases leads.<\/p>\n<p>Your central content hub, as described above, is the page you chose as your target landing page for a topic. In most cases, the hub page will be a service page (if you\u2019re working with a services-focused website) or another page designed for conversions, such as a top-level product category page on an e-commerce site. If the hub page you choose is not optimized for conversions, you should either optimize the page or go with a different page that\u2019s already set up for conversions.<\/p>\n<p>The selected hub page will not only receive more organic traffic but also more internal traffic from its spoke pages. Every new link that you create from one page on the site back to the hub page is a new pathway for users to follow. Those long-tail searchers landing on the spoke pages will then enter into your conversion funnel. An optimized content hub helps users move down the marketing funnel and lead them to convert.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-141192\" src=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Marketing-funnel-700x530.png\" alt=\"Marketing funnel\" width=\"640\" height=\"485\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Finally, a content hub can do more than improve the traffic to the hub page. If you design your content hub to link out to the spoke pages, then they will benefit as well.<\/p>\n<h3>Bonus advice: don\u2019t forget about backlinks!<\/h3>\n<p>A content hub\u2019s success is built on the idea of funneling link authority from several topically related pages into a single hub page. However, that only works well if your spoke pages have backlinks!<\/p>\n<p>Backlinks are necessary, but they sometimes feel like a thorn in the side of SEO professionals. If you don\u2019t have an established process for earning backlinks, you should try to construct your content hub around a topic that already has pages with backlinks. If you do have a successful method for building links, don\u2019t just focus on the hub page. Ideally, your spoke pages and hub page should all receive backlinks from diverse but relevant sources.<\/p>\n<h3>Final thoughts<\/h3>\n<p>Of course, no single digital marketing tactic can succeed in a vacuum. The content hub strategy is just one tool that you can add to your toolkit and use alongside other successful processes. If you don\u2019t have the right content for a hub, perform keyword research to identify new blog posts to write. If your content hub is earning the traffic you were hoping for, but it\u2019s not converting, perform conversion-rate optimization to improve lead generation.<\/p>\n<p>One of the best things about a content hub is that it\u2019s relatively easy to implement. Identifying related pages and linking them together is something anyone with access to edit a site can do.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"postauthor\">Caleb Cosper is an SEO Strategist at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.portent.com\/\">Portent<\/a>\u2014a Clearlink Digital Agency in Seattle, WA. He earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in zoology from the University of Oklahoma (Boomer!) and has turned his passion for all things data-driven and scientific into passion for SEO. Outside of Portent, his life consists of games (video and board), food (at-home and in-restaurant), and craft beer (any and all).<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Content hubs help you solve the problem of related content being disconnected across your site and can help grow your organic rankings for target keywords You may not be familiar with the term \u201ccontent hub,\u201d but you\u2019ve likely heard of &hellip;..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_glsr_average":0,"_glsr_ranking":0,"_glsr_reviews":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,81],"tags":[1350],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>3 SEO benefits to building hub and spoke pages | Smart Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Content 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