Keywords, traffic, tags and .......

1. 79

   travelespressoposted 8 years ago

   I'm keen to drive more traffic to my hubs and in the process find a way to make some more money. 
   
   I'm learning heaps here but I want to learn more about putting the right tags into my hubs so that the search engines pick it up.   (I always use Adwords key tool).
   
   My hubs are mainly about travel.....
   
   Two of my top hubs have the following tags:
   
   1. This one is about Sydney flea markets:  My TAGS - Sydney, flea markets, the rocks, paddy's market, rozelle market etc
   
   When I looked at the wonderful hubmetrics key words showed the top searches were for flea markets sydney, sydney flea market, sunday markets sydney. 
   
   I guess that's telling me that when people are searching they use those three words (in this instance) each time.  Should I use these as a phrase or am I OK with the tags I already have but add in "sunday"?
   
   2.  My second hub is about DC3 scenic flights in Auckland, NZ.
   I have a whole raft of tags which include scenic flights, DC3, transport, NZ etc etc.
   When I looked at hubmetrics I discovered (to my dismay) that only "dc3" showed up in the searches and only 2 people searched for that!  Help!!!
   
   I'd appreciate your comments...

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   1. 96

      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Tags are mainly for internal HubPages use - they determine the "related Hubs" that show up on your Hub,for instance.  So your main concern with those tags is to keep them very targeted, so you're grouped with Hubs that are truly related!
      
      Where keywords matter is in your URL, your title and within your text.   
      
      The Hubmetrics should have told you that people searched or "flea markets Sydney" x times, "sydney flea market" y times, etc.  If one of those terms is getting searched a lot, then it would be a good idea to make that your Hub title.  Make sure you're using the other phrases in your text.
      
      You might also like to read my Hub about optimizing your layout (link on my profile).

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      1. 79

         travelespressoposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for those comments Marisa.  Very targeted is obviously a key and I think mine are rather general.  I will focus some time on this over the next week. 
         
         I will also check out your hub on optimising hub layout.

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2. 80

   Cagsilposted 8 years ago

   I'm not really up on it. However, *bump* to revive for help.

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   1. 79

      travelespressoposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks so much for the heads up on this Cags.   Without your comment, I would have blundered on blissfully unaware my tags were too general.   I hope I can get some answers from other helpful hubbers!

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      1. 87

         Rafiniposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         have you checked the Suggested Tags?  Another thing I do is reread the hub and make a note of repetetive words/phrases and then add them as tags.

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3. 79

   travelespressoposted 8 years ago

   Thanks for your suggestions Rafini.  I have looked at and I sometimes include the suggested tags depending upon the relevance.
   Maybe I should pay more attention to those?

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4. 68

   Mishaposted 8 years ago

   Sure add those phrases that people are finding you already with, in their entirety. It will help with search engines traffic. And you can add way more related tags, too - and you better do. It is not only about related hubs, it is about being found in search engines for particular words, in big part.

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   1. 79

      travelespressoposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for clarifying that I should add whole phrases to improve chances of being found in search engines. 
      I think my titles need to be improved too but that's a separate issue.

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   2. 79

      travelespressoposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Misha - I just looked at your article Google Search Engine which is most interesting.  I also noted what you are saying to me about keywords.  You have a great many tags and they appear to me to be very general but a great many are very targeted. 
      I think that's what you are saying to me.  Right?

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5. 0

   Nelle Hoxieposted 8 years ago

   Actually if you only consider the keywords that people used to reach your site, you could be missing the boat entirely. Because that doesn't tell you what the big niche is - only what you targeted. You need to do competitive analysis.
   
   Look at the sites that rank highest in your category on google (AND YAHOO) - and try to get a feel for what they are targeting. You need to understand the top 100 to 200 sites in a niche to understand the dynamics fully.
   
   Watch how they fluctuate and understand the larger trends at work. You also need to read travel magazines and watch the travel channel to get a feel for the new hot spots and activities in an area.
   
   Keywords evaluate past trends and are not necessarily predictive. For example if you're trying to find out what the hot cookbook is, keyword tools point you to last year's hot chef on television not this year's.
   
   Oh and in travel what local business groups promote is hugely important.

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   1. 76

      lakeerieartistsposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      great advice, Nelle. 

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   2. 79

      travelespressoposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Great advice Nelle.  You have noted several things I hadn't thought of. 
      
      WOW, the top 100-200 sites!  That's a lot of material to look at and get a feel for what's happening.  However, this is my niche, I like it and I feel very comfortable with it so I will allocate the time and find out what those sites are.
      
      Once again thanks for these gems!

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   3. 96

      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I'm so glad you said that, Nelle. I see people saying we should look at the search terms in Analytics and I've always thought, "but those are the terms people are using to find me already.  It doesn't tell me what terms I'm missing out on altogether."  It always seemed to miss the point to me.

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