Researching Your Topic and Title

Before you start writing and publishing your sure-to-be-amazing Hubs you want to make sure that you're giving them the best possible potential to be successful. Just with like anything else in life, a little bit of research and preparation before you get down to business with your Hubs will pay off big time once they are published. Below we'll show you what you should be looking for while researching, what tools can make the process easier and how you can put it all together.

Choosing the right topic is probably the most important decision that you will make as you begin publishing. This is why taking a little bit of time and doing some research and planning is something that should not be overlooked once you're ready to start writing.

Before you can start doing this research you need to first determine the broad subject area you'd like to write about, and then figure out what part of that subject you'd like to focus on for your a Hub. One great thing about HubPages is that as long as it's within our overall rules, you can write about practically anything. Many HubPages authors will choose a subject area and a topic that interests them and that they have some experience or expertise in, which makes the writing a much more enjoyable process.

For example, if you know a lot about raising children, then you should focus on that for your subject area and then you could choose a topic that's something like Raising Multiple Children: The Facts And Tips or Homeschool vs. Public School vs. Private School. Other simple examples of subject areas vs. topics can be viewed in in the chart below.

Raising Children

• Raising Multiple Children As A Single Mother
• Finding The Best Family Doctor For Children
• Making Your House Safe For Toddlers

Sports

• Best NBA Players In The 1990s
• How To Properly Clean Golf Clubs
• Shooting A Left-Handed Freethrow

Home & Garden

• How To Grow Your Own Advacado
• Save Money By Winterizing Your House
• Aluminum Siding vs. Brick

Food & Recipes

• How To Bake Low Fat Brownies That Taste Good
• The Best Kitchen Knife Sets For Under $100
• 10 Recipe Books That Every Cook Should Own

As you begin your research there are some things that that we thought you should know about, so we've listed them below.

• Using Keyword Research Tools: Keyword research is all of the buzz when it comes to generating traffic and revenue on the web. Keywords are what Google and most of the other search engines look at to determine what a piece of content is all about, so focusing on the right ones can be pretty important. Google's Keyword Tool, shown below, is a great example of a tool that can help you gauge the type of search traffic that you can expect for different keywords and topics. There are also some other great keyword research tools listed on seobook.com. Just be careful, these tools can eat up a lot of your time so be sure to do your research, but don't overdo it. 
• Simple Google Search Analysis: Sometimes the easiest thing to do when researching a topic is to simply head on over to Google, type in your topic or keywords and see what is listed on the first couple pages of results. If it looks like the results aren't filled with high-ranking websites (such as popular blogs, news sites, Wikipedia, etc.), then there could be some room for your Hub to move right in there. Be sure to pay attention to exactly what you search for as you may want to use it in the title of your Hub. One other thing to pay attention to when searching is how many search results are listed as compared to how many times the term is actually searched for each month, which is listed in the Google Keyword Tool. Getting a high ratio of actual searches vs. actual results is always a good thing and can really help your Hubs get some good traffic.
• Google Instant Search - Google now autofills search results anticipating what you might be looking for.  Use the autofill as a guide to what people are searching for online.  

• Pick A Topic You Like: One of the most common things that new authors end up doing as they begin researching is choosing to write about a topic that doesn't interest them only because it has a better chance to generate some traffic. While it is definitely a good idea to do your research, there are plenty of topics out there that people are searching for that are also in one of your areas of interest. In other words, don't ditch what you enjoy writing about just because you think another topic that's less interesting to you will get better traffic. Find a topic that interests you and also has good traffic potential and you'll end up having a much better writing experience.
• Find A Niche Within Your Topic: One final thing to remember while researching is that you should never pick a topic that is too broad. This will result in your Hub getting lost among the millions of other search results that have already been published on the same topic and never seeing any traffic. Instead, pick a more niche topic within the broad topic and write about that. So, instead of writing about 'expensive shoes', write about 'the world's most expensive leather boots and who wears them'. This will give you a much better chance of ranking on search engines in the long run and will allow you to really focus on something more specific.

For some more insight on picking a great topic, check out super-Hubber and HubPage's community manager Maddie Ruud's Hub called How to Choose a Hub Topic.

Once you've researched your topic and have a good idea of what you want to write your Hub about, the next thing that you need to is find some images, links, videos and other elements that you can add to your Hub to make it even better. Adding these different types of elements will make your Hub much more informative and easier to read, which everyone who visits your Hub will definitely appreciate. For more specific information on how to add these elements to your Hub, check out the section called Understanding the Capsules.

Finding these different elements to add to your Hubs isn't too hard, you just need to know where to look. The list below will help guide you in the right direction.

• Images: Adding images to your Hub that are relevant to your topic is one of the easiest and most effective ways to make your content really stand out. Once you know what you're looking for, you can go to sites like Creative Commons or Flickr and search for just the right, legally attributed images to include. Wikipedia also has a large list of public domain image sources. Just be sure that when you add them that the photos are public domain, or that you get the permission from the owner of the images to use them on your Hub.
• Video: Adding a video or two to a Hub not only makes it much more interesting and entertaining, but it also keeps your readers sticking around longer. Currently we support videos from YouTube , Google , Revver , Vimeo, Metacafe, and Yahoo!.