You have signed up for hubpages even created a couple of hubs. The new hubs generated some initial traffic, but now you are not getting much traffic. Why has the traffic stopped and how can you get people visiting your hubs again? Many beginner and novice hubbers have these questions.

The first thing you need to understand is that when you initially create a hub it has the new status associated with that hub for a limited amount of time. That means that the status of new actually helps you to generate initial traffic to your hubpage. When you publish a new hub, the new status lists it among newly published hubs in the hubpage community which helps to drive traffic to your content. Afterwards, you have to find ways of generating traffic to your hub. The best way to do this is with tags because tags are the key words that people will use for searching in the hubpage community.

Tags are keywords that your content contains that assist your readers in finding content that they are interested in reading. Think about this in reverse if you want to find an article about 'getting started on hubpages' you would type what you are looking for into  the search box and the site would search through the hubpage community for content regarding you specified search criteria. The way the search generates a listing of hubpages that have the 'tags' or keywords that were in you specified search. Take this concept one step farther once your content gets approved for major web engine searches like google; then when people type in their search criteria it will bring up listings with those keywords. As a result, you will want your content to have 'tags' or keywords that will assist reader in locating your content.

When you published your first hub you probably saw a note saying type in two tages. Most likely as someone new to hubpages and tags you most likely only put in two key words. You want your content to reach a broad base of readers and generate traffic, so actually it is more advantageous to use multiple key words. Many times when it comes to tags more is better because it will generate more readers for your hubs.

Think about tags and key words as a marketing tool that you have for getting your content to readers. Think about the following concepts.

1. Do you only want to reach a very small target audience or do you want to market your content to a broad public interest of all those that use the web?

2. What are the main ideas in my writing that readers will find interesting and useful?

3. What key words would my potential reader use to find information like the content in my hub? An example might be that you just posted a recipe. Originally you thought that the main key words are cooking, food, and recipe. Now think from the consumers point of view. Your reader might want to make a dish with chicken, pasta, and vegetables so these might be the key words that they put into the search engine when searching for recipes.

1. Before you begin type in a few tags that are the main ideas associated with your content and its subject matter.

2. After compiling your hubs, review your tags and see if you have thought of some new key words as you were putting together your content.

3. Use the suggested tags feature on hubpages, it is a really great feature that assists you in deciding what tags you should consider using for your content.

4. Think about alternative spellings that people might use for something especially if your content matter has a key word in it that people might misspell.

5. You can always add new tags, so it is a good idea if you see your traffic has greatly diminished to go into your hubs and see if you can increase your reader base by adding more tags that will assist readers in finding your hub.