Integration · HubSpot CMS

HubSpot CMS SEO: What Content Hub does and what you set.

HubSpot’s CMS is now called Content Hub, and it covers the SEO basics: sitemap, canonical tags, structured data for blog posts and SEO recommendations in the editor. What decides your rankings is a connected domain, well-kept titles and descriptions, and a blog that comes out regularly. Claire doesn’t publish into the HubSpot blog; she runs a separate blog on a subdomain of your domain. When that fits and when it doesn’t is spelled out honestly below.

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Publishing to resources.your-domain.com …
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HubSpot CMS SEO basics

What HubSpot already does. And what you set yourself.

HubSpot takes hosting and much of the technical work off your hands. These seven points still decide whether Google and AI search find your pages.

01

Content Hub, formerly CMS Hub

HubSpot folded its CMS into Content Hub, with Starter, Professional and Enterprise editions and some features in the free tools. According to HubSpot, nothing changes for existing CMS Hub customers.

You get a blog even for free: one blog on the same subdomain as your website, up to 100 posts, with HubSpot branding. Starter allows up to 10,000 posts; Professional and Enterprise up to 100 blogs. Current prices are on HubSpot’s pricing page and vary by country and billing.

02

Connect your own domain

According to HubSpot, content on its system domains containing hs-sites is always set to noindex. To be found, connect your own domain under Settings > Content > Domains & URLs; subdomains like www connect through CNAME records.

Free and Starter accounts get one custom subdomain, which is then used for website pages, landing pages and the blog alike. Higher editions allow more subdomains.

03

Page title, meta description and slug

In the post editor, open Settings at the top right. The blog title doubles as headline and page title; you can set a different page title there. Next to it you’ll find the content slug for the URL, the featured image with its alt text, and the meta description under Metadata.

04

Use SEO recommendations, keep topic clusters in perspective

HubSpot shows SEO recommendations for every page and post in the editor, in all accounts. The SEO tool with site auditing and topic clusters comes with Professional.

Topic clusters are a planning tool. HubSpot itself says creating them doesn’t affect your website’s SEO directly. What moves rankings is the articles you publish and the links between them.

05

Sitemap and robots.txt

Website pages and blog posts hosted on HubSpot are added to your sitemap automatically. Landing pages aren’t; add them yourself if needed.

You edit robots.txt per domain under Settings > Content > Pages in the “SEO & Crawlers” tab. Check there that AI crawlers like GPTBot and ClaudeBot are allowed.

Run the AI crawler checker
06

Redirects, canonicals and structured data

When you change the URL of a page or post, HubSpot creates the redirect automatically. You manage your own redirects under Content > Domains & URLs, from Content Hub Starter and only for domains hosted on HubSpot.

Every new page and post gets its own URL as the canonical. BlogPosting schema is on by default for blogs created after August 4, 2022. If you already added custom schema, don’t switch it on twice.

07

Multi-language variants

When you create a language variant of a page, HubSpot adds it to the sitemap and links the versions with hreflang automatically. Translating is up to you, or, from Content Hub Professional, to HubSpot’s AI.

HubSpot blog

The HubSpot blog: built in, but it doesn’t fill itself.

HubSpot ships a blog, even for free. Where most marketing teams get stuck isn’t the tool but the steady supply of good articles.

01

Subdomain or /blog

If your website lives on HubSpot, you can run the blog under a path like your-domain.com/blog. If it lives elsewhere, the HubSpot blog needs its own subdomain or a reverse proxy, which HubSpot’s support team doesn’t set up.

HubSpot states the rule plainly: a subdomain can host content in only one location. To use several providers, use a separate subdomain for each.

02

AI in the HubSpot blog

HubSpot offers AI tools that draft entire blog posts, with more or less depth depending on the edition. The content agent in Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise uses HubSpot Credits and doesn’t publish automatically. Both help with drafts.

Which topics people actually search for, whether the facts are right, whether the article sounds like your company and whether one comes out every week is still up to your team.

03

What a B2B article needs

An article doesn’t convince through product praise but by making a decision easier. What gets cited is what answers a question clearly:

  • A real question people search for as the topic.
  • The answer in the first paragraph, then details, examples and numbers.
  • Links to two or three matching services or products, not twenty.
  • Its own cover image, page title and meta description.
  • Upkeep: prices, rules and numbers go out of date.

Claire and HubSpot

How Claire works alongside HubSpot. A separate blog on your subdomain.

Claire doesn’t publish into the HubSpot blog; there’s no direct connection. She finds topics, writes the articles in your voice and serves them herself: on a separate subdomain of your domain, every page rendered on the server. Your HubSpot stays exactly as it is.

Connect in three steps

1

Enter your blog address

In Claire, open the “Site builder without a blog?” tile under Integrations, enter an address like blog.your-domain.com and click “Create blog”. Claire reads your website and suggests your brand color, logo and links to your legal pages.

2

Add one DNS record

Wherever your domain is managed, add a CNAME record: name “blog”, target blogs.byclaire.co. If your HubSpot blog already uses blog.your-domain.com, pick another subdomain such as resources.your-domain.com; the record name is then “resources”. “Check connection” shows whether everything is in place. It can take up to an hour; the HTTPS certificate is issued automatically.

3

Style it and approve

Set color, font, logo, name and tagline in a live preview that works even before the DNS record is in place. Read every finished article in Claire and publish it with “Publish to blog”.

What Claire’s blog delivers

Server-side rendering
Every page is built on the server. Headings, text, images and links are in the HTML, including for crawlers that don’t run JavaScript.
URLs
blog.your-domain.com for the overview, every article at a readable URL built from its headline. If you withdraw an article and publish it again later, it keeps its URL.
Page title, description, previews
From Claire’s page title and meta description, plus a canonical link and Open Graph tags for previews in messengers and social networks.
Structured data
Article schema for every article with headline, date, image and publisher, Blog schema on the overview.
Sitemap, robots.txt, RSS
/sitemap.xml with every article, /robots.txt pointing to it, /feed.xml with the latest 50 articles. All of it grows with every published article.
Visibility
One switch: “Visible to Google and AI search”. While it’s off, the blog stays closed to search engines, which is handy while you prepare.
Design
Color, font, logo, name and tagline, links to your main site and your legal pages. For developers: custom CSS plus your own header and footer, for example with your main site’s menu. Claire strips out scripts.
Languages
Your main language sits directly under the blog address, every other one under a prefix like /de/, with a language switcher and hreflang links.
HubSpot tracking and forms
Claire strips out scripts, including in a custom header and footer. So you can’t add the HubSpot tracking code or embedded HubSpot forms to the blog. Links to your HubSpot landing pages work.
Your HubSpot
Stays untouched; Claire needs no access to it. You add the menu link to the blog in your website’s navigation once yourself.

When an article goes live

Approve with one click

Every finished article waits in Claire. You read it, change whatever you like and publish it with “Publish to blog”. Only then does it appear at your blog address.

Take it back any time

With “Not published after all” you remove an article from the blog, the sitemap and the feed. It stays in Claire, and so does its URL.

When another route fits better

If you already run a well-kept HubSpot blog, a second blog next to it rarely makes sense. In that case, use “Copy HTML” to copy Claire’s articles as HTML code into the HubSpot editor and mark them as published in Claire. If your website runs on WordPress and HubSpot is only your CRM, Claire connects to WordPress directly.

How Claire finds gaps, writes articles and publishes them is shown on the homepage.

See how Claire works

What you need

Included from Starter. €199 a month.

Free trial, no credit card. Cancel monthly, no setup fee. An additional language and the full SEO strategy come with Growth (€299).

Compare all plans

Starter

cancel monthly

€199/ month

  • Up to 30 articles a month
  • Hosted blog on your subdomain
  • Sitemap, RSS feed and structured data
  • One-click approval for every article

Questions

Good to know.

Can HubSpot be used as a CMS?

Yes. Content Hub, formerly CMS Hub, is a full CMS with hosting, website pages, landing pages and a blog, tied into the HubSpot CRM. Part of it, including a blog with up to 100 posts, is available in the free tools.

Can you do SEO on HubSpot?

Yes. You manage titles, meta descriptions, slugs, alt text, canonicals, the sitemap and robots.txt right in HubSpot, and SEO recommendations in the editor are available in all accounts. Connect your own domain, because content on HubSpot’s system domains is set to noindex.

Is the HubSpot blog free?

In a basic form, yes: one blog on the same subdomain as your website, up to 100 posts, with HubSpot branding. More posts, multiple blogs and features like redirects come with the paid Content Hub editions.

Can Claire publish straight to my HubSpot blog?

No, Claire has no direct HubSpot connection. You can run Claire’s blog on a separate subdomain or copy the articles as HTML and paste them into HubSpot yourself.

Do HubSpot topic clusters help SEO?

Not on their own. HubSpot says creating clusters doesn’t directly affect your website’s SEO. They help you plan topics; what ranks is the articles you publish for them and the links between those articles.

Subdomain or subfolder for the blog?

A subfolder like /blog only works if your website runs on the same system or sits behind a reverse proxy. For a second provider, HubSpot itself recommends a separate subdomain. Link blog and main site both ways so visitors and search engines see they belong together.

More integrations

Using a different system? Claire works with that too.

What else Claire does for you besides the blog is on the homepage.

Try it on your own website. Set up in 15 minutes.

Enter your website, connect your blog, read the first draft. Claire takes care of the rest.

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