Looking For Feedback on My Hub - Photography Tips for Beginners

1. 96

   eugbugposted 7 years ago

   Can't seem to get much traffic for this hub. Maybe the title's too popular although I've changed it several times. It could be that the topic is just saturated with too much competition. The hub was moved to Feltmagnet on 14th December. When I do a search for the hub's URL, it appears to be have been cached on 18th December. Does this mean it was indexed? When I search for "Photography Tips for Beginners", the hub doesn't appear, even when I reach page 23 of search results.
   
   https://feltmagnet.com/photography/10-T … age-or-Hub
   
   I don't know whether I may post stats, but here they are anyway
   
   

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      LuisEGonzalezposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Keep in mind that you are writing about a saturated topic. My hub which was written in 2011 has gathered over 1000 views but is still far behind other articles posted on more respectable sites and this is what the issue with photography seems to be; we are competing against more authoritative sites.
      This is mine: Photography Tips for Beginners-Know Your Camera
      http://hubpages.com/art/Photo-tips

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      1. 96

         eugbugposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         That's what I thought, but 6 organic and 117 direct visits for 2016 (don't know where they came from) seems to be extremely low. I'm constantly promoting this hub on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, Instagram, Stumbleupon. Empire.Kred  and other sites, so maybe I've been penalized by Google.

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2. 94

   Beth Eaglescliffeposted 7 years ago

   I'm a beginner photographer so here are some random thoughts on your hub ...
   
   I think your tips are great and really informative, but there are a lot of introductory/ background info paragraphs to get through before you get to the numbered tips. Perhaps you could reorder the info so that the tips are at the beginning of the hub.
   
   You could shorten the title to "10 Ways to Take Better Photos" It's not just beginners who need tips on how to take a better picture!
   
   Remove the reference to a "hub" in your opening paragraph. Your target market are unlikely to know what a hub is.

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   1. 96

      eugbugposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Beth. Yes I was thinking that the beginning of the hub was a bit wordy and a lot of material to wade through before getting to the tips, so it could be a turn off. Maybe I could summarise this info at the beginning and give a more detailed explanation later on.
      Mentioning the word "hub" probably is superfluous. I added an explanation, but I take your point, it isn't really needed.

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         Will Apseposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         I reckon it is a very difficult topic to rank for and it will be a few years before you know if it has succeeded or not.
         
         Seems comprehensive, though, and apparently satisfies readers, so you might get there.
         
         An 'on this page' bulleted list summarizing the tips and drawing readers in is a good idea.
         
         If you drop 'take better pictures with a' into google search you get a lot of long tail search phrase suggestions which might give you a quicker result.
         
         eg  take better pictures with a point and shoot, take better pictures with iphone 6 (any phone here), take good pictures of yourself, how to take a good picture of yourself for guys.
         
         The latter may or may not be a suitable topic for you, lol.

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            eugbugposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks for the ideas Will! The bullet list would be helpful to viewers and I need to try different titles to see what works best.

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   2. 92

      Sherry Hewinsposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I like that title. It's not only beginners, and not only photographers. Everybody wants to take better photos! I know I do.

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   Rafiniposted 7 years ago

   As a hubber and a photographer the first thing I noticed when following your link is all the technical information given in the first capsule - to supposedly beginning photographers who most likely have no knowledge of what you're talking about.  I would suggest reorganizing your information into detailed capsules explaining the rudimentary aspects of photography and how knowing about aperture, f-stops, depth of field, etc., will help a beginner to take better photos.  A useful comparison would be for you to write your hub as if you were writing a textbook on photography.  I also noticed a lot of images.  Perhaps too many, it took a long time for the hub to load on my laptop.  Consider the fact that many visitors to your hub may be visiting from a small device such as a cell phone.  If the page takes too long to load, or provides more photos than substance promised, your visitors may be choosing to leave rather than read.  One more suggestion for this two-year-old hub - narrow your focus.  Rather than tips for (all) photographers perhaps you could focus on tips for cell-phone photography.

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   1. 96

      eugbugposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Rafini for the suggestions.
      So the consensus so far is that there is too much detailed technical info at the beginning which could turn readers off. The problem is that to produce technically good photos, a user needs to have a good understanding of exposure/depth of field/freezing motion, all of which are interdependent, so I'll have to find a way of getting that across.

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      1. 82

         Rafiniposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Maybe you could break it down into a series of separate but related (and linked) hubs?

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         1. 96

            eugbugposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            That's a possibility, and rename it "How to use settings on an SLR" or something to that effect.

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4. 94

   Solarasposted 7 years ago

   A change to this title may help - not too much direct competition for the title. "how to create photography to sell photos online"

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   1. 96

      eugbugposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I already have a hub about making money selling photos to microstock sites. However I could rename that.

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5. 87

   Will Apseposted 7 years ago

   Need easy traffic?
   
   Wait until the next major smartphone launches. Let's say it is called the 'Samsung Burn'.
   
   Stage 1
   
   Publish a page titled 'Will You be Able to Take Better Pictures With the Samsung Burn?' a couple of weeks before launch (get in before the competition).
   
   Talk a little about the known spec of the new phone and compare it to past Samsung phones. Add generic info about taking pics with smartphones.
   
   Stage 2
   
   Get hold of the smartphone soon after launch and rewrite the page to be genuinely useful to Burn users.
   
   Retitle it: 'How to Take Better Pictures with the Samsung Burn'
   
   My local Samsung store will let me spend as much time as I like messing with their phones (I've been a good customer and the place is always empty) so that would be easy for me.
   
   Hmm. Maybe, I should do that.

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   1. 96

      eugbugposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Maybe you should Will, that's too much work for me to do!

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      1. 87

         Will Apseposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         I did a whole website for the Motorola Xoom tablet. I pre-ordered the thing. Prepped the site by checking out what articles related to the iPad did well and producing analogues.
         
         Got a lot of traffic briefly, then the Xoom died a death. It was not a great tablet, lol.
         
         That was all a long time ago when I was still learning the trade.

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