Tips you can take from the best content hubs
With so many blogs on the internet, you may think that getting yours to stand out from the crowd is impossible. But what most businesses don’t understand is that it’s not enough to add a blog page to your website and throw on some “how to” or “benefits of” blog articles.
While big brands have the budget and resources to create amazing content hubs, creating a popular blog for your business is not totally out of reach.
It just takes some time and a little inspiration from the best content hubs.
Here are some tips you can use to make your blog better!
Tip #1 Start with a great name
Pretty much every business has a blog on its website which means having one on yours isn’t anything special. But, most businesses have the word ‘blog’ in their menu. If you want to get people clicking on your blog, you’ll need to call it something unique.
Some of my favourite blog names from big brands are
Noteworthy by Officeworks
The Memo by Mecca
A Kinda Blog by Twoobs
Z.Immerse by Zimmerman
Wedspiration by WedShed
It’s likely that these names were all workshopped heavily before being chosen. Notice how each of the names has some relation to the brand itself but still uses words that allude to the page being a blog that can be read.
When choosing the name of your content hub, think about using words that are related to your industry or business name. If you’re completely out of ideas, just changing the name to a synonym of the blog, like Journal or Ideas, will help until you can find a name you like.
Our content hub, Sunday Says, is a play on the children’s game ‘Simon Says’. Other options we thought of were The Sunday Paper or Sunday Brunch.
Tip #2 Don’t just stick to blogs
Don’t get me wrong, blogs should be the cornerstone of your content hub, but just sticking to the same old ‘obviously for SEO’ formula isn’t going to do you any favours.
Mix up your blog articles with interviews, listicles, infographics and videos. Mecca even adds videos to their blogs to give customers different ways to consume information.
Make a list of every topic you want to cover, and then brainstorm how you can turn that topic into different types of media. Just make sure you consider what will be most helpful to your audience. A video will work for a how-to blog topic but might not work for a ‘benefits of’ blog topic.
Tip #3 Make your content filterable
Chances are, you won’t be blogging about one topic. Even if you have chosen to stick with a theme related to your business, within that theme, there will be subcategories. Just like when you use filters to find products on a product page, filters give your audience the choice to find and navigate to the information they want.
We created filters on Sunday Says for our main topics; Content marketing, SEO, tips and tricks and business. While these all fall under content our audience will be interested in, they are quite different. Start looking at your content and see if you can find any ways they can be grouped.
We’ve gone for filters at the top of our content hub, but you can also have a sidebar. Adore Beauty has so many articles in their Beauty IQ that they’ve made a drop-down box filled with all the different categories customers can navigate. Not only can you navigate to specific categories, but you can also filter by type of content like videos or podcasts – such a great way to give customers a better experience!
Tip #4 Let Google guide you but don’t ONLY write for SEO
You’ve heard it a million times (whether from us or someone else); “Always SEO optimise your blogs!”
But a lot of business owners make the mistake of just thinking about SEO and losing all creativity in the process. Newsflash; SEO can be creative! It’s all about finding the right balance between using keywords and search queries people are using while writing about something that people are actually going to read.
For example, a classic blog I see people writing is the ‘X benefits of…’. If we take a plant company, for example, are people ACTUALLY going to read a blog called ‘The 5 benefits of indoor plants’? Not likely, as it’s pretty common knowledge.
But, a blog called ‘How to choose an indoor plant based on the style of your home’ is actually going to be providing value AND is more likely to get clicks.
So, use Google Trends and do keyword research but make sure your blog is something your audience will be interested in.
Tip #5 Don’t be afraid to express your brand values & personality through your content hub
Your content hub isn’t just a place to talk about your products, services or related information. It can be used to express your brand values and personality.
Brand values allow you to build deeper relationships with your customers and target audience and help you to keep your brand authentic and unique.
A great example of this is TWOOBS. On their about page, they say, “We’re telling fast fashion to take a hike, one exceptionally cute pair of shoes at a time,” and this thinking is reflected in the content they create. Articles like ‘Do this before buying anything in the Black Friday sales’ and ‘Why we buy full price and so should you’ reinforce their commitment to slow fashion and sustainability – super on-brand!
Tip #6 Not every blog needs a call to action
Depending on the type of blog you’re writing, you might not need to include a CTA. Some blogs are purely for authority building, while others are for brand building.
This blog is a mixture of authority building AND introducing our audience to our services, so it needs a soft call to action like ‘If you want us to create your own content hub OR create a content strategy so you can do the same, get in touch!’
See what we did there ;p
Remi, Sunday Best Digital founder
