Jason Menayan, From San Francisco, 289 Fans, 5 Hubs, Joined 3 years ago
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Simone Smith Interviews Jason Menayan
HubPages insiders share the secrets behind writing Staff Pick, People's Choice, Best, and Grand Prize-Winning Hubs!
Simone: One of our major objectives with each contest has been to teach people how to write better online articles, and what I think is really interesting is how an ideal online article on any given subject can be very different from an ideal printed article on the same subjet. What sorts of features should people keep in mind when writing articles online?
Jason: We've seen Hubs that really assemble the best, most complete information on a subject (even if it's a narrow topic) tend to get the best long-term traffic. I'm not talking about length, but rather comprehensiveness of the information, and putting together a Hub allows you a lot more freedom beyond a printed article.
That means plenty of unique, well-written insights, helpful tables, explanatory pictures and/or videos, a map if it's relevant, etc. -- all of these help make a reader think, "Wow! This really does answer my question beautifully."
We are really careful to read each entry and judge carefully when selecting the Staff Pick winner each day - do you care to elaborate on what we're looking for?
We look for Hubs that truly address the topic at hand thoroughly. There is no magic formula, but presenting all the relevant information and helpful insights (in a Text Capsule), along with other ways to present information alongside it (other Capsules) in a way that reads well and feels complete and comprehensive will make it on our shortlist.
For Personal Finance, judicious use of the Table Capsule is fantastic - it helps relate numerical information beautifully and in a way that a reader will find more credible. Also, making sure your title matches your topic's keywords is absolutely critical to getting long-term search traffic, so it is a criterion we use, as well.
As we review Hubs, we've noticed some common mistakes - typos, moving off topic, bolding the entire Hub, including too many Amazon capsules, etc... What would you say are other common blunders people make when writing Personal Finance Hubs?
Anything that detracts from the focus of your Hub is just a distraction, and should be removed. Videos, feeds, Amazon items, even pictures, that aren't really serving an informational purpose but are just there to "fill up space" should be removed.
I would also make sure the language is easy to read to a reader who doesn't know you, and uses language that would make sense to a reader who is searching on your Hub's topic. Certainly unnecessary boldfacing, all caps, and meandering off the topic would all be things you should avoid.
We chose Personal Finance for this contest's theme because it is currently the most lucrative topic on HubPages - could you explain why Hubbers benefit form branching out to this topic, and do you have any tips for writing entries that will continue to earn an income over time?
There are two important dimensions in terms of making long-term money from your Hubs: traffic and RPM. Most of us are familiar with traffic: the more visitors you have, the better, especially if they're from search engines. But RPM is an important dimension, too - it's the average revenue per 1000 Hub views, and some topics (like Personal Finance!) have a much higher RPM than other topics (like Entertainment, which is among the lowest).
Many people are aware of this, so competition on Personal Finance topics can be fierce - everyone wants to get great ranking! That's why we suggest going after "long-tail" search terms related to finance. Make them very, very specific. You'll probably get a lot more financial traction out of 100 short (but great) Hubs on very specific finance topics, than 10 long and great Hubs on more general finance topics.
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