Can I change my summary to add more keywords?

1. 75

   brakel2posted 13 years ago

   Is it important to have good keywords in the summary of the hub? Should the initial article on the hub have most of the keywords? Thank you. I am new.

   replyreport
   1. 0

      JeanMeriamposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Are you talking about the text summary on the edit hub section? I always change them. Those are what show up on a search.

      replyreport
      1. 75

         brakel2posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I mean to change it after you initially change it. I did not use the automatic summary.

         replyreport
         1. 47

            Jackson Riddleposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            my account > edit > summary text, can be changed any number of times

            replyreport
2. 75

   Hauntyposted 13 years ago

   Putting the most important keyword in once is probably useful. But if you substitute the word 'good' for the word 'better' in the keyword 'become a good public speaker', you may find that your traffic increases (probably 32-fold).

   replyreport
   1. 69

      Peter Hogganposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      How did you come to that conclusion?

      replyreport
      1. 75

         brakel2posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I already have good there. Are you saying to change it to better?

         replyreport
      2. 75

         Hauntyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Keyword research. But if you have a different opinion, we'd love to hear it.

         replyreport
         1. 0

            Justine76posted 13 years agoin reply to this

            hey Haunty, your elite!! 

            replyreport
         2. 69

            Peter Hogganposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            It’s not an opinion it’s a simple fact, swapping the word 'good' for the word 'better' in the summary or description so as to target another term will have no effect whatsoever.

            replyreport
            1. 75

               Hauntyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I meant to swap it in all instances of the keyword, of korz.

               replyreport
   2. 75

      brakel2posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Do you mean to change it to better?

      replyreport
      1. 75

         Hauntyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         No, I don't. I mean you can compare the keywords using Google's keyword tool.

         replyreport
3. 69

   Peter Hogganposted 13 years ago

   From a traffic point if view writing a good summary could improve the amount of visitors you receive. The summary forms the description that appears in search engine listings but will not improve rankings in any way. (The description is ignored by search engines.)
   
   Any improvement will be because the description appeals to more people and they click through to your page. It is not absolutely necessarily to include your main keywords there, you could also use synonyms.
   
   You can change the sumary as many times as you like until you find what works best.

   replyreport
   1. 80

      MyWebsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      "The summary forms the description that appears in search engine listings but will not improve rankings in any way. (The description is ignored by search engines.)"
      
      On what do you base that statement on?
      
      I see Google, and other search engines, bolding keywords in what users here on hubpages call the "Summary Text" that is known to most webmasters as the Meta Description.
      
      Bolding = relevance = higher ranking in my opinion
      
      Personally I like to write my summary so that it does three things:
      1)Has my exact keyword phrase as the Title first -- This is optional as its not so user friendly but does help with SEO in my opinion.
      2) Uses 2-3 closely related keywords naturally in a sentence that I would also like to target.
      3) Appeals to the user by explaining what my article offers with a call to action to read more. (click) Or just trying to hook them into wanting to read more.

      replyreport
4. 69

   Peter Hogganposted 13 years ago

   If you chose to write your own summary for a hub that’s what appears in the description tag.  The description tag was dropped for ranking purposes by the major search engines some years ago and has no bearing on rankings. Some second tier search engines might still use it.
   
   Words that are contained in the search term and their synonyms will be bolded in the page title and description when they appear in SERPs this is done for usability.
   
   It is still worth while writing good descriptions as it can increase targeted click through from search engines.
   
   Google  does not use HTML keyword or meta tag elements for indexing. The Director of Research at Google, Monika Henziger, was quoted (in 2002) as saying, "Currently we don't trust metadata because we are afraid of being manipulated." .
   
   Source wikipedia

   replyreport
   1. 80

      MyWebsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Well I learn something new every day. I really thought Google counted the Meta Description. I guess I'll have to eliminate keywords mostly from my descriptions and focus more on getting the user to click.
      
      I think I'm going to do some testing to see if they truly ignore it as they could be lying possibly, but probably not.
      
      At least we still have the Title to manipulate, I mean to use.

      replyreport
      1. 69

         Peter Hogganposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Yep makes sense, I tend to think of the title and the description working together as a call to action to entice visitors away from the SERPs into your site.

         replyreport
5. 74

   livewithrichardposted 13 years ago

   Keyword meta tags are useless for search engines however all 3 of the big search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) do still tend to utilize the description tag as the main body of the listing in their result pages providing it is relevant to the users search term.
   
   Don't want to take my word for it? Do a Google search for any popular term then look in the descriptive text on the SERPS. Click on any result and view the page source and you will find the search term in the "description meta tags."
   
   Though you should know, ranking in the SERPs is not the same as ranking for the page.

   replyreport
   1. 69

      Peter Hogganposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      While everything you say in your first two paragraphs has been  proven without a shadow of doubt and I agree with whole heartedly I do not understand what you mean when you say:
      
      "Though you should know, ranking in the SERPs is not the same as ranking for the page".
      
      Could you please explain?

      replyreport
      1. 72

         sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Im going to guess he is pointing out the two distinct meanings of "rank" that are often used,
         
         as in pageRank (ranking for page)
         
         and position in SERPS
         
         often one sees confusion by this similar term

         replyreport
6. 89

   Will Apseposted 13 years ago

   The summary text is important. If your page is doing well but not well enough, a change to the summary text is one of the quickest ways to give it a boost (say from page 2 to page 1 of Google). You need to get your main keywords in there and also in the first fifty or so words of the article to get the most benefit.
   
   As your page matures it can be worth including related keywords to get to the first page of Google for those terms as well. You only see the impact of small changes like this when the hub is already pretty successful.

   replyreport
7. 90

   Urbane Chaosposted 13 years ago

   I look at the hub summary as the same as a summary on the back of a paperback book.  The words that authors use to entice people to read their novel are pretty much the same thing as keywords that are used on the internet. 
   
   Regardless if it helps rankings or doesn't help, I still try to include them in the summary.  I mean, if you think about it, you still want the reader to be enticed to read what you wrote.
   
   Maybe it's a weird way of thinking about things, but then again, I've never been accused of being normal.

   replyreport
   1. 93

      rmcrayneposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I've tried to get this point across a few times in HubMob.  I'm really surprised how many people use the default.  Sometimes, they have a picture first, and the attribution is what shows!  I might borrow from you next time.

      replyreport
8. 69

   Peter Hogganposted 13 years ago

   Well if you use rank when you mean PageRank you are going to confuse a lot of people. It certainly confused me.

   replyreport
   1. 72

      sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      to be fair he did say "ranking for page" (at least in the bit I quoted)
      
      Its not uncommon to see forum posts like " yeah, my page ranks #1 in google"  ..at first its not much of slip to mix up different explanations about Pagerank - i.e. "wow your page does rank #1, but whats your pageRank ?

      replyreport
      1. 69

         Peter Hogganposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I agree, but to be absolutely fair the statement to which I refer doesn’t make much sense and is open to interpretation. Better clarity can be achieved by being implicit IMO.

         replyreport
         1. 74

            livewithrichardposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            To clarify, Positioning in the SERPs has no direct relation to PageRank.  As an Internet marketer, your affiliate related articles, hubs, and other online content, depend on the position of your content in the SERPs.
            
            You can have an article appear on a PR0 page and still achieve position #1 on Google for a given term, or you can have a PR5 blog with a post that may never be found in the first 20 pages.
            
            As Sunforged pointed out, the phrase "ranking in Google" is a common phrase used by nearly all Internet and affiliate marketers and refers to position in the SERPs not the rank of the page the content is found on.

            replyreport
            1. 69

               Peter Hogganposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks for the simplified explanation of PageRank, not what I was after however. Nor is it my experience that the terms are confused in this way unless by SEO novices who haven’t quite got a grasp of the correct terminology. For the sake of clarity I will continue to use PageRank when I talk about PageRank and rankings when I talk about search engine rankings and SERPs.

               replyreport
9. 59

   pooja0908posted 13 years ago

   i think your keyword rich summury help you more but take care about keyword volume.

   replyreport
10. 69

    Peter Hogganposted 13 years ago

    Oh hell I give up, if you can’t beat them join them. From now on I am going to call search engines ATMs, SERPs and search engine rankings will become Easter Eggs and PageRank will now be referred to as Santa’s little helpers!

    replyreport
    1. 80

       MyWebsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       LOL
       
       My hub with its awesome little Santa's helpers has great Easter Eggs hidden in the ATM's!
       
       Hopefully I got this right without confusing too many.

       replyreport
11. 75

    Hauntyposted 13 years ago

    The OP is probably not quite sure how her question caused this nice little discussion to be.

    replyreport