Hubpages keyword tool

Seeing the keyword tool appear under the “Stats” feature on Hubpages was exciting to see the other day. It helps complete the circle since keyword research is an important first step in writing a title, an introductory phrase, and an ending for a Hub or other online article.

While keyword research is an important first step, evaluating what keywords are used to reach a web site or online article is probably not taken very often. I use Google Analytics on a couple of Web sites and blogs and I’ve also used Statcounter in the past. But I’ve not used any tools to track the Hubs individually.

Here’s what I’ve observed in the keyword tool:

Related long tail keyword phrases

Full phrases, or long tail keywords, are shown helping a writer understand the various keyword phrases that a reader has entered in the search engines.

The keyword phrases showing in both Google and Yahoo results are closely related to the title of my Hub. One reason in my opinion is because it’s a focused topic.

One of the reasons this is important, is that it’s helpful for Web content writers to understand that “keyword” itself is a misnomer . . . it’s really keyword phrases people use.

My Hub “Cheap Gas or Top Tier Gas: The Best Gas for Your Car” is my most visited Hub and one of the ones that returns the highest monetary return on Google Adsense.

The Hub ranks strongly for “Top tier gas” and I’ve seen it rank highly in the search engines. That phrase accounts for twice as many results as the next keyword phrase which is “best gasoline for your car.” But I also have a search result: “is chevron cleaner than other gasoline brands.”

I also see a variation of keyword phrases for readers who are searching for terms related to “best gasoline to use” and similar terms.

Thanks to keyword tool, I can choose from one or two more of the phrases to write another Hub and discover the results.

Completely different keyword phrases

Keyword results are quite different than my titles in some of my Hubs.

My Hub, “Guide to starting your own small business” has results that show the width of terms being searched and how I can narrow the topic into more niche Hubs fit for specific industries.

One phrase was “how to make a landscape profile for a business idea.” Now that’s quite different. There were also keywords related to starting an energy business and best banks to use for starting a business.

These give me topics for writing related Hubs.

Misspellings

Notice that the keyword phrases have misspellings.

I’ve heard advice given in the past that it’s not such a bad idea to deliberately misspell some keyword phrases. Or maybe I should say deeliberally mitzspell keewurd frazes. Be careful, misspellings may hurt your credibility with your target audience – unless it’s a casual consumer audience.

I look forward to hearing how other Hubbers use the keyword tool and its data.