Hitting 50,000 views inside 4 months on Hubpages: Stats, earnings and more

Checking on my profile today (25/09/2012), it is now four months since I joined Hubpages. The journey here on Hubpages so far has been sort of a roller-coaster with raise and drop on traffic, earnings and other statistics but what I like most is the robustness of the Hubpages platform.

A word to would be Hubbers or very new Hubbers is that, when I joined Hubpages, I had no prior knowledge in online writing or being a freelance writer. Certainly, my skills in writing have improved but still I feel I have a long way to go. Hubpages is such a wonderful platform for online writing and the community is very helpful especially to beginner Hubbers.

When I hit 10,000 views mark about two months ago, I was elated to receive a beautiful Hubpages 10k accolade for my achievement. This time though I don’t expect to receive any accolade or badge, the reason being Hubpages does not have an accolade for 50k views. Nevertheless, accolade or no accolade, I feel delighted to have achieved this milestone.

I had actually projected to reach the 50,000 views mark in 3 months and I was on target until the beginning of September, 2012 when traffic started falling, I think the drop in traffic hit everyone on Hubpages. Forums attributed this to some Google algorithms updates and migration to the new profile page. Hubpages also introduced the “Idle” and “Featured” statuses around this period that affected the way hubs are indexed on search engines.

These changes affected the average 1,500 daily views I enjoyed as traffic dropped significantly to hit an average low of 300 daily views. Although traffic has been rising steadily lately (now at an average of 700 daily views as of today 25/09/2012), am still yet to reach the level I was before these changes. Consequently, earning also dropped from an average of $2.5 to $0.8 but it is now averaging at $1per day. Here are my stats and figures on reaching 50,000 views mark.

On my short experience here I have noted that there are some continuous activities that a Hubber must do to maintain and improve the performance of hubs. Some of these activities are obvious and you might have heard of them but let us see;

• Reading other Hubbers work, commenting and sharing

Reading other Hubbers articles, commenting and sharing occasionally not only establishes your presence on Hubpages but it also increase hubs traffic and visibility.

Reading other Hubbers work and commenting or sharing may sound like a daunting task but the overall benefits are worthy. Sharing hubs regularly on social media and other sites is also important.

Sites such as Digg, RedGage, Stumbleupon, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, eHow, Pinterest, Blinklist, Reddit, Chime.in, Delicious, Flipora and others are worthy checking. The caution is, do not spam. Submitting your hubs RSS to major search engines like Google, Yahoo search and Bing improves page ranking while having a blog can complement traffic to your hubs.

• Publishing hubs regularly

Writing articles and publishing them regularly is not easy especially if you have a full-time job. It needs passion and dedication. I have found that the more you stick to your plan of writing, the more it become easy writing hubs and publishing them.

My goal when I started was to publish at least one hub every two days. Well, I have maintained this goal and I hope to keep it until that time when I shall be able to publish a hub every day.

• Use of Keywords

Keywords research needs a lot of experience in usage and it takes time to master but once you get used, the gains are noteworthy. I have found use of keywords is one of the best SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies that can significantly improve hubs ranking on search engines, traffic and consequently, earnings. Hubs should be search engines friendly and keywords play a vital role in this.

When I published my 50^th hub, one of my next goals was to make use of keywords in my hubs and although am still on trial and error stage, I have seen some progress on traffic. I have also learnt that, use of proper keywords in the hub title, introduction, body and summary is very important. These keywords can also make up the hub tags. The caution again is, do not stuff your hubs with keywords.

• Hub word count and hub editing

Short hubs are not preferred on Hubpages or by search engines. I have tried much making word count in most of my hubs to be between 600-1200 words. It has not been easy and my trick has been to first do a research of what I want to write about especially on topics that are outside my context.

Editing hubs and making them fresh is another aspect that I have discovered to really improve performance of hubs.

Ever since Hubpages introduced the “Idle” status, it has become very important to edit hubs and make them fresh to be featured and indexed on search engines.

• Proper use of Hubtools

Use of hub capsules will determine the final layout of your hub to readers. Proper use of these capsules is recommended as it determines how appealing will your hubs be to the eyes of readers.

Use of different capsules such as text, photo, link, video, poll, table etc. is useful. It makes the hub to look rich in media, appealing and engaging.

On my experience, I have found that starting the hub with a text capsule with one or two paragraphs and nothing else is very important in placing the Google Ads at the top of the hub. This not only improves ads visibility in your hubs and increase the chances of that ad being clicked but Google also like it when its ads are strategically positioned.

• Writing on a niche

Writing articles around one topic is another strategy that I have been trying to implement among my articles. Although I have not yet developed a complete niche, I have a series of about 45 articles that are written around a single topic. These hubs about Java programming have been a good niche test for me. The articles attract a daily traffic of 10-100 views each and so I can ascertain that writing on a niche works.

Off course, there are many ways that can be used to enhance the performance of hubs than what I have outlined here. I would say the best way to learn about these strategies is through reading what other hubbers have researched, experimented and written about. Another way, though it can be tasking, is to learn through experience because some strategies might work for some but not all.

On reaching the 50,000 views mark, I would like to thank Hubpages for giving me a chance to learn how to be an online writer and publisher. To the Hubpages wonderful community and fellow Hubbers, thank you so much for your support and inspiration. I wish you the best.