Your First Hub Part 2: Title, Category and Tags

Now that you understand what type of content is the best for HubPages, it's time to begin writing your first Hub! Creating a Hub can feel a bit overwhelming at first, but we encourage you to give it an honest effort and start publishing on HubPages with your best foot forward.

To get started writing, click the start a new Hub button that is located at the top of every HubPages page. Before you begin writing the Hub, you will need to: choose a title; give your Hub a web address; choose a category or topic area for your Hub; choose a layout; and add a few tags.

Your title is a very important part of your Hub. A good title can make or break a Hub because it is the main way that readers will find your article through search engines, such as Google or Bing. Think about how someone might search for information about your topic; a good title will include these terms.

Your title must reflect the content of your Hub. A great title uses relevant search terms (also known as keywords) but is also easily read. A confusing title that is all keywords won't get you many readers. We recommend considering search terms people would use when Googling about the subject of your Hub, and creating a title that grabs your readers' attention.

• Real estate: Too general and search engine competition is too steep.

• Johnny: This is a meaningless name to a searcher looking for information.

• January 15 2007: Don’t put a date in a title unless it’s a specific historical reference or you are going to update the Hub when it becomes outdated. If you do use a date, e.g., The Best Strollers of 2012, make sure you don't use the date in your URL. The URL cannot be changed, but the title is always changeable.

• Running a Small Business: Too general/broad.

• Cool stuff: Meaningless - cool what?

• Sylvia’s Great Finance Tips: Sylvia’s identity is meaningless to a searcher looking for information; also, this too general/broad.

Your Hub URL will automatically fill in when you type in your title. You can customize it, but once you hit the "continue" button, it will be set in stone. However, you can change your title when editing your Hub or at any point after publishing your Hub.

Things that you can put in your Hub URL:

• Alpha-numeric characters
• Hyphens
• Underscores

If you enter an invalid character, an error message will show asking you to change it.

At this point, you will associate your Hub into a specific HubPages Topic.

You can use the search function to quickly find potential category matches (this function defaults to your Hub's title). Alternatively, you can browse through HubPages' categories hierarchically and find the best match yourself.

You must select at least a top level category for your Hub before being able to continue. You can always browse further or even change topics later when you're editing your Hub by clicking the "edit" button next to the category breadcrumbs above your title.

We offer three layout choices upon which you can build your Hub. Don't worry too much about these options now, it is very easy to change the layout of your Hub when you are editing.

The "copy existing layout" option is ideal if you already have a Hub (either published or unpublished) which has a complex layout that you want to reuse. It's a handy feature that can save you a lot of time once you get into the swing of things.

Before continuing on, you will need to add at least two tags. Tags are short (one to three word) descriptors of your Hub's contents that help search engines understand what your article is about, and helps HubPages cluster similar articles together for visitors who are browsing.

Ultimately, it's good to add around 10 simple tags related to your Hub's topic, but they can easily be added later. Avoid having too many general or vague keyword phrases.

Click on the "continue" button. This takes you to the next step!

HubPages gives you a variety of tools to begin publishing. To learn more about the tools, visit our guide to the HubTool.