With our ongoing Topic Expansion Initiative, new Topics are constantly being created to address specific niche subjects in overcrowded categories. With the creation of new Topics, it’s more important than ever that Hubs be correctly categorized. Here’s why:
Topic pages are visible to search engines and show up in search results just like individual featured Hubs. Basically, Topic pages are a second opportunity to boost your Hub traffic. By ensuring that your Hubs are published in the most appropriate Topic, you are:
- Providing a user-friendly experience
- Making your Hubs easier to find
- Boosting engagement with your content
- More accurately addressing the needs of niche searches
- Ensuring that related Hubs that show up on that Hub are more likely to actually be related
What’s more, if you publish a Hub in a very specific leaf-level page that does not have many other Hubs, you will also have better odds of getting your Hub featured on the first ‘page’ of that Topic Page, which leads to more exposure and readers.
How can I categorize my Hubs as accurately as possible?
You can easily ensure that your Hubs are under the best possible Topic by taking a few moments to review the Hub Topic suggestions in the Hub Tool when you create a new Hub. If none of the Topic suggestions make sense, you can manually select the Topic you think is the better fit or run some searches using related keywords to see if the best-fitting Topic uses a different set of words than those used in your Hub’s title.
Why are the suggestions sometimes wrong?
Our Hub Topic suggestions are created using keywords, which means the suggestions are sometimes inaccurate (occasionally wildly so). For example, if I want to create a skateboarding Hub entitled “How to Do a San Francisco Flip,” our “Search” function for Topic suggestions has no way of knowing that “San Francisco Flip” is the title of a skateboarding move. None of the suggested Topics that show up involve skateboarding.
If I publish my Hub under the suggested Travel and Restaurant Topics, people searching for and viewing those Topic pages are unlikely to read my Hub, since they want to read about San Francisco restaurants and attractions, not skateboarding. But by taking a moment to manually categorize my Hub under the Skateboarding Topic or typing “skateboard” or “skateboarding” into the search box to look for better matches, I am ensuring that users who are looking for skateboarding Hubs will find mine easily:
Does categorization really matter that much?
Yes. You may have written the best carburetor installation Hub of all time, but if it’s categorized under Wire Wrap Jewelry, you’re losing all the readers who land on the Fuel System Topic page looking for Hubs just like yours. Don’t miss out on that audience!
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Thanks for this. I’m going to go back and look at my categories a bit closer. I probably should have paid more attention up front.
Awesome, Courtney, it’s great you’re being so proactive!
This is all fine and dandy when creating a new hub. But what about all the new categories you’ve created that might be a better fit for existing hubs? Somewhere I’ve seen you highlight a few of the new categories, but what I want is assurance that ALL new categories are being announced. I’m certainly not going to evaluate all my hubs against all available categories monthly just on the odd chance you’ve eventually realized that endangered animals do not belong under the super-category of pets!
I’m glad you asked, Howard! We do have some ideas in the works for making announcements about the new Topics, but when I create a Topic, I also run searches that allow me to manually fill those new Topics with appropriate Hubs that more closely fit the theme (basically, I’m doing some reorganization for older Hubs as I generate new Topics). So, proper Topic categorization is mostly an issue going forward as you publish new Hubs.
Just a little update– I took a look at Pets and Animals and did a little reorganizing. The Topics there should make much more sense now. Thanks for the heads up!
I have a written article and I wish to know how to publish it.
Hi Chinonyereanyi Orie- when you are visiting the Hub in edit mode, click the “Publish” button. If improvements are need for your Hub to be published, follow the tips provided in the email and/or warnings signs present on your Hub. Hope that helps!