How 31,000 monthly page views made January 2012 my best hub month ever
© 2012 by Aurelio Locsin.
My profile says that I joined HubPages three years ago. But after my first three hubs received no visitors and no traffic, I quit. I reappeared in May 2011 when my hub writing started in earnest. So technically, my stint here is only eight months old.
Basics
My efforts reached their zenith in January 2012, which rewarded me with my most page views, the most hubs ever written in one month, my highest number of hubs, the most followers, the most comments and my highest earnings. The following tables shows the figures, with some rounding. How do these numbers compare to yours?
January Page Views:
| 31,000
|
Total Page Views:
| 57,000. Note that more than half of my totals came from last month.
|
Number of January Hubs:
| 68
|
Total Hubs:
| 202. Three were marked as duplicated, with one reversed so far.
|
Total Followers:
| 275
|
Total Comments:
| 1,107
|
HubPages Earnings for January:
| $100.83
|
Google Adsense for January:
| $3.01
|
Hubscore:
| 91, with a peak at 96.
|
Highest Score:
| 95, though a few have peaked at 100.
|
Titles
The following is some information about some of my hub titles.
- Most page views: Highest Paid Engineer Jobs in the USA
- Fewest page views: The Big Squeeze: How to Compress and Uncompress Files in Windows 7 to Save Space
- Most commented hub: How My Hub Went from Zero to 3,000 Page Views in Just Under Eight Hours
- Highest scores: Highest Paid Engineer Jobs in the USA and How to Increase Website Traffic without Google
- Lowest hub score for hubs more than a week old: Salaries for Curb Painters
Source
| Ever
|
---|---|
Google
| 12,849
|
Reddit
| 11,205
|
HubPages
| 7,400
|
Alocsin Hubpages
| 4,116
|
Train Board
| 1,869
|
Model Railroad Forums
| 1,171
|
Facebook
| 1,058
|
Google Canada
| 1,052
|
Google UK
| 886
|
Model Train Forum
| 845
|
Yahoo Search
| 702
|
Bing
| 645
|
Google Australia
| 487
|
Kindle Boards
| 416
|
Style Forum
| 331
|
Pinoy Exchange Forum
| 318
|
Google India
| 288
|
Ask
| 243
|
AOL Search
| 237
|
Total from ten other sites
| 1,403
|
Traffic Sources
The table on the right shows traffic sources for all my 57,000 page impressions:
- About half come from just two sources: Google and Reddit. I have no control of Google hits but I do post occasionally on Reddit.
- Facebook supplies a few hits. Aside from my own Facebook page, I also post in a few related Facebook groups.
- I'm not quite sure how to interpret the data from HubPages and Alocsin HubPages: some may come from other hubbers and others from my entering and editing text. If you have any insights into this traffic, please put them in the Comment field blow.
- A sizable amount also comes from forums like Model Railroad, Model Train, Kindle Boards, Style Forum and Pinoy Exchange. I've posted links here.
- Some visitors are also coming from the Google versions in Canada, the UK, Australia and India.
Hubs by Groups
The following chart shows how I've grouped hubs by percentage. My favorite topics are jobs, followed by model railroading and then how to use HubPages. Rounding out the list are tech, travel, finance, health and other topics.
How I Got Here
The following are some of the strategies I use:
- Write a minimum of three hubs a day, every day, although I have written as many as six in a day. My ultimate goal is 5-to-10 hubs a day, five days a week.
- Enhance my hubs through the use of white space, multiple pictures, and titles and subtitles.
- Post hub links in my Facebook page and appropriate Facebook groups.
- Post hub links in related forums, which is discussed in How to Increase Website Traffic without Google
- Post hub links in Reddit, which is discussed in 3,000 Page Views, Posting Links 1, Posting Links 2. But that site also banned me, which is discussed in Avoiding a Ban.
I’ve abandoned the use of Twitter and Digg as time wasters because they do not provide any traffic. I am experimenting with SocialMonkee and have yet to try StumbleUpon.
What about SEO?
Much is made about the use of Search Engine Optimization in increasing hub traffic. My feelings about it are mixed:
- Many of my hubs that use SEO receive excellent traffic and have placed on the front page of Google.
- The same is true for my hubs without SEO: some get good traffic and some don’t.
I’ll continue to use SEO to craft my titles and will continue to experiment with it. But right now, my feeling is that quality writing with useful information seems to trump any kind of aritificial techniques. I’m beginning to think that the so-called SEO pundits are standing on shaky ground. They are the only ones making money from their rules as they peddle their techniques to unsuspecting writers.
Related Hubs
- Going Viral: How I Got 5000 Hub Views in 24 Hours by Utilizing Facebook
A look a how an article on Hub Pages received 5000+ views in 24 hours.