How to Write a Hub: A good hubscore starts with caring for your reader

I recently read a hub by Rebecca E that discussed hubscores. She was evaluating and giving advice on strategies on how to make hubs that score well. The advice she gave is awesome and anyone who wants to do well on HP needs to read her hub.

The only reason I am writing this as an addition to her awesome work is that, she mentioned something that I think needs to be expanded on more than even her careful work covered. It has to do with quality of writing, but has nothing to do with grammar and spelling—even though that’s crucial too.

The thing she hits on about quality is “quality content.” But what is quality content? I think there is actually some debate about that. I think some people don’t know what that means. So, as someone who makes almost no money at all on HP, but who has high scoring hubs and who even spends some time in the 100 zone regularly, I’m going to give you advice about how to do well on hubpages without making money. How to get a high score that is NOT monetized, that is NOT back-linked, that is NOT SEO anything at all.

If you take the advice I am about to give you and add it to the advice that Rebecca E gives, and that the marketing guys/gals give, you will be a freaking monster of HubPages. They’ll have to make extra numbers over 100 to score your stuff. So, that said, here goes:

You have to care.

You have to care about what you write. It has to matter. But, it’s not that simple. What it really means is that you have to care about your reader. You have to offer them something of value. There has to be something in it that is genuine.

Seth Godin is a marketing guru and he talks about a thing he calls a "Purple Cow." He's talking about the buying experience for businesses, but I think the idea translates very well, at least in part, to writing. In short, the Purple Cow is the concept that what you do for your customer OR for your reader is to provide an experience that is so unique and cool that they can't help but talk about it later, can't help think about it. The idea being that if you were walking by a field and saw some regular cows, you wouldn't think anything of it. But if there was a purple cow in the field, you'd be telling people later on. You would make a point of saying, "Wow, I saw a purple cow today!"

Writing hubs needs a bit of purple cow. It doesn't matter so much what that is in particular, but it just means that you have to put effort into writing it, try to make it as interesting and memorable as you can. It means you have to care about what you write because you care about giving your reader something good. And it's not just Seth Godin saying it.

I’ve spent the better part of a decade (and thousands of dollars) working on a graduate degree in writing. I have read so many amazing, deep, brilliant, famous, historical writers. I’ve studied them, discussed them, been preached to about them by other brilliant and famous writers. I’ve totally analyzed writing as literature and art.

I’ve also spent twenty some years in sales and marketing. I’m a professional marketing writer. I get sent to seminars and stuff, heard some amazing, charismatic speakers. I read the books. People way smarter than me.

And guess what. The great writers and the great marketers ALL say the same thing. You have to CARE about your reader.

When you write, you have to be honest. You can’t just puke out some crap about some product. You can’t just regurgitate some specs you pulled off their corporate website and call it a hub.

I mean, you can, but, just so you know, if you puke in a bowl and call it pudding, nobody is going to believe you because, even if it looks like pudding, it still stinks.

That’s why crap hubs get crap scores.

You have to care.

It doesn’t even matter what you write. If you care about it, you will get traffic. Here’s a perfect example. I wrote about how the term “bad rap” is spelled “rap” and not “wrap.” I was annoyed one day, had a little grammar spasm, and went to work writing a hub about that totally boring, worthless, non-monetized, lame topic. Who even cares about that topic?

Me. I care. I’m a geek. I like English. So, I wrote it because it mattered to me. I knew I would never make a dime on it. I wrote it because it mattered to me that at least someone, ME, said something about people writing “bad wrap.”

Guess what. I get about 130 views a day on that.

There’s no videos of cool stuff. No linking strategies. No nothing. I just put what mattered on there. Apparently, that mattered. I've had similar luck on hubs about spelling college degree names and even one about lighting an office of all ungodly and boring topics. But they get traffic for some reason, and the only reason I can think of for it is because I believe people can tell I cared about it when I wrote. (It's funny, the bad rap hub actually gets comments of people being all, "Dude, wtf? Why do you care so much about this?" I just smile and approve the comments. They read it, after all. :)

So, yeah. You have to care. You have to be passionate about what you write, like Rebecca E. says. It’s true. If you care, if you pour yourself into it (and then edit and clean it up,… even do your SEO marketing thing after…) it will work. But you have to care when you write it.

You want people to read it, you want them to spend their time (and money) on what you have to say. That’s asking a lot if you think about it. So respect them. And they will show up. So will your hubscore.