Article Writing: Top 5 Mistakes New Writers Make
Writing for HubPages is a profession... not a simple blog hobby!
Unfortunately, many new aspiring article writers who choose to join HubPages for a chance to start making some decent passive income do not understand this, and it only comes with a slow, painful process that they finally realise that things aren't as easy as they first seemed.
Regardless, like in any profession, any newcomer to the world of writing for HubPages should know the do's and do not's of this website, as well as what other users are doing to attain a fairly decent amount of success.
Hopefully this Hub will show you the top five writing mistakes that a common new hubber will make on HubPages, so that you can both avoid doing them and become a better article writer overall.
Mistake 1# Posting Duplicate content.
One of the most mistakes that almost every article writer makes at some time in their career is that they will post the same piece of content on multiple sites. Unfortunately, Google doesn't approve of this, and will significantly; 'de-rank' your website or content if multiple versions of your content can be found of their search engine. It is best to either...
1. Post articles on the same topic with completely unique word structures to each other.
2. Post articles around the same niche, yet different sub-topic to your other articles.
Doing either of these almost ensures that you will avoid posting any duplicate content on HubPages, and therefore your content will thrive. (It is worth mentioning however that other people can steal your content without you even knowing, and it may be worth routinely checking if other website holders have a significant portion of your content on their pages.)
How to Hub -Guide For Noobs.
All credit for this video belongs to the YouTube user: lyrialzander via. www.youtube.com/user/lyrialzander
Mistake 2# Publishing Content with Under 500 Words.
Another common mistakes that a lot of article writers make is that they produce content which only contains around 300-400 words. Not only does this jeopardize the amount of quality that they can put into their work, but it also means that the Google crawlers do not have much content to obtain keywords from either. Plus, it is heavily rumoured (and in most cases proved) that Google ranks content which contains under 500 words lower than those with above 500 words.
Why? This is mainly due to Google's ideology that the more content an article/webpage has to offer its users, the more quality it must provide to its visitors. Since it is in Google's main interest to provide it's searchers with the most relevant and high quality content as possible, they will display the best websites at the top of the rankings, and the worst quality at the bottom.
So as a fundamental guideline for when creating content, make sure to stretch each post to at least 500-800 words watch, and if you can manage it even go for around 1,000-1,500. But be cautioned! This doesn't mean 500-800 words of 'fluff' and absolute garbage; it means 500-800 words of high quality and unique content that visitors who visit your article will love from start to finish.
Mistake 3# Writing Articles like Blog Posts.
The majority of new article writers will initially begin writing in the structure of simple blog posts, which any man and his dog could complete within 5-10 minutes if given chance. Although, this style of writing is not what produces results of HubPages… no HubPages demands it's writers to produce High Quality and Useful posts that offer visitors something that they couldn't get anywhere else. (Yes... the phrase "high quality" is going to pop up a lot in this Hub!)
Plus, it's essential that you are structuring your articles like 'real' articles, and not all bundled together blog posts which are difficult to read at best.
Purchase one of these great books.
Mistake 4# What to Write About?
This is often a particular issue writers will eventually get after a while, in fact in some cases some writers are diagnosed with what is known as "writer's block", as they both have no idea what to write and are completely clueless as to how to write it.
Of course, there are multitudinous amount of ideas for content out there, and writer's block is simply an act of over-thinking the process of writing content.
What the mistake is here of course is that a lot of new writers over-think their articles to the point where they have no desire to write them at all. The truth in the matter is that once you get into your writing "flow" writing articles becomes easier, and a lot more efficient in terms of time.
Therefore, the best thing you can do as a new writer is to both write on topics that you have some knowledge and experience in, but to also write without excessively over-thinking what exactly you are writing about.
Mistake 5# Not Monetising Your Content Properly.
This is absolutely crucial to your success as an article writer (who wants to make money in the process.) With each and every article you put to HubPages, you must ensure that you have properly monetised the content for Advertisements to be displayed on your Hub. HubPages has made the monetisation process very simple for you, and in the learning centre you can find a great guide on how to set up accounts for the affiliate programs, as well as implementing them into your articles.
The most common mistake made here, is that you either set up your affiliate links on HubPages wrong so that you aren't making any money, or that you are only displaying a very low amount of Adverts on each of your Hubs. To display the maximum amount of advertisements on your hubs, go to the 'edit' tab on your chosen Hub, and then by clicking on the 'settings' tab and in the drop down menu select "high".
If you notice that you are beginning to earn more than you had before, you can be sure that you have properly monetised your content, and have an increased potential to make more money from your articles.
Write Articles Fast!
All credit for this video belongs to the YouTube user: InternetDreams via. www.youtube.com/user/internetdreams
Guidelines for creating a High Quality Article.
Finally, to conclude this article I believe that it is important that you understand what it takes to create a high quality piece of content. Bear in mind that whilst you do not need to follow these points religiously, it would be wise to stick to them as best as you can.
· Keep a good sentence structure filled with correct use of punctuation and grammar.
· Give information which is useful and answers potential questions that the visitor may have regarding the topic.
· Provide your own unique opinion and style to the content.
· Do not spew out the same information that Wikipedia give or any other source.
· Write lengthy posts which will keep your reader on the page for a good amount of time.
· Provide helpful links to other sources which may help the reader understand more about the topic.
· Write in a way which is specifically targeted at your desired audience.
· Spell check, spell check and spell check!
By following these guidelines for creating an article, you are giving your content a much greater chance of being high quality and therefore high ranking. Some other factors which often do increase the success of articles is to host unique media such as photos and videos to enhance the readability of the article, and to make it more interesting to the audience.
Make sure that all media is presented well, with a HD camera/video camera, so that visitors will feel more inclined to watch the video all the way through.
