Being born and bred a Gen Z, my whole life has revolved around digital communication. Growing up, communicating through iMessage, Instagram/Facebook messenger or Snapchat were considered the norm, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had a legitimate fear of phone calls until I started my first part-time job.
With all that being said, being born into a new generation of communication has allowed me to see the value and role these technologies play in day-to-day life, and also, where their limitations are. In the context of working at a communications agency however, I have come to learn the different ways online and offline channels can integrate together with PR, to achieve success for our business, and our clients.
Today, we will explore a topic called ‘content hubs’ which is a key term used in digital PR to establish your core pillars of expertise, that ultimately helps to drive awareness, web traffic and boost your ranking in Google search. So, without further ado, here are your top five questions about Content Hubs, answered!
1. What the heck are content hubs?
Yes, the term content hub sounds like an old-school study technique your year 8 English teacher made you use to memorise texts, but in its simplest form, content hubs can also be called ‘key communication pillars,’ ‘core expertise pillars’ or even ‘brand communications messages.’ A content hub is your way as a brand or expert, to establish how people will find you online. So, as a communications agency, our ‘content hubs’ would consist of relevant keywords that we know speak to our skills, but also aligns with what people are searching online. For Agent99 these would be:
- Public Relations / Agency
- Strategic Communications / Agency
- Media Experts
2. Cool, but why should I develop content hubs?
Have you ever been scrolling through a website, and you’ve found yourself asking, ‘what does this company even do?’ Well, if this happens, there’s a good chance you’ve stumbled onto a website with poorly defined content hubs. Content hubs are a great way of ensuring your brand or website is visible and useful to people searching for your services. Content hubs ensure that you are streamlining your communications and brand-messaging to avoid confusing your audience or trying to be ‘everything to everybody.’
We know from recent studies that younger Aussies in particular are engaging with brand websites more than ever, with 38% of Gen Z feeling an online presence says the most about a person/brand and 58% of Millennials remembering the colour of a website they visited, over the colour of someone’s eyes. So, establishing well-defined and clear content hubs for your website, you are more likely to retain an engaged audience, for longer. From a data-driven perspective, establishing content hubs will mean that your website or owned channels can continue to grow in website authority and ranking when people are looking for your services online.
3. Okay, enough fancy terms. What does a content hub for me actually look like?
When determining what your content hubs should be, start by thinking of the key words or phrases you want to be recognised for. The simpler, the better. Put yourself in the shoes of an ignorant browser looking for your services and ask yourself, what would you expect them to type into Google to find you? Many of Agent99’s communications clients have picked many simple terms such a ‘corporate speaker,’ ‘finance educator’ or ‘Sydney buyer’s agent.’ Once you’ve picked a predominate content hub centred around your expertise, here is where you can develop out further content hubs, based on what people are searching for online.
Using some great tools like Google Adwords or Answer the Public, you can search various phrases or questions related to your overarching content hub and see which ones get the highest traction. For example, Agent99 are currently working with a commercial property buyer’s agent, and so while that is her core content hub, through research we were able to determine many people were also searching ‘passive income and commercial property’ and ‘cashflow and commercial property.’ Utilising the data we have, we are able to now build secondary content hubs around those key topics.
4. I’m vaguely interested, how do I roll these content hubs out?
The great thing about content hubs is that they can permeate into every piece of communications or marketing materials your business creates. Whether it’s your website or blog content, EDMs, social media pages, or marketing materials such as press releases, all of these various channels allow you to build your key content phrases and words in a public way, meaning that every time someone encounters your brand, they are being hit with the same select group of messaging. It is recommended you onboard a communications agency or copywriter to ensure that you are hitting all these touchpoints across your owned channels.
5. And lastly, how do I know that content hubs are working?
Benchmarking in communications is always the key to success! When you start developing your content hubs, it is paramount that you are always benchmarking your owned-channel analytics to see how content hub development is moving the needle for your business. At Agent99 we also utilise an SEO / SEM agency to generate reports on our website movements, and over time through the development of our own content hubs, we have seen our website move higher and higher into search under various keywords.
Some key metrics we recommend you track include:
- Website page ranking on Google for your website and key words
- Bounce rate (the longer they stay on your site, and visit more than one page, the more it is your content is relevant to those searching)
- Domain authority
- Social followings
- Website users including average daily visits, types of users, top referrers, and acquisitions
Finally, it is incredibly important to align these with your communications or marketing efforts, to determine how these are helping drive and generate these metrics. Overall, the most important part of developing content hubs is refining and adjusting as needed, to ensure that you are seeing the results that matter most to your brand.
If you need help in developing your content hubs, or would like to chat to a communications agency about the options available to you, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Agent99 team at info@agent99pr.com
Agent Emilie
