Awaiting Traffic

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   ShelleyHeathposted 9 years ago

   Hi Hubbers,
   
   I'm new here, and I must say that it's a pretty great community so I thought I'd put my question out there...
   
   That is to ask, how long do you have to await a decent amount of traffic upon your hub?
   
   This is presuming that a hub is of good quality and has been based upon a keyword research?
   
   I understand about promoting your hub on social media, but just for my own knowledge, without this how long do you have to wait to see a jump in traffic? And what would you deem as a 'Good' number of views?
   
   Thanks All!

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hi, and welcome to HP.
      
      The questions you asked are very common ones, but the answers...well...they can be pretty tricky.
      
      So much depends on the topics you write about  and how well you produce and market your hubs.
      
      I think it takes most people quite a few months to gain momentum here, and you have to produce a good number of articles, too.
      
      The secret is to be patient, spend time reading the info in the learning center and read the work of others so you can see who is succeeding.
      
      I also suggest staying a way from well saturated topics like "how to save money", etc and also most medical topics because the competition for those will bury your work so far back in Google's index it will never be seen.
      
      However, if you know a lot about something or are good at something, write about it.
      
      It's mostly a trial and error thing.  As for what one considers to be good views...that varies from one person to the next.  There are people here who have gotten more than a million views on one article, and others who may only get 10 a month.
      
      One thing is certain, if you stick around and spend your early days watching, experimenting and learning, you will gain a great deal.
      
      Best of luck.

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         ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Hi There,
         
         Thanks! Your answer has been really helpful! I guess that perhaps I'm jumping the un as my articles have only been out for a week, so your answer has put my mind at rest!
         
         And I'll definitely check out the learning centre.
         
         Thanks then!

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         Thelma Albertsposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I agree to what TIMETRAVELER2 said. It is indeed a matter of trial and error, luck and of course how interesting  the hubs you are writing. Be patience. Welcome to Hubpages!

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      NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      It can take a couple months; for a well-written hub that uses keyphrases that have been researched, as you say. Sometimes a bit longer; like several months. For keyword researched articles, though, it's not usually longer than somewhere between 2-6 months to start seeing significant traffic.
      
      Edit: A good number of views: 100-600 a day, on a decent article; total views, around 1500. Some people get way more. I'm just saying that's kind of ideal. I feel pretty good about articles that get anywhere between 5-50 views a day too. I'm getting those numbers from actually experience by the way, though there are lots of ups and downs in the online writing world. Especially with various algorithm changes with Google.

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         ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Nate, That gives me a good ball park to work towards. It does seem like a lot at this stage so I can't wait to see what happens once Google starts indexing the pages

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         NateB11posted 9 years agoin reply to this

         My figures in the above comment are a little vague and wrong in terms of the 1500 total I gave; that's if you have, say, about 20-30 articles and some of them are receiving around 100-500 views more or less. The 80/20 principle applies here at HubPages--you'll get 80% of your traffic/income from 20% of your articles.

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            ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Hey There Nate,
            
            Thanks for the clarification and I knew traffic would differ between articles, but I didn't realise it'd be quite that imbalanced.
            
            Thanks for your input again, really insightful!

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      peachpurpleposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Good traffic comes according to theseason, for example, my women day hub got huge traffic last month , while others dropped to 5 views per day

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         ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Hey Peach, thanks for your feedback I would probably panic if I saw a sudden drop without knowing this, so this will serve me well for the future

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      Susana Sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I had a quick look at your titles Shelley and many of them focus on broad keywords in very competitive topics. That means you'll probably never get much traffic from them as they stand now. The reason they're unlikely to draw traffic is the huge and overwhelming amount if competition from well-established, trusted, niche websites. They're also not the kinds of titles that do well with social media.
      
      Most of us have made the same mistake early on so don't worry!
      
      With HubPages you need to look for less competitive long tail phrases that still get decent traffic. It's a tough nut to crack but doable. Best of luck!

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         Jean Bakulaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         All I can add is that sometimes the hubs you think are best won't get traffic, and ones  you think are good, but not your best, will, and you'll probably never figure out why. I agree with Nate, you need to build up a body of work, and maybe in six months will start getting traffic. It's slow these days, with all the changes the administration is trying, so it's hard to assess. I feel happy if I get 25 views a day on hubs now.
         
         Plus it usually slows down when summer comes, people are outdoors and vacationing. Changing titles helps too. Look at the titles on subjects you write about, and look on Google and see what others are doing. Try to think of something more interesting, that would make you click on that if you were searching on Google. Your URL will always stay the same as when you named your hub on HP, but the title can be changed on Google and people will still come to the same hub. Best of luck to you.

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         ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Hey There, thanks for your answer Jean! I've tried to do a few based on keyword research, with others based on my knowledge and others share friendly to test this out, so it'll be interesting to see what comes from it
         
         And thanks, I'll defo try some testing out once Google has began indexing, thanks!

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         ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Susana, thanks for your knowledge. Some I've based on Low competition keywords, with others on things such as topics which interest me, however I'm definitely anticipating big differences between each group of articles. And that's certainly a consideration with Social Media, I'll have a think about that, thanks!

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            Susana Sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            You're welcome
            
            You also need to make sure you do a HubPages search before you write to see how many hubs are already here using the same keyphrase you intend to go for.
            
            All of your most recent titles are already well covered and it's unlikely your hub will beat them in the search results because the existing pages benefit from age, authority and backlinks.
            
            The search engines usually only show one or two pages from the same site for a given search query, so when there are already established pages, newer ones tend to get ignored.
            
            Btw - how are you assessing keyword competitiveness?

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               ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Hi There,
               
               Oh yes, I hadn't thought about that in relation to the duplicate pages, that really makes a difference. I'll have to consider this then also
               
               And through the Google keyword tool, although I really need to sit down for a good amount of time to perhaps identify a specialist area; that's one thing I'm still mulling over. Thanks again however, very grateful for your input

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                  Susana Sposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  The competition in the keyword planner shows how many advertisers are bidding on that phrase, not how many other websites have written about it. That's who your competition is.
                  
                  I suggest going over to moz.com and reading up on how to assess your competition.

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   Chriswillman90posted 9 years ago

   I've been here a few months and still can't figure out the answer to drive more traffic. I think I'll have to step up my SEO and keyword research because that's where the traffic comes from. Just developing a good body of work is a great start because it gives you a presence on this site, and more readers are willing to flock towards you. 
   
   Recently I've heard about the hub that went viral on here, which gives me a lot of hope that it is possible to succeed as a writer on here if you're willing to work hard to get achieve it.

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      ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hey There,
      
      Indeed, I definitely agree and think that creating hubs and then comparing the traffic differences between them is key to understanding what works and what doesn't.
      
      Thanks for our comment!

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   Sustainable Sueposted 9 years ago

   Sad to say, you have to write about what the majority of readers are looking for, if you want a hub to go viral. I write about environmental issues, for example, instead of dieting information, which is a popular search that I'm not interested in (having been skinny all my life) and know little about.
   
   I tried an experiment recently. Looking on Google's list of most popular topics I found that quite a few people were searching for info about mermaids. So I wrote a hub that combined mermaids with the environmental issue of ocean pollution. My hub, Real Mermaid Life in the Ocean, generates a steady 15-25 readers a day. That's hardly any compared to viral hubs, but it's more than any of my others draw. And it's a good hub - it won Hub of the Day. But that doesn't draw readers.
   
   So what do you know about that is a popular search topic? Use your keyword search to generate titles and subtitles that enable you to share your experiences with that topic in a hub. Then post announcements and a link to the hub wherever you socialize on the Internet. Then write other hubs on the same topic. That will get you started. Time will tell the rest.

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      ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hey There,
      
      That's a really novel approach! I'll have to take a look at what I could combine in that way.
      
      Thanks!

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   Sustainable Sueposted 9 years ago

   I should clarify: I have two accounts on HP and I wrote the mermaid hub on my watergeek account, not this one.

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   Hezekiahposted 9 years ago

   I would say lots of keyword research and focus on a niche in a already popular

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      ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hey Hezekiah,
      
      Thanks for your comment Yes I think I'm going to have a good sit down with the Google keywords tool today to create a fuller list and get a better grasp on it all. I'm still mulling over the niche market, it'd be great to find one that's both interesting and that offers low comp key word terms... we shall see

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   GizSleepposted 9 years ago

   I actually posted an article on HP about a year ago and forgot all about it until HP e-mailed me saying it had 1000 views. That was just before Christmas and now it has over 2000 views. Obviously that isn't too many views per day, but it's encouraged me to continue writing. I've read a lot of advice saying more quality articles will lead to more traffic, so I think traffic will most likely increase as you gain a bigger archive. I target long tail keywords when I'm writing as I think this is a good strategy to draw readers. Good luck with your writing!

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      ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hey There GizSleep,
      
      Thanks for your comment, I should imagine that achieving a traffic milestone would certainly boost my motivation too. And I had wondered about the archive thing actually, due to the way Google works, I wondered if establishing a good profile would mean that the hubs are then indexed more often.
      
      Thanks for your feedback!

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         GizSleepposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         My method is basically to target a long tail keyword and (after some research) write an article around it. I definitely think having a bigger archive helps because I believe Google might identify your Hubpage Area as a source of good information, so it's your brand being recognized as much as your hubs. That's just my opinion however as I'm fairly new to this also.

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   bondaposted 9 years ago

   Welcome aboard.  Traffic depends on, depends on, depends on, depends on so many things.  It is a long wait and you need one vitamin p-a-t-i-e-n-c-e.  Laugh out loud (lol)

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   LindaSmith1posted 9 years ago

   I had 79 hubs here.  Most were moved to my own sites a few months ago.  Now, instead of a few hundred views a month, my own sites are getting 150-200 or more per day for each site. I use Wizzley, another platform and again, traffic is bad there too.   
   
   Now I focus on my own sites, which is where the traffic is, where all earnings are mine 100 percent.  So, traffic is better, sales are better using own sites.

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      LongTimeMotherposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I am pleased for you if you are getting more traffic on your own sites, Linda, where you don't need to meet the criteria for successful hubs.
      
      I do note, however, that you continue to make regular visits here to HP ... so perhaps you should at least mention the advantages of the social aspect of being on HP when you try to discourage new hubbers.

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   LindaSmith1posted 9 years ago

   A lot of us who have moved hubs to our own sites with same content, same keywords, same everything are getting better traffic and sales than on HP.  So it has nothing to do with our content.
   
   These content sites, aka content farms, are not fairing well with Google, etc.

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      LongTimeMotherposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      As I said earlier, I am pleased for you if you are getting more traffic, Linda.
      
      However, having seen the content you had here on HP - and watching as you blamed HP for unfeaturing what you considered to be high quality hubs - it was clear you didn't follow HP's guidelines. It made sense, therefore, for you to move your content elsewhere.
      
      Let's not lose perspective here though, Linda. The 150-200 views per day per site you are so excited about is not a particularly good result compared to the views other hubbers receive on their hubs.
      
      One good individual hub can easily attract 200 views a day. The goal of a hubber is to create many hubs that each attract more than 200 views per day.
      
      So, again, I feel it is necessary to encourage new hubbers to follow HP's advice about what is proven to work here on HP instead of just 'giving up'.
      
      There's no doubt that your style of writing didn't work on HP, Linda. You've proven that. But to repeatedly appear on the forums with messages that undermine the confidence of new hubbers - without them knowing the context of your experience (and without the chance to view your style of writing, because you've removed all your hubs) - isn't doing them any favors.
      
      I don't doubt that HP and content written by LindaSmith1 were not a good combination. I accept that without question. However, I know for a fact that there are many, many hubbers who receive a steady and reliable income from HP.
      
      And that has everything to do with their content.

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         ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Hey Guys,
         
         Thanks for your input. I had indeed wondered about how Google was grading HP nowadays, it's something I need to look into I guess but as far as I see their doing everything right now in terms of the Panda update.
         
         I think, on the HP guideline front, that some just find it too restrictive and it's not surprising given the suggestions for word count, videos, polls etc. However I like adding all of those, and I'll await to see the differences between hubs with less and more of these elements in terms of traffic.
         
         Just as an aside... I removed 5 articles from Triond yesterday after 12 days and I realised the site was dead. When would I be 'safe' to pop them on here do you think?
         
         Thanks!

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    Muttfaceposted 9 years ago

    Not sure about Triond's TOS, but there is a de-indexing feature in Google Webmaster Tools. It took me about 24 hours to de-index my articles from a different site.

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       ShelleyHeathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       Hi There,
       
       Excellent, I'll check that out, thanks!

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