SEO Tips For Creative Content: Poetry, Creative Non-fiction And Fiction
When it comes to creative content such as poetry, short stories and creative non-fiction writers usually stick with catchy titles with little or no thought about SEO.
In this community here on Hubpages it is widely believed that poems and other creative writing are doomed to become un-featured as they lose traffic after a few days/weeks. I beg to differ in that case as I have proven more than once that with a little SEO technique any content including poems and short stories can get consistent and even viral traffic to them.
Optimizing your creative content is not much different than optimizing your articles. You must still keep in mind what people are searching for. Here are a few tips to remember:
- Forget about catchy titles. Reserve catchy titles for print media
- Think about what you would search for if looking for a story or poem to read (will elaborate further)
- Use your SEO tool such as the Google Adwords Keywords Tool
- Write for readers but keep in mind the search engine
- Titles must not exceed 165 characters or they will be cut short by the search engines.
- Place your keywords to the left of the title.
What people search for
Contrary to popular belief of newbies, people search for subjects not titles. If you have a headache and need a way to relieve that headache without taking painkillers your search would look something like this:
natural ways to relieve headaches
If you are looking for poems to read to help express your emotions to your partner here is what your search would look like:
(1) poems about love
(2) love poems
If you are looking for a story to read in the romance genre you would search for:
(1) romance stories
(2) free romance stories
(3) read romance stories for free
If you are a creative writer, would you like to optimize your writing for more traffic?
Optimizing your Poetry
A poetry hub doesn't have to be long or have many words to get attention but Haiku usually suffer a bit after your friends have read them because they are so short. I recommend going over 100 words. My best performing poetry hub has 182 words with 42 comments (comments serve as content as well). Here are my recommendations on optimizing your poems.
Your title
Keep the catchy title and place it in the sub-title of the capsule but your hub title should state exactly what the hub is about. So a poetry hub would have a title such as “A Poem About Birds”. Use the subject of your poem to do your keyword search which will give you ideas for titles. So if you are writing a poem about your husband you would look for “poems about husband” or “poems about marriage”.
If your original title was not too long you can also add that to the title as well: “A Poem About Dogs: My Dog Spot”.
Summary
Never leave out your summary. Your summary is very important as this also helps Google to get an idea what your content is about. Use the word poem or poetry plus your main subject in the summary. Your summary should sum up your poem and not mimic the title.
Example summary:
Title: “A Poem About Dogs: My Dog Spot”.
Summary: A poem about my dog spot and how he likes to roll on the carpet.
Description
Writing a description may be good for adding content so search engines will see it but readers looking for poems may never read it, so it is not a necessary part of optimizing your poetry but can be useful.
When adding fluff to your poetry (I call it fluff because it's only added to pad the hub), place this after the poem. Don't let readers scroll too far to find what they searched for.
Notice only 26 people have actually read this from HP. It is a very simple poem.
Optimizing short stories and series
The same rules apply to short stories. No one searches for titles unless they know your story and want to read it again. They search for subjects. They will search for what you are writing about, but you need to let them know you have written it.
As I said earlier, forget the catchy title. If your short story is about a train robbery place that in the title. Look for keywords that may relate to your story and use them.
You must state what your short story is about. I have noticed persons using the "short story" phrase in their titles but that isn't enough. People searching for short stories to read will search genre so they will look for:-
Examples for the romance genre:
short story about love
romantic short stories
romance stories
You must know what your story genre is so you can appropriately search keywords for it. Short story is not a genre so you must be more specific than that.
Use the keywords most appropriate for your story and attach the original title using a colon. Don't make the title too long. Remember the 165 character title rule. Example "Short Story About Love: My Boo".
Series
Google hates numbered titles but I have devised a strategy that works. The last story I published on Hubpages was a medieval romance about the Green Knight. I am sorry but I removed the story which I am making into a novel to be published soon.
- I searched for keywords to do with knights and I found that The Green Knight was widely searched, plus the keywords medieval romance were also used.
- I changed around the title so that each episode had a unique title of its own.
- I numbered the titles with Roman numerals so each title will read like a separate article all together. Google doesn't seem to recognize roman numerals as numbers but as text.
- If you are numbering your titles with regular numbers use text instead: Part One, Two or Three.
Here are some examples of the titles I used:
- A Medieval Romance: The Green Knight
- The Green Knight Medieval Romance II
- The Green Knight III: The Battle
As you can see each title is tied through the Green Knight but they all look like different people wrote them or they are separate stories. What I started doing was title each chapter to reflect what happened in it and I added that to the title as you can see in example three.
The Green Knight received lots of organic traffic and comments from Google readers. I removed the story as I was unable to continue publishing it on HP due to the rules of the Apprenticeship program. It will be published in print later this year.
Are you seeing improvement in your traffic after using these tips?
To Summarize
I beg to dispel the myth that creative content cannot earn you money or get organic traffic. The money might be small as the advertising fees are among the lowest and advertisers are not competing for ad space. But you will still get a stipend each month which you can use to buy a coffee or something...lol
If you are solely a creative writer here on Hubpages and you have no idea how to use your keyword tool, please feel free to say so in the comments and I will help you optimize your hubs for traffic.
Let me know how you are doing after you have tried my tips. Please come back and take the poll to the right. I really would like to know how you are doing.
Good luck!
Comments
Cardisa - I understand the SEO concepts but this breaks it down much more thoroughly.
Good tips and explanation on the subject.
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Hi Shining Irish Eyed Girl. Thanks for stopping by. I ma glad to be of help.
Very useful information and advice Cardisa. To be honest, I have not used the keyword tool so far, and I have seen many people talk about keywords and SEO. I really need to learn about these. Thank you for sharing this with us. Voted up and sharing. I am sure many will benefit from this!
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Hi Livingsta, I hope you try using it. It's very useful for getting organic traffic and earning from your writing.
A most interesting and informative hub. I learned a few really good things here that I did not know. I am going to pay more attention. Thanks, voted up and pinning.
Awesome hub, voted up and shared. I am going to have to try a few of these tips to try to increase my traffic.
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Hey Carol, thank you for your ongoing support. Have a great evening.
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Hello Prettynutjob, please let me know how it turns out when you have tried these tips. Have a wonderful evening.
Absolutely fantastic hub and I'll be sharing it a lot. I know there are many people who write creatively online with little or no idea about how money making works from it, or even know how to get people to read it.
I'm eager to try these helpful SEO tips Cardisa. I love writing poetry but hesitate to do much in this category for the very reasons you've stated. My weakness in writing hubs is using "KeyWords." I'm not sure if I want to find words that bring in a large amount of traffic or words with no competition.
Once I figure it out I know it will help me tremendously. I've read everything I can get my hands on but can't find an answer. This hub gets my vote up +++ and sharing. Thank you!
Very useful and helpful tips for all those that want to write poetry and short fictional stories online. You're right about the way people do searches. If I was going to search for things like poetry, that's what I would be typing in the search bar too. By the way, does the '165 character title rule' you mention also apply to hub titles in general, even those that aren't poetry and fiction?
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Hi Susannah, thanks for stopping by. I really would like my friends to earn from their poems and short stories because there is a market online for such works. There are millions of people searching for poems and stories to read.
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Hi Vocalcoach, when it comes to creative writing and keywords, it's not about competitive keywords but more about search terms. Focus on what people are searching for rather than what keywords advertisers are bidding for because these categories have very low competition.
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Hi Ceres, the 165 character rule applies to all titles online. I really hope this hub helps hubbers to optimize their creative writing.
A friend of mine wants to write online but isn't much for writing hubs/articles. He writes short stories and poems. Can he make a decent amount of money on Hubpages writing just that?
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Hi MountainMan Jake, I wouldn't say a decent amount as the payment for creative writing advertising fees are quite low but he could make some pocket money for the occasional gift or treat. I don't think there is a living to be made from it by ad impressions here on Hubpages.
If he wants to make a living from creative writing he should consider freelancing his skills, selling or publishing his stories.
Thanks for the clarification. Now I have to check my hub titles. I do think your hub is very useful. I'll be sure to refer to this if I post hubs on fiction and poetry.
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No problem Ceres. If you have any other doubts please let me know.
Hi Cardisa, I'm so glad I found this hub, thanks to WryLilt who suggested we read it as she was helping us in a forum. This is an excellent tutorial, very clear and packed with specific techniques we can utilize.
I had figured some of these out already with some of my poems using the title-turner and adding "fluff." It really does work. My best performing poem is "Sudden Death" which I believe is clearly about the subject matter.
I will go over all of my poems again and apply these valuable suggestions; it makes me want to write more poetry now which I was becoming afraid to do more of on hp. You are a good teacher. Voted up, useful, and interesting. Thank you very much.
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Hi Jan, I originally published a similar hub last year but was asked to remove it due to the AP rules and it not really being search friendly. WryLit was the one who reminded me about it.
I am glad you decided to continue publishing your poems on HP, I know you can make some money from them.
Some very good advice thanks so much
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You are welcome Joy. Thanks for stopping by.
Thank you, Cardisa: You have approached a topic I had been pondering on. I am more of a creative writer but was so doubtful it could be managed like an informative article.
However, you realized that people crawled the internet like we do. When I am looking for a particular book I approach it subject-wise.
So a few things I will take from your article are: keywords, summary, and paying more attention to titles.
I voted this useful too!
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thank you Erica. What most people don't realize is that they are not writing for print but rather for search. People have to search the internet in order to find what they want. Thanks for stopping by.
Ah, makes sense!
Cardisa - Thank you for your answer. This makes perfect sense. This is what I'll concentrate on. Have a great day!
I very much appreciate and value your tips. I intend to revisit and tweak my titles with your practical recommendations.
Voted UP and UI. Hugs, Maria
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Hey Maria, thanks for stopping by and I do hope you start getting some action on those hubs!
Up, Useful, Interesting and shared with followers.
I'll apply these tips to my fiction hubs soon and see if traffic improves. My nonfiction hubs get negligible traffic and my fiction hubs get less. I hope I'll eventually learn the secrets of hubbing.
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Hi Brian, thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to ask for assistance if there is anything you need help with. I hop you get some improvement on that traffic.
A wonderful article with great advice, my poetry does well so far remaining in the featured sections, but I think that has more to do with genre then SEO work, so I will certainly be using some of the advice here in the future, more traffic is always welcome ...
thank you
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Hello Nighthag, that is great! More traffic is never too much. Thanks fro stopping by.
this is great, and really this is what anyone who is not an internet marketer needs-- well done!
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Thanks Rebecca E. Have a great day.
Hello CArdisa! Thank you for this very useful information. I will keep this advice in mind. :)
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Hi Gladys, thanks for stopping by, glad you found it helpful.
Cardisa,
I am very appreciative of information since I am new at all of this. In addition, I appreciate the direct and straightforward manner in which you present this very helpful information.
Kim
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Hi Kim, welcome to my hubspace and thank you for reading and commenting. Glad to be of help.
Thank you for this advice on writing for better SEO results. Always learn much from your sharing.
Great Hub with lots of good information. I have trouble with key words, just cannot get the hang of them.
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Hi Thost. keywords are search terms. Say for instance you are looking for some information online about cats. The phrase you type in is the keyword. So if you searched for "how to get rid of cat urine", those are your keywords or search term. When writing content and creating titles, thing of what you would type into the browser if you were searching for your article.
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Hi Teaches, nice to see you. Thanks for stopping by. I am glad to be of help.
Thanks Cardisa for another helpful hub. I tend to focus on the writing end and get frustrated when I don't see traffic to a hub I consider high quality.
I need to do some work on my hubs based on this insightful article. Appreciate the clarity and simplicity of your instruction. Great HUB!
Thanks again! voted up +++
Nice hub. Once you have created a hub is it too late to go back and change the title and summary following your guidelines? In other words will Google somehow "refresh" your poem and pick up the new title/summary or is locked into the original title?
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Hello Mekenzie, I am glad i can be of help. let me know if you see any changes in traffic after applying my tips.
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Hey Suburban Poet, no it's never too late to change your title or summary. As a matter of fact frequently tweaking your hubs can help boost rankings. Google likes when we edit stuff, they see that as innovative and fresh so they will take notice and send traffic your way especially older hubs.
When you are writing a poem or short story in parts can you keep the same summary, or is it better to change it.
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Hi Phillydreamer, sorry to take so long to respond, been busy.
It is best to make each summary a unique as the title. Your summary is the description of your article and this is what Google displays in search so make each of them different.
Cardisa, thank you so much for sharing this article! I had almost started to lose all hope of writing poetry for hubpages again. Now, I'll take your advice and update their titles and descriptions to be more SEO friendly.
I am sure those are all great tips, but I also believe they will probably damage the very essence of poetry which should not be explained, but felt.
I have a poem, simply called "The egg" and more than 3000 people has viewed it (they were probably searching for omelettes or ways to avoid cholesterol - LOL) - the poem does not have a summary either and is still getting traffic, so go figure
Great advice for optimizing poetry for Google.
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Hello Larakern, I am glad to be of help. I hope you see some traffic for your poetry.
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Hi Petra, that's one way of viewing it but we must remember that this is the internet and it's much different than taking up a book. You may be the rare exception in having your poem viewed over 3,000 times.
On the other hand, if someone is searching for information on "the egg" and finds your poem it simply means that they have been misled somewhat. Not many people will have such luck with their poetry which means they need to tell the people who are really searching for poems that they have a good one to read. The people who found your poem were not searching for poems so that is an exception. You simply cannot use your "egg" poem as a standard to say people don't need to SEO their poetry.
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Thanks Writer Fox :)
Hello again Cardisa,
You are absolutely right and I could not agree with you more. What happened to "the egg" is not only rare, it is in-explainable
Great tutorial here, Cardisa. I thought I had read this before, but I see that I didn't leave a comment, so doing that now. I found the information extremely helpful and worth reviewing again. Sometimes I tend to forget the work I have to put into my content to make it rank well with Google. In fact, I'm going back to a few titles that are a bit long and tweak them. so glad you shared this with the rest of us. I'm hitting the share button.
Take care and stay creative.
Cardisa- as a fellow creative content writer thanks for this vote of confidence in creative content and being 'smart' about how we categorize and caption them. this is a truly fantastic, objective hub. Well done!
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Hi Cyndi, thanks so much for stopping by and I do hope your get some traffic to yoru creative content.
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Hi Docmo, thank so much. I have seen many creative writers give up and leave HP because it doesn't make them money. I hope this helps.
Very helpful, Thank you!
This is a great hub, Cardisa. Thankfully, all my poetry is featured in Hub Pages. You make some great suggestions here. It is a pity the Keyword tool is gone from the writing tools in the hub creation section, but we just have to find ways to include keywords somehow. Creating poetry or creative writing content so it can get traffic is a bit of an art. Online content is so different from Print content.
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Hello Astra. I think it was a grave injustice to remove the meta tags section from our hubs. All other prominent sites use that feature because it helps Google to determine what your content is made of. I can understand that some people abused it but it was a good thing to have.
Cardisa, thanks for the tips. I'm relatively new on Hubpages - new to internet writing altogether, really - and I've only written one hub so far. But since I enjoy creative writing, I think these tips might help immensely if I decide to go that route at all. So, thanks again!
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Hi Cherihut, This hub will also help with other writing as well. The same rules actually applies to articles. If you need help, feel free to ask.
As always a great hub, and one which makes more sense the second reading, I think I missed the "only 26" on hubpages graph until now-- impressive
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Hi Rebecca, thank you! I was shocked when this poem went viral. It was probably the most spontaneous and simple poem I have ever written. I think I wrote that poem directly into the HP capsule because there was a controversial issue about gays in the forums.
This is so useful! I wish I would have found this before hand. One thing that I know I did right was using roman numerals for a recent story. I guess once I recover from my exhaustion and burn out, I'll be really looking forward to implementing these tips. Voted it up!
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Hello Writinglover, thanks for stopping by. You need to get some rest. I find meditating does it for me when I am burnt out. Have a great day :)
I am happy to find this, thanks to wrylit for mentioning you. Actually i love writing poems and short stories but I found it hard here in hubpages for it doesn't earn views, but with this, I can apply and edit some of my poems =) thank you
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Hello KenDeanAgudo. Thank you for reading my hub and I hope it helps you a lot. Please let me know if your traffic has improved after applying my tips.
thank you again cardisa, I am already applying it with my poems, if you have time you can see if I have done the right thing based on your tips =)
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I will stop by KenDeanArgudo. :))
Thank you Cardisa for the big help ^_^
Wonderful hub Cardisa! I have a very long poem here that I can apply these tips to. I'll let you know how it goes. Since it is Indian myth, I suppose I should mention that in my title - but of course the URL won't change so will this help?
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Hi Anita, yes that will definitely help even if the title is different from the URL. Google is not too concerned about URLs. They crawl keyword in titles first. Many of my best performing hub titles are different from the URLs. I think Yahoo is the only search engine which matches titles to Urls as a criteria for quality searches.
This is a great hub. Full of useful information. Thanks.
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Thank you Beth. Glad you liked it. :)
Hi, Cardisa--
This is well explained, and I plan to go over my poems and attempt these fixes. A very timely read for me, given all the angst I've been through the past day or two in the forum discussion.. ;-)
Voted up, interesting and useful.
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Ms Lizzy, have you slept at all? I was up all night last night and you were still in the forums then.
I am here if you need me and happy to assist any way I can. Please don't hesitate to ask.
You always give such good information and in a way that is easy to understand.
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Hello Dee, thank you so much. I think I was a teacher in another life...lol
This helps me a lot towards my creative pieces. i have recommended this hub too on my friend cardisa :)
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Thanks for stopping by Ken. I hope these tips help you and your friend. Please come back and let me know how you are doing.
Thanks Cardisa! I will keep these in mind with revamping published poems, e.g. titles and future writings too.
tim
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You're welcome Tsmog. I hope these tips will help you get more traffic to your creative content.
A great Hub, well done. I have trouble understanding keyword tools. I shall read this Hub again.
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Thanks Thost, No worries about ketwords yet. take you time to learn what they are. The easiest way is ti use the subject of your poem as the title.
This is very, very good information. Thank you. I've always wanted to add creative content but never known how to do so in a Hubpages format.
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Hi Thoughtswriter, Hubpages encourages creative content, so long as it's within their publishing guidelines. Optimizing your creative writing is similar to optimizing your informative articles. Just think about what people are searching for and start from there.
Hi Cardisa,
Thank you very much for such an informative article. I use simple titles for my poems, but faced rejection from AdSense program, saying there isn't much content in my hubs.
Please suggest what I need to do in this case?
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Hello Kswarup, welcome to Hubpages.
Google likes a lot of content and in most cases you need a minimum of 20 hubs before they will consider approving your Adsense account. It would help if you add other kinds of writing such as short stories, poetry reviews and stuff like that.
Thanks a lot Cardisa, for taking out time and answering my query.
Thank you for this valuable tip. I'll try & put in more content. :)
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You're welcome :)
Cardissa, I am wondering if putting poems or stories on HP is a good idea to get links back to my author's site or to my Amazon books. Does Hub let you link to Amazon directly? You have a lot of comments!
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Hello Connecttoheaven. I think it's a great idea. All you need to do is connect your book using your Aazon affiliate link. Use the Amazon capsule to add you items. What I also did was add a photo and then add a link in the source URL. Take a look at this https://hubpages.com/literature/A-Poem-About-Human...
Thanks for such a helpful hub! :)
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Thank you Lyn, and welcome to Hubpages :)
Thanks Cardisa! :)
I'm not quite sure what sort of hubs I want to write just yet, so although I think I'll make a start on some informative topics once I feel more settled, I was hoping that some short stories that I've already written might be a nice way to start. So glad to have found your hub in this initial stage.
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Lyn, it might be a good idea to have two accounts, one for your creative writing and the other for you informative articles. Many of us regret not doing that in the beginning.
Oh, I hadn't thought of that! Thanks Cardisa. :)
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You're welcome!
Great tips. I hadn't thought of using keywords in the title of a poetry Hub, even though I use keywords for my other articles. Your explanations here clarified a lot for me in terms of publishing poetry here that will get traffic. This inspires me to start publishing some poetry here again.
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Hi Nate, thanks for stopping by. I hope you find success in publishing your poetry and I look forward to reading them. Good Luck. Let me know how well they do.
Cardisa, your advice is good on titles and keywords. I write haiku and don't get a lot of views to them, but enough search traffic to keep them from getting defeatured for now. - Nate was recommending this hub in the forum, and I found it and am glad I did.
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Thank you Colorfulone, I hope these tips help you. Have a great day.
Hi Cardisa. I have not seen this hub before, but sure am glad I read it now. I am going to check all my short stories and re-title them by using your tips to perk up traffic.
Thanks for writing this hub.
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Hi Phyllis. Thanks for stopping by. Good luck and I hope your traffic improves. These tips have worked fro many people an will certainly work in your favor.
Hi Cardisa, I read a few of your articles today and found it engaging. In this article you have pondered on some real good information not given anywhere else.
I have doubt about the headline or title. You have written that the left side of the title must carry the keywords then which side would be the left the titles or the person viewing the titles left side?
Thank you for writing these amazing information.
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Hello Nikhilsukumar,
The left of the title is the beginning of the Title. For example " SEO Tips For Creative Content" are my keywords. The other part of the title just add the extra information needed to give you an idea of what I mean by creative content.
The same rule applies to all titles. Google catches the left part of the title first. That way, if the title is too long and it as to be cut off by the search engines, you will still be indexed properly because your main keywords are picked up.
Another example is this title: "Down Syndrome Facts And How To Tell If Your Baby Has It". As you can see the beginning OR left of the title has the keywords Down Syndrome Facts. Those are the keywords located left of the title.
I hope this answered your question.
have a great day.
Hi Cardisa,
Thank you for the information yes I see how relevant the first part of the title is and so this is why we see only the first few words in search results.
Great information again wish to read more such enlightening articles seen rarely o net.
I also read that you make a decent income from hubpages this is because you give only the correct and important information with no frills.
You have also given and set another example here!
Yes it not only answered my question it has also added new info.
This thoughtful act proves that you are not only fast and write awesome but also want to improve others.
Yes thank you and you have a splendid day.
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You're welcome and thank you for stopping by. :)
Very helpful advice Cardis. My hubs mainly consist of poetry and creative writing. I had been here for five years and never had a non-featured hub, but now it is happening at great frequency. I have begun to change some of the titles to make them more search engine friendly...but this hub helps even more with tips regarding that. Thanks.
Thank you for some great tips and advice. I have bookmarked this for more help and future reference :)
Hi Cardisa - I have a few short stories on here that get zero traffic and I keep meaning to move them out of HP. But I may tweak the title thanks to your advice. But your tips seem helpful for all hub titles, not just the creative writing ones. I am going to take a good long look at my own titles and see what I can do. I have a few that I really love but get very little traffic. On another note, I sure wish that I had set up several accounts earlier on. I think it would have made a difference.
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Thanks Jodah. I hope this helps. Good luck!
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Thanks Bronwyn. Glad to be of help.
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Hi Dolores, thanks for stopping by. You are right, these tips are for any hub title. I hope these tips are of help to you. :)
I'm glad I discovered your article on this subject Cardisa. You gave me a good understanding of changes I need to make. I have two poems that were moved to the letterpile niche site shortly after publishing, but one of them has not been getting much traffic.
After learning from you what needs to be done, I did some keyword research and discovered what people might be searching for in reference to my poem's subject. I changed the title accordingly.
Now it's a matter of time for Google to update the indexing, but I feel confident that it will help. The change I made, thanks to you, makes a lot of sense — and I realize it's what was missing from my title before.
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Thanks Glen. I hope your poems do better now than before. We use the same concept to publish on Amazon as well, so it should work.
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