Creating amazing, focused, hubs the first time. The repercussions of writing a bad hub (to you AND the reader) 1 of 2

Welcome to the Hub focus techniques. This hub is going to show you an amazing concept I created to help me write a focused, concise and informative hub, void of all the opinions, redundancies, and "Fluff".

What I've done here is solved a problem most people who write winded, wordy, and redundant hubs have.

This is an active example hub in that the techniques within it are also what it was created from. Luckily prospect doesnt apply to this hub (as in making you sift through fluff to find the "gold" information *smile*).

I have to admit I think this is only my second hub that wasnt overly-written. But I'd love your opinions about how its written. Constant feedback helps me to hone my technique and to make sure I'm teaching others the most efficient and effective ways to do things. I know the recording technique works well however because this hub is the proof I needed. This hub would have been over 36 pages without the recording technique I explain below, so it is truly an amazing way to go.

Let's take a breif moment to decode the reasons that it's important to write a focused hub. I will go into the lessons I've learned and what I've discovered about my own writing, but purely from a technical standpoint. Once you read the following I hope you have a better grasp about the importance of how you write and how it affects how you post in forums, in emails, and anywhere else.

Learning how to focus is not just about writing amazing articles that people just love to read, it's about self control in all aspects of your life. I'm going to show you in this hub just one of those tricks and will write more on other tactics that also make use of this technique (I'll update this hub with links to those for you so just check back later), inclusing more detailed inforamtion on how to use the tools I describe like audition, youtube with windows movie maker and so forth.

I hope you can learn from both my mistakes and my lessons learned.

Once we get to the reasons its important and what can go drastically wrong if you don't pay attention, then I'll explain step by step the process of focus as I've just realized it. During this evaluation of the pitfalls and reasons its so important you will be exposed to the entire thing, and when you read the step by step instructions near the bottom of this hub, you will not just get a fish, a short cut that may not last, you will be taught how to fish and will be dynamic in your creative endeavors. This is not only a way to learn focus but a way to make your hub both innovative and one that attracts traffic like a magnet!

Credit to the Teachers of the hard lessons

Before I begin I'd like to give credit where credit is due:

This hub is dedicated to the wonderful active members of the HubPages forums for your patience with me and all you taught me. Many of you may never see this but I wanted to dedicate it to you anyway (you know who you are) to show my appreciation for what really counted in our exchange -

The lessons learned.

When we write a wordy or winded article full of opinions, angles and a redundancy, the problem is you're lacking the focus needed to make your "blog" a "hub".

Realize also that how you write in a hub is how you write in a forum when your emotions or ego take you over. If you learn not to be so winded in your writing, and you write every day, you build a habit for keeping your rants short as well. In writing rants, you also give too much space to emotions becoming attached to what you're saying.

The more you write the higher the chances of you making an complete ass of yourself and annoying everyone who isn't even a part of the discussion, or the focus of the rant, along with the person your supposedly trying to "school". When you learn to focus you learn to keep things short thus gaining more emotional control in discussions as well.

I learned this in the Hubpages forum and I'll never forget the importance. Some lessons are harder learned than others, but at least I learned it.

• A blog is where you are allowed to rant and just be personal; it's your chance to tell the world how you feel about something.
• A hub however is an information and income resource and should be void of (for the most part) your personal views. A hub is an article you create to both inform and generate traffic to your page so that people will link back to it, book mark it, and hopefully get you some click-through's.
• Essentially a Hub is writing with rules for success and its function, where as a Blog is more personal. Some blogs are written for earning potential too but those are often specialized sites that utilize the word "Blog" like non wholesale site utilize the term "wholesale goods". Blog being a popular term is often kept to avoid confusion. On Hub Pages "Hub" is used to make a distinction between an income generating and informative article that will get high rankings on a search engine.

A well written hub is both powerfully informative, well written, and has a taste of fun to it. But too much personality takes away from the readers' pleasure in reading your hub. You have to understand that we all have our own experiences and have all developed our own personalities and ideas of how to interpret information.

When you're watching a movie its fine to elaborate on your ideas of what a scene means, but in an article you should keep your personality out, write on enlightening information and allow the reader to take the raw information and integrate its meaning into THEIR personality, so they can associate it better in a more intuitive way. It will do them little good other than entertaining them, to use your opinions to integrate the information their reading on your hub. It can actually have repercussions as you annoy them by polluting your article with too much "fluff" and not enough "stuff".

Also realize that if they read your profile and you described yourself well and accurately, this information will filter through your writing style and hub in a very enlightening way to the reader, that doesn't strip their ability to see the information both your way and their own. Sometimes just reading how you put it (with all information not personality) they will become curious as to who wrote this article so well, and will visit your profile, so be sure and give them a way to sign up there! I noticed that I get 3 times the hits to my profile page as I do to my hubs.. This means people are checking out who I am when they read the hubs, or are reading the hubs after checking out my profile. I think hub members do this a lot since that's where the bulk of unadvertised traffic occurs.

Hub members understand the way we earn our money so its a good thing to get a lot of hub traffic as they ware far more likely to click an ad! So don't insult them with ranting and fluff, they too realize that a good article (more than anyone else) is an informative and concise one!

When people come looking for information they don't want to have to bring a gold miners sifting pan. When they have to sift through the ocean of your opinions and ranting to find a few nuggets they will usually:

• 1. leave not finishing the page (known in analytics as a "Bounce" rate)
• 2. Definitely won't click any ads unless its seen as an escape hatch...
• 3. The bulk of your traffic will become "organic" or just passers by no action.
• 4. Get irritated and tell others NOT to go there as its a frustrating page to read
• 5. Not link back to it or book mark it as a valuable resource
• 6. Never return and potentially never read ANY of your other articles
• 7. Question your education *smile* or wonder if you hit your head prior to writing that.
• 8. Think your egotistical, insulting their intelligence in having to explain every little piece of good information to them, and in several different angles
• 9. Get a headache trying to read it because maybe they persevere became like a "49er" they panned and got one or two nuggets that to them were actually very enlightening and they just have to read more to hopefully find more "gold" but get a headache from it and move on, go elsewhere and even though they found amazing information they will not credit your site or your work to it, they will not tell a friend where they got such information to save them the frustration. In fact will tell them all the nuggets themselves instead of sending them to your page (where by if it was concise they'd of not wasted their time telling them when they can just go there themselves and get the full Monte of your explanation without ranting.)
• 10. The one most people don't think about but fear the most: Read your article, extract only the facts, use them just reworded, and build the article you should have written and had all the potential to write.. and will get ALL of your traffic, because they wrote it right.. Realize their article of your consolidated "facts" and your article of "fluff" will not appear the same, at all, so when they reword your nuggets and use them in one place like you should have, they will get credit for them not you, and wont even look like they copied you. In essence your fluff article becomes YOUR liability and THEIR gain.. you did the work for them.

Record you're ranting instead of first writing it.

This gives you an opportunity/exercise to tune your brain up and focus your mind state before you even type word one. It's an exercise in focus!

This is one of a few techniques that I have developed to help me focus. I like this one the best because of how fun it is, and how interesting it is to actually hear your thoughts while you edit instead of hurting your eyes trying to read every word of what you just wrote (over and over again).

With an extension cord for your headset you can actually walk around, get some exercise and not feel so dam tired at the end of an editing session?

What's interesting to note is how when you're thinking your own mind starts to interrupt your thoughts, or if you get distracted by say an Instant message you could lose your "train of thought". I found myself ranting on and on and lost focus on one track, and discovered instead of trying to wrack my brain to refocus on the topic, I just stopped the recording played the last 3 minutes and aha there I was, then put the curser to the end of the track and continued to rant.. Its very versatile just like writing but a lot more benefactors.

By recording your thoughts in this way actively, your digitally imprinting this "train" onto an audio medium, which has more of an impact and less physical restraints than writing it out. I often talk on the phone to certain intellectuals like my self and we get into some deep discussions about things I end up wanting to hub about but I lose most of the conversation in writing down the first concept.

What I want to do now is record the call on my side only because with one person in particularly she just likes to listen to me ramble. It's kind of a two fold thing actually, with her there I talk with such confidence and esteem, she motivates me with her interest and feedback, she listens and that feels good. It motivates me.

The headset can both hold my cordless phone/cell phone on my head while I talk, and serve to record what I say, so instead of just talking to myself in recording this, I can do it with an audience and its more fun. I can do it easily by myself, but this just helps me focus more on a topic and in teaching others I get a kick out of it.

When you hear yourself read back what you wrote you get every word, you actively with more efficiency filter out the things that you know aren't facts and you can also do other things like make your coffee, or lunch and so on while you're editing!

When you have to read the article to edit it it's not only a bit frustrating but its limiting to what you can do while reading it. Also hurts the eyes. Listening to your recording will never hurt your ears unless you turn it up too much *smile*

You could put it on and if your a multitasker like myself you can I'm people, you can even start the rewrite simultaneously (after second go as I'll explain below).. And you can do house work while you "Brain Storm Edit (B.S.E.)" which is what I'm coining this technique. The beauty is you can think better as you clean your house, work on your car, and make dinner for the kids? You can listen in headphones (so no one has to hear it) or like me blast it through out the house (I'm often here by myself) and do laundry etc.. While you think about the material.

It's completely dynamic and a much more fun way to edit. After listening to the video things start to click in your mind. But then the second step takes this to a much more amazing place....

I don't know if it's been done, probably has, its pretty simple to do, but I've never done it or thought about it so here we are. I don't claim to have invented this process, but it is a great process that I just came up with to help me focus.

I notice that when I record however, I talk pretty fast, and my voice (to me anyway) is a bit high, so I can go back and slow it down a notch to make it deeper and not so speedy gonzolas, in Adobe Audition and amazing program that I also use to record the session.

I also add either back ground music set to make it more interesting, or I add special effects to it to really bring what I'm saying home (final edit not the first). As I have a meditation CD business making music is now second nature especially this kind (backdrop and sound effects) so it will be fun to revisit my old talents and new (writing the right way) and generating a new fun hobbies that I will use to dress up my hubs!

What is audition?

(Audition is a Home recording studio software that most unsigned artists use to make music to hypnosis CD's to high tech applications it's about $300.00 (when I bought it but I see from a Google search now that its only 139.00!!! and better than 1.0) and worth every penny.

You can however get the 30 day demo version (fully functional) at adobe.com or download.com to try this technique out, but sound recorder works sufficiently well.) If your going to want to do this like I will, use it as a tool then publish the 2nd or 3rd draft of the "ranting down to factual focus" tracks (that you later integrate into a Youtube video module with slideshows of pictures) then you will want to invest in this program because the audio quality and control factors are phenomenal. Linkin park (the band) uses this program to mix their music!!

I think I'll make a hub to show people how to use this with no learning curve (basics you'd need just to record and edit your brainstorm track) if I get enough people asking for this in feedbacks/comments.

One of the benefactors of doing editing this way is its impact and innovativeness for your hub pages. It is not only a great way to build your focus and to write concise hubs, but you can add the last Recording for focus (where your the most focused in your recording but still they can feel your character and passion in the way you talk and string together your words which can make them feel more intimate with the message of the hub)

...and that personal touch feels as if a friend just told them this information. But the brilliance of it is if they don't want that its a video/audio file, and they can simply skip it.. Without even having to scroll very far to pass it up! it has the power of a movie, but the convenience of picture placement!

Some people will want to just hear it not read it, their eyes may be tired from surfing and researching and this reading will be a godsend and since it's focused too with a touch of personality. It will be fun to hear and not bog them down.

If they enjoyed your audio styles and found they got just as much out of hearing you read it as reading the page, they may look to see what else you got, if all your pages have this "commentary" on them you may get more visitors with longer stays, cutting bounce rates down and giving them more time to see ads, which may elude them if their eyes are focused on your paragraphs, they could be listening and staring into space and notice an ad they never saw before.. Click.

They could also get excited about what your saying more so than had they read it, then they will scan down your page so be sure to add more to it than is on the video if you go the "unabridged article reading" route. Youtube is extremely popular because it helps people with "researchitis" learn things without having to read.. As you see this work you can go back and edit your commentary with sound effects and music.. This gives them a reason to listen, and you can make it very interesting with just a little bit of creativity!

You also get Youtube traffic to your pages this way.. so I recommend you put half of the articles brilliance in the video and invite them to experience the rest on your page (so you use Google video for the other half and still can put the whole speech on there, and get twice the traffic potential and monetization is next...!

Do you think they will tell a friend about your pages? Hell yes. They will book mark you and become a fan, and always check back and I'm thinking they may even sign up as you've got them excited about this concept not many are using other than in advertising sites (where I saw the idea first I think, in feedback videos.. it works! and could make you stand out on the web versus the same old text articles. It solves your problem and many others!) (Pun)

With the words on the page (as opposed to just publishing the video) Google will see your page as valuable even to those who just watch the video, in fact their extra time on the page will make you look good! The two different link backs to your page can also drive higher rankings!

I would love to hear the authors of hubs reading their articles to us, even verbatim in their own words and with the emotions they wrote it in, it simply feels more personal and yet conserves the impact of the focused information.. And is very interesting.

Some people dint like how they look talking so don't show them video of you, just lace in different pictures of you or just the same one on your profile. I'm going to want them to actually watch the video so for now until I have a way to record video I'll use the many pictures of me so they can get to know me by my different personalities.. I will also use music and stock artwork to bring out what I'm saying. In most cases however you can actually use the same pictures appearing in your article!

This one step can make your hubs substantially more popular as they will become fans since they will relate to you, or bond to your style of talking..

When they hear in your voice how much you really are passionate about what you write it simply lends credibility to your article as not just a fly by night idea. I mentioned a while back that putting such a video in your profile could really personalize you to another person, building a rapport and gaining more loyal readers/fans.

Its a sort of solution for windedness without giving up the opportunity for those who want to hear your entertaining opinion of it.. And their are plenty of benefits to using this idea.. People add other peoples "speeches" to enhance their hubs but rarely realize that if that speech came from them the author of the hub it would be very impactful!

Step 1

• Record the article first, before you ever decide to write anything down/type anything. Don't write down all that jazz, say it into your computer and microphone.. just rant away as if you were talking to a friend.

Step 2

• Do it all over again. Why? The first time unlocked the brains data base, now that the information is all consolidated and at the top of your tongue (for about 24 hours anyway) make a new one with the goal to just stick to the facts.

Step 3

• Save that audio file and import it into windows video maker program (after editing it if you like). After you import the audio file you can now add pictures to go along with it.
• Make sure your putting the pictures in there then the affect then the next picture, if you put all the pictures in there then add the effects later it screws up the time line and the video and audio are off substantially.

Step 4

• Publish (after saving) this to youtube.com and get to work on your article/hub. (or do this step before publishing it, you can just save it for now once the pictures and such are done.)

Step 5

• Now you've gotten your ranting out of the way (twice) and are tired of telling the same story a third time.
• The doing it twice was for two reasons, one to focus down just the facts as the second time you won't want to tell all that stuff again but the facts remain the facts. Your mind will tire of the non-factual details after telling the story twice.
• It's like telling a story at a party the first time you tell it it's full of details, emotions, opinions, and energetic, the second you start omitting the non essential details, then by the third your telling people the bare facts. The mind just tires of the details after a few times!

Why do we rant?

1. Part of the ranting problem is when you get excited about a new idea you want to write about, your TOO excited and need to vent that pent up energy, this helps you stabilize before you start writing to save you tremendous work (in editing) and time (in writing). Even with the recording process you're spending less time and frustration editing.
2. You rant because you're afraid you'll miss something, and often you will, but with this technique you get to string it all out on a recording and you can cherry pick the concepts that work as you listen to it and do other things! It makes the editing process portable!
3. By the second time you won't feel like ranting all crazy when you write the hub, you will want to just get the facts in there and be done with it. This is a great way to do it because you get 1. a focused hub, and 2. you can insert YOUR own voice telling the story with character, however if you don't like your voice the inserting of the video is not required, it was just a tool to help you focus.

Give yourself a time limit when recording. I use 10 minutes because it causes a state of urgency to get it all out in that time frame. The brain will organize things faster and better that count and spend less time feeding you stories to tell.. It also helps you focus because you don't spend too much time idling on a topic. What I do in the second video is make the time constraints more focused. The first one is Ten minutes the second Eight minutes. To help me keep my goal..

Have a wonderful day and good luck hubing! Feedback is always welcome, good or bad.. all feedback helps me write a better hub or improve this one!

Thank you for your time, I hope I helped you.