If you’re writing a content hub, you’ve committed to creating a hub-load of information. While there’s no strict definition of how much goes into a “hub,” it’s often dozens (if not hundreds) of pieces of content. Writing a content hub takes a lot of time, effort, and (usually) money to produce—so you want to make sure you do it right. 

The problem is, it’s so easy to get content hubs wrong. 

You can do all the keyword research in the world and create hundreds of blog posts, but it might not matter. You won’t get any traction if your content hub is boring or irrelevant or if your topic is already saturated with content from your competitors. 

So, how do you make people want to explore your content hub?

Writing “good” content is (and always has been) a subjective game. While there’s no silver bullet solution, there are frameworks and principles you can use to guide yourself to success.  

Here are the 5 questions you should ask yourself when writing a content hub. They’ll help you decide what content to include — and determine what isn’t worth your time.

The 5 questions to ask when writing a content hub

1. “Has this been done before?”

Content oversaturation is a real problem online. Just Google, “why am I getting nosebleeds?” and you’ll find yourself going down an endless rabbit hole of health information sites, from WebMD to Mayo Clinic to Harvard Health. 

Let’s say that your tissue company is getting started writing a content hub. If you decide to create a content hub around nosebleeds, get ready to face a ton of competition from some very big players.

That means you’ll have to write loads of long-form content with a solid content cluster strategy before you can even try to stand out. And there’s no guarantee this will even be successful. 

Alternatively, you could find a tissue-related topic that hasn’t been covered before, like “how to create art projects using tissues.” This is a low difficulty keyword that has a reasonable volume of people searching for it—and could potentially be highly shareable, if positioned in front of kids and their parents. 

2. “Is anyone actually going to read this?”

You might be thinking: “Of course people are going to find and read my content hub. I’m writing content that will change the world!”

Are you so sure? After all, there are 600 million blogs out there. That doesn’t mean that yours isn’t special—it just means there’s plenty of competition to go around. 

Ask yourself: Is there a real need for the content that I’m putting out into the universe? Will this actually help people? Do I at least have a unique perspective or insights that can’t be found elsewhere? 

If you can answer “yes” to all of these questions, that’s a very good sign. If not, you may want to rethink the “why” of your content hub.

3. “Is my content evergreen?”

Evergreen content is the secret sauce to writing a content hub. Evergreen content lasts—it remains relevant even five or ten years down the road. 

Let’s say you’re a financial advisor writing a content hub about stocks. You would want to avoid content like, “Invest in these 5 hot stocks right now.” After all, this advice is very timely, but probably not evergreen. These companies could be out of business in five years’ time. 

Rather, you should focus on sharing tried-and-true lessons, like “Why you shouldn’t invest your life savings into Bitcoin” or “Tips to keeping a healthy, diversified portfolio.” 

4. “Are my tone and voice right for this content hub?”

Successful content hubs know how to deliver content eloquently and efficiently—they use the right voice for the job. You want to be engaging and informative while also using emotional intelligence to convey your ideas effectively. 

If, for instance, you’re building a content hub around high-end sneakers, you need to make sure your verbiage has a chic, stylish tone. You want your language to be as fashionable as your subject matter. Most importantly, you’ll need to do your research—you should have sneakerhead terminology down to a T.

If, on the other hand, you’re building a patient-facing content hub about a health condition, it’s important to approach your content from an informative and empathetic standpoint. Use softer language—help people stay calm while they do their research and consider the best way to move forward. 

When reviewing your piece prior to publication, always ask: Was my voice on point for this piece? 

5. “Is my content the right length?”

Your content should be long enough while still being as brief as possible. While this may sound like an inherent contradiction, the reality is that content length is a fussy science. 

On one hand, longer posts simply get more traffic. How long? Typically, blog posts around the 2,000-word mark see the most amount of traffic. There are multiple reasons for this: longer pieces have more keywords, more information, and more shareability, to name a few. 

On the other hand, your content shouldn’t be long just for the sake of being long. Brevity is the soul of good content, and given the fact that 79% of people scan web content, less is often more. If your content is actually informative and helpful—it gets to the point and isn’t filled with fluff—people will spend a lot more time on your page. 

Create a content hub checklist

As you get more comfortable building out content hubs, the smartest thing to do is create your own checklist with your own unique questions. Crafting content hubs is a habit, just like anything else. The more you do it, the better your content hubs will be. And only the best content hubs can thrive in our modern-day SEO battlefield.

If you need more insight into building your content hub—or you can’t be bothered and just want to outsource it—let’s talk. SEO content hubs are what we do best.