Well, Since Everyone Else Is Doing It...Review My First Hubs, Please.

1. 75

   Butch Toolposted 9 years ago

   I have two hubs up so far. I am not entirely sure what a great ranking would be considering that they are quite new, but they are both above 60. Is this pretty good for newly established hubs? I would appreciate any feedback on my work and what can be done to improve for the future, as well as information regarding what scores towards which I should be aiming. Is that last sentence grammatically sound? It is too late, and I need to hit the hay before my brain completely gives out on me. I give you all thanks in advance, though, and I look forward to reading responses in the morning. Good night.
   
   http://butchtool.hubpages.com/hub/Why-C … rate-Gifts
   
   http://butchtool.hubpages.com/hub/Corpo … nd-Forever
   
   P.S. I intentionally used "bestest" in that hub to add a cuteness factor and add interest while experimenting with search traffic and results for "bestest friend". Do you advise that I put such terms in quotes in the future, or is that practice too distracting for readers? How would quoting a misspelling (if intentionally used) potentially affect keywords for SEO purposes? I debated about whether to do that or not when I wrote the hub.

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2. 85

   easylearningwebposted 9 years ago

   Greetings,
   
   I looked at your 2 hubs, it's a good start. I want to help other writers succeed so I will give you a review:
   
   1. Both of your Hubs are unique but they are kind of similar. They do offer good advice for people working in the corporate world looking for unique gifts.
   
   2. It would be good to add a picture at the very beginning, something colorful to catch readers eyes.
   
   3. Be careful not to put too many ads either Amazon or Ebay. I try to avoid these and they have not worked for me.
   
   4. Try to break up the paragraphs a bit more with some catchy titles.
   
   5. Idea for another related hub: how to make your own gift basket.
   
   6. Content is king and pictures too! Don't worry too much about scores, just write from the heart, things you know about.
   
   Hopen that helps! Good luck to you.

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   1. 75

      Butch Toolposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for the great advice. I know these two topics were fairly similar. In large part, that is because I wanted to test how using slightly different keywords may affect the traffic vs. the metrics I found during my keyword research. I am in an experimental stage for now in trying to better learn SEO.
      
      I think learning to break everything up more and make it look nicer is great advice too. I do tend to write huge blocks of text. I will have to work on that.

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      1. 85

         easylearningwebposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Sounds like a good plan. Glad my advice helped. The other thing you might find helpful, is to take a look at other hubs, to get an idea of style and popularity too. You are welcome to take a look at any or all of my hubs to compare. ;-)

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         1. 75

            Butch Toolposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Just read some of your hubs about the 30 hubs in 30 days challenge and increasing brain power. I definitely see a stark contrast between my blocks of text and your easier to scan information. When I am writing, I think I am still fighting my original writing courses. I remember when a paragraph with a measly three sentences would have been considered really weak and poorly graded. Now, it seems like three sentences is almost the max anyone wants to read in a given chunk. Times sure do change.

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            1. 85

               easylearningwebposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               You might be thinking about traditional writing, like in a book or newspaper, but online, it is different, especially for articles. I think the trick is to present information in a pleasing, easy to read format, in small pieces, with emphasis on formatting that looks nice, and images or photos that compliment the content. If paragraphs are too long, I think readers get bored or distracted, plus everyone is in a big hurry, so it has to be formatted in such a way that is both interesting, and visually appealing.
               
               Hope that helps.

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               1. 75

                  Butch Toolposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Yeah, I think our culture getting media overload to an extent has led to everyone having much shorter attention spans than they used to. Seems crazy that someone can get bored going through what was once a standard block paragraph, but I know you are right. Do you think I should edit these hubs now or just implement better formatting in the future? I am concerned about how editing will affect my hubscore and featured status.

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3. 96

   susi10posted 9 years ago

   Great job! Here are a few things you need to do to your first hub:
   1) Add at least three images. Get free images from morguefile.com, freedigitalphotos.net, pixabay.com, unsplash.com, Wikimedia Commons and many more. I wrote a hub on it.
   2) Break up the paragraphs, it's very difficult to read large blocks of text. Also, format the text with bold, italics, headings, bullet points and lists. It can be difficult to read that mass of text all at once, so make sure to break it up a little.
   
   You're on the right path anyway. The content is there, all you need to do is spruce it up with some images, formatting, snazzy heading names and smaller paragraphs.
   
   Looking forward to seeing it refurbished!

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   1. 75

      Butch Toolposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for your advice. I actually did add images to my posts, but I realize now that it was a mistake to cram them at the bottom of the page (almost all the way at the bottom on one of my hubs). I definitely am realizing that the text needs to be spaced out a bit more, and the images should probably fall naturally next to the smaller chunks of text. I have to work towards keeping the aesthetics in mind more.

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4. 72

   relacheposted 9 years ago

   The language does not flow organically when read aloud.  Too many keyword phrases leap out in places where the entire phrase would not be restated by a person speaking to another.
   
   In short, some of your keyword stuffing is showing.

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   1. 79

      Sed-meposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      A good Spanx will fix that right up for ya.

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      1. 75

         Butch Toolposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         LOL. Nice.

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   2. 75

      Butch Toolposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I definitely did try to optimize for SEO (these articles are part of my experimentation phase for researching and applying keywords), but did it really feel like keyword stuffing? I don't believe the keyword density even really passed 2% given the long length of the article. I thought something wasn't considered keyword stuffing until it was like 10% keywords vs other content. Does anyone else have an opinion on this aspect?

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      1. 72

         relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I have always striven for a natural language sound/flow over maxing out my percentages,

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         1. 75

            Butch Toolposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I had imagined that it really depends on the topic and how much of the traffic is being driven by your reputation and social connections vs. search traffic. Since I am new and not much of a social butterfly, I assumed that I would need to do the whole SEO route and have a strong showing of keywords to start out. I mean, my first experimental hubs are about corporate gift baskets for various uses. I'm not sure there is that much of a natural way to phrase a lot of long-tail keywords for this topic, especially given that you are also supposed to use some semantic variations and related terms in the text. Do you use these sorts of strategies at all, or do you solely write more social based topics? Was it the same when you started out and didn't have a high rating?

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      2. 85

         psycheskinnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Stuffing is not a percentage, it is when the keywords are noticeably stuffed in just because you want them to be there and not organically part of the prose.

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         1. 75

            Butch Toolposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I certainly do want to make the reader experience better. However, as a new user without much of a reputation or status, I don't see much choice other than including keywords in my topic. Specifically, lower competition long-tail keywords. I am still new and have a lot to learn, but I am unsure how anyone can fit in 3-4 repetitions of a 2-5 word long-tail term and still make it read naturally. Not to mention that I've also been reading that you need to put in at least a couple repetitions of related keywords, also. It is a lot to fit in, unfortunately. I guess I have to really cultivate my skill in learning to fit them in "naturally" while still getting them in the title, header, first paragraph, and other important locations for SEO. Are there any good resources you know to help with this?

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5. 75

   Butch Toolposted 9 years ago

   I acted on a lot of the great advice here and changed my first hub page. I would really appreciate it if you guys could give it another look and let me know if I'm on the right track. I started a new thread for comments on that hub in particular after the edit.

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