tags and key words...I'm confused

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   kelleywardposted 12 years ago

   I think I've confused tags and key words. Could someone tell me the difference? I've been using key words through Google keyword search as my tags.

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      Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      You had me wondering as well and I stumbled across this hub that has given me a whole new perspective on HubPages, tags and keywords.  Most interesting!
      
      http://greekgeek.hubpages.com/hub/diffe … s-and-tags

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         kelleywardposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         thanks Dale!

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            Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            You are most welcome Kelly!  I have been working on my hubs for a couple of hours now after reading that hub, using some of the guidelines mentioned there.

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   Shadesbreathposted 12 years ago

   I mostly write comedy, but since you haven't gotten an answer yet, I'll do my best to fill you in on the basic part.
   
   The keywords are the thing you are going to target in your article. It's the word or phrase you think people are searching for in Google or Yahoo. Let's say you want to write a hub about curing gas in hamsters. You'd want to find the primary keyword phrase or phrases that you are going to hit. So, you might go with:
   
   curing gas in hamsters
   curing hamster farts
   hamster gas remedy
   
   So those would be your keywords. As you write your article, and as you set your title and sub-heads, you want to make sure you are talking about that subject, repeating those phrases where appropriate in body paragraphs. I usually have one MAIN one that I make sure to use consistently (without making the text seem jammed up or stilted).
   
   Tags are related to the keywords, but they aren't what you are hitting in your article as much. Your tags might be:
   
   pet flatulence
   gassy rodent pets
   that smell in my kid's room (okay, maybe not this one)
   gas cures for pets
   pet gas
   curing rodent flatulence
   
   See how they are kind of the same, but you're NOT going to using those phrases in your article. I mean, maybe one or two might come up once, but they aren't the main touchstones of what you are focused on writing about specifically. Your article is targeting the specific topic of hamster gas cures, those other ones aren't spot on, though they are helpful in a broader sense.
   
   I hope that helps. Maybe someone better versed in this stuff will come along and clarify further.

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      kelleywardposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That helped a lot!!! After all I've read I got that wrong... Thanks for answering in an entertaining way! If I ever need to write on hamster flatulence I have a heads up on the keywords!!

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   Eric Newlandposted 12 years ago

   I think I may have been misinterpreting tags. Do they actually have an effect on search engines or do they only affect HP's internal search?

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      Shadesbreathposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      They help guide search engines, by giving the spiders additional bits of information about what types of things, what sort of "categories" your hub falls into. Basically, you're trying to help Google and Yahoo and Bing figure out what you are writing about so they can help readers find the information they are looking for. At least that's how I understand them to work.
      
      I don't know if HP uses them for anything or not. Someone who pays wayyy more attention to this stuff will have to jump in. As I said, I write for laughs more than for traffic, so all this kind of thing is sort of incidental for me. There are some heavy hitters on here that may come along and give you better clarity than my answers do.

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   Dame Scribeposted 12 years ago

   hamster flatulence, omg what a topic that would be but quite entertaining

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   Healthy Pursuitsposted 12 years ago

   I did that for a while, until I ran across GreekGeek's hub. (Thank you, GreekGeek!) It's a great explanation of how tags are treated. HP turns them off so Google doesn't use them, but the hubs on the right bar are used by Google as related hubs. That helps your rating if they're considered websites that are ranked well.
   
   Also these right side "tagged" hubs on your hub are linked to you on their hub, too. So you might get pageviews from the other hub. So use tags, just be careful that they are relevant and that they link to hubs you really want linked to - though that's much more difficult to control. Also, don't use too many tags. They aren't necessary.
   
   Other hubbers have taught me that being sure to use the keywords you want in subtitles, photo titles and descriptions, etc. is very effective.
   
   I know that reading a hub on some different part of the tech side of things only makes sense when you're ready for it, but I also found ktrapp's hub below really helpful for using keywords within HP.
   
   http://ktrapp.hubpages.com/hub/Get-Hits … e-Keywords

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