Please read the special section on PageRank, if you haven’t already. Then come back here and read this.
Also, this is very similar to a blog post I wrote a long time ago about hub pages, but there are important additions and changes. Read this sucker!
I already talked about consolidating links. Sometimes, though, you want to do more than just recycle what you’ve got – you want to make more. That’s where hub pages come in.
An example
Say you run a golfing news site, and some guy who didn’t learn from Bill Clinton wrecks his SUV, destroys his public image and generally shows he’s a bit of a goober. And this guy happens to be a golfer.
Right now, you’ve got four articles on your site that mention this unnamed person, and talk about golf or other things related to his tale of woe. But those pages aren’t linked to each other, so your visitors, and Google, take each individual page at face value. They don’t see that you’re an authority on the whole story:
A page without a hub
Not good. You want to get more traffic related to the whole story – it’s current, it’s trending hot and it’s what folks are looking for. You can sell more ads and gloat to your competitors at the next golfing conference. But only if you can pull it together.
Create a hub page
That’s where the hub page comes in.
First, look at your keyword map. If you already have a page that’s already ranking for your target phrase, or is getting lots of traffic on relevant phrases, then that’s your hub page. Don’t create a new one.
If you don’t have a good hub page candidate already, then create a single page or article. Write a bit about the developing story/soap opera and then link from the existing articles to that page. And, of course, link from that page back to those articles.
Ah. Now Google sits up and takes notice:
Ah hah! The hub creates authority.
Why? Because you’re driving authority from the existing articles to a single, central resource. You’ve got a clump of relevant content that all links together. When Google crawls any one of those pages, it sees the other pages in close proximity and accords them all more relevance for their common themes.
Hub pages work for non-trending stuff, too. If you need to rank higher for ‘diapers’, write lots of pages on your site about the various types of diapers you sell, how to select the right one, etc.. Link them together with a single ‘diapers’ hub page, or link them to the central ‘diapers’ category page. That’s a hub, and it’ll help you rank.
Keep going!
You’re not done! You have to keep building the hub’s authority by adding more content. You can write new content (great) or track down other pages on your site that should link to the hub (still good):
More hubbing
If you don’t, any ranking and traffic gains you get will be temporary. Google – and your readers – will quickly lose interest. This is all about velocity: Steady growth is very important.
Get some links, while you’re at it
Build some external links, too, through offsite seo. Again, velocity matters: Don’t acquire 50 links to your new hub and then stop. You’re better off adding 5 a week for 10 weeks.
Works on all surfaces!
Hub pages work everywhere – they’re the Simple Green of SEO.
- Link related products and blog entries on your e-commerce site.
- Write a series of blog posts, and use the first post as the hub.
- Cross-link service pages on your B2B site, remixing them into different packages.
You get the idea.
A quick case study
A couple months ago I wrote a series about canonicalization.
24 hours after the 1st article went live, nothing happened.
24 hours after the 2nd article went live (and linked to the 1st), I showed up on page 3 in Google for ‘canonicalization’.
24 hours after that, I published the 3rd article, and linked all 3 together. Voila! A page 1 ranking for ‘canonicalization’.
Alas. Then I decided that things like sleep and food were more important. Without consistent content growth, I slipped back to page two, then completely off the map.
No hub, no rankings. New hub, page 1. Stale hub, page 2. There you have it.
Remember your readers
This isn’t just about search. It’s also about reader satisfaction. When you create hub pages, you add value for readers. If you sell denim clothing, I might want to see all of your black denim, regardless of type, size or style. So a hub page for all black items is a great move, regardless of its effect on rankings.
Do hub pages when they make sense for search and for your visitors.