What Can the HubSpot Content Strategy Tool Do For Your Business?

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Why Did HubSpot Sunset Its Keyword Tool?

HubSpot’s decision to replace the keyword report tool reflects changes in the way consumers search for relevant information and brands online.

Over the past decade, the way people look for information online has shifted due to new technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and voice search. While a keyword-focused SEO content strategy may have worked in the past, modern marketers need to adapt their digital content strategy to fit current search behaviors.

Search engines like Google are constantly updating search algorithms to provide more relevant and useful results for their users. Longer and more conversational queries, such as those typical with voice searches, have become the norm.

This change in search behavior has prompted Google to make improvements focused on serving search results based on search intent rather than keywords.

While keywords remain a vital part of SEO strategy today, there is a shift in how marketers should approach developing content topics. Instead of focusing solely on specific keywords, brands need to create valuable topic-based content built around their areas of expertise.

HubSpot has decided to sunset its keyword report tool and replace it with the new HubSpot Content Strategy tool to help marketers develop more valuable SEO content.

What Is the HubSpot Content Strategy Tool (And Why Is It the New Hotness)?

The new HubSpot Content Strategy tool enables you to focus on a fresh approach to SEO content strategy development that emphasizes search intent over keywords. This approach helps you create valuable resources based on the topics your target audience searches for online.

With HubSpot Content Strategy, you can organize your content ideas by grouping topics into clusters made up of a core topic (pillar content) and related subtopics (cluster content).

As you can see from the diagram below, the sub-topic pages are hyperlinked back to the core topic page, allowing you to create a relevant and valuable resource for your site visitors.

The Content Strategy tool suggests topics for pillar pages as well as subtopics, based on the content already on your website. You can also add your own topics and subtopics based on new opportunities discovered through keyword research or information you believe may be valuable to your target audience.

The Content Strategy tool then validates these suggested topics to help you determine whether they are worth pursuing. It provides metrics such as domain authority, monthly search volume, relevancy, and similarity to the core topics.

This information enables you to understand how valuable these topics will be for people searching for brands like yours online.

Here’s a breakdown of how the validation data can inform your digital content strategy:

• Domain Authority –

  This metric measures the overall authority of your domain on a scale of 0–100, with 100 indicating the highest authority and the greatest likelihood that the page will rank in search results. Because this metric is based on your overall domain, it does not change between topic clusters.

• Monthly Search Volume –

  This metric shows the search volume for the core topic or subtopic, helping you understand how many people are searching for it each month and informing your priorities for SEO content strategy.

• Relevancy –

  Relevancy measures how relevant the topic or subtopic is to the content already on your site. A low relevancy score indicates the topic is likely not aligned with your core business and may not deliver value to your target audience.

• Core Topic Similarity –

  This metric appears when you click on a subtopic and shows how relevant it is to your core topic. While similar subtopics are useful, aiming for 100% similarity every time is unnecessary—using synonyms can help you reach even more search engine users.

Given current trends in search engine user behavior, this new HubSpot tool can be a game-changer for your digital content strategy.

With more consumers using mobile devices or digital assistants such as Alexa, Siri, Google, and Cortana, voice search queries have risen. These queries tend to be longer, more conversational, and question-based rather than keyword-focused.

For example, instead of searching for “San Francisco Restaurants,” a consumer might ask, “Where are the best Mexican restaurants near me?”

HubSpot’s Content Strategy tool helps your business adapt to these changes by organizing and prioritizing content based on search intent rather than keyword ranking, allowing you to capture more relevant traffic from users ready to buy.

But What If I Want to Track Keywords?

With the Content Strategy tool, HubSpot stays ahead of SEO trends and provides a valuable model for businesses to organize their content and SEO efforts.

However, tracking keyword rankings remains vital for developing your SEO content strategy. Keyword ranking and search volume provide a clearer picture of the phrases searchers use to find brands like yours and help identify new opportunities while benchmarking against competitors.

Keyword ranking data complements your topic-based digital content strategy. If you previously relied on HubSpot’s keyword ranking tool, you will need an alternative (more on that below).

What You Should Do Next

To get started with HubSpot’s Content Strategy tool, begin with your primary business offerings and use them as the foundation for topic clusters. Prioritize clusters based on the offerings most important to your business. Core topics should be broad terms of two to four words with significant search volume.

Once you have defined your topic cluster, attach pillar page content. HubSpot will automatically surface any relevant content already on your site. If no pillar page exists, you can create one directly in the tool. External URLs can also be attached if your pillar content lives outside HubSpot.

After creating the pillar page, add subtopics—other pages or blog posts focused on long-tail keywords relevant to the core topic. HubSpot can suggest related pages, or you can create new content to link back to the pillar.

Even with the HubSpot Content Strategy tool, many businesses continue to track keyword rankings. The following tools are recommended alternatives to HubSpot’s former keyword tracker:

• Moz –

  The Moz Pro Rank Tracker shows search engine rankings for pages and keywords, lets you compare performance, and schedules automated reports to monitor ranking changes.

• SEMrush –

  SEMrush allows you to track ranking positions for specific keywords, discover new opportunities, and gain competitor insights.

• Ahrefs –

  Ahrefs helps you see the exact keywords competitors rank for in organic search and offers its Keywords Explorer tool to uncover new opportunities.

Using one of these tools, you can track keyword performance, monitor competitors, and refine your overall SEO content strategy.

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• Telegram Introduces Anti-Refund Abuse Measures: A Step Toward a Cleaner Marketplace

Final Takeaways

Although you may miss HubSpot’s keyword tracking tool, the new Content Strategy tool helps transform your SEO content strategy. By focusing on user intent instead of keywords alone, you can expand your reach with more relevant and useful content. Pair this approach with ongoing keyword tracking insights, and you will be well positioned for a winning digital content strategy.

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