How to Get Followers on HubPages

Quite a few people who have just joined HubPages want to know how to get more followers. This question pops up from time to time in the Answers section of HubPages and I find myself writing the same answer frequently. Getting more followers is not difficult but you need to spend some time by participating in the HubPages community.

The short answer is that people want to follow others that they are interested in. If you have written a few high quality articles about subjects that people can relate to then that can be enough to get followers. If you leave helpful comments on hubs of others and you answer their questions in the Answers section then that too can be a reason for following.

At the time of writing I have a little more than 100 followers and I'm still learning how to participate in the HubPages community. I want to do more but I believe I have sufficient experience to tell you how to get more followers on HubPages. In this article I'll tell you the exact steps you need to take to get more followers.

Let us answer this question first. If you have joined HubPages to earn money online and you think getting more followers will help you do that then you are wrong. People on HubPages generally won't click on advertisements or buy things through your hub articles. Your money will come from people who find your hubs through search engines and other websites.

Having more followers is nice as they will be informed of your new hubs. But it really depends on why you are here on HubPages. If you are here for the money then followers are nice but not critical to your success. If you are here to share your writings but not primarily for money then followers are more important (because you want them to read your work).

HubPages showed me a related hub while writing this hub that really discusses the same topic. That hub is written by saleheensblog and I don't wish to detract from his work as I have come to know him as an awesome Hubber. Be sure to check out his hub on getting more followers on HubPages as well!

When you are able to answer the above question, you will know how to get followers on HubPages. There can be many reasons for people to follow you:

• You write useful, funny or plain awesome articles that people are interested in. If I like what you write, I want to see more of your writings. Being a good writer is certainly important on a website that thrives on writing skills and good articles.
  
• You are a helpful member of the HubPages community. You are answering questions in the Answers section, you discuss issues in the Forums and you help new members with any questions they may have. In the Forums people can ask for critique on their hubs or they may need technical help with getting something done, like signing up for Google AdSense or Amazon. If you help them they can sometimes become a follower.
  
• You are experienced in making money online. Many people join HubPages to write articles and to earn money along the way by advertisements and sales through affiliate programs. If you are new then the best way to learn is by looking at how others do it. Many experienced Hubbers also share how they do it by writing hubs about this.

After reading the above you should realize that it will be hard to get followers when you have just joined HubPages. You need to have something to show before people will start following you. The best place to do this is your profile. That's where many people will go to see more about you and I believe this is also where most make the decision on whether to follow you or not (at least I do).

You should tell me a bit more about yourself so I can see who exactly I am following. Your profile needs to show that, for whatever reason, you are "worthy" of following. An empty profile definitely won't help. It is very important that you take these steps to improve your profile. If you don't improve your profile then you are creating an unneccessary roadblock in getting followers on HubPages.

Here are some things you should do to improve your profile:

• Add a profile photo. The default anonymous image does not really look attractive so upload a profile photo. A photo of yourself is nice but you can also choose something else. This makes your profile more human and less anonymous. Your choice of profile picture can tell a lot about you and it helps others in getting an idea of who you are.
• Write about yourself. Tell me more about you. Tell me a few things about yourself that you wish to share. It does not need to be your whole biography but some interests and other background would be nice.
• Earn some accolades. Having some accolades on your profile page looks nice and it shows that you have put some effort into contributing to HubPages. The main problem is that when you have no accolades at all, then you have not even done the basics of writing 10 hubs or answering 10 questions. These are really easy to get and this shows you have made some contributions to the HubPages community. If you follow the steps in the next section of this article, you will get these accolades anyway so don't worry too much about them.
  

Good, you have improved your profile and you are now ready for the next step: getting more followers. This is an ongoing process that turns you from a new Hubber to a successful participant in the HubPages community.

Here is what you need to do repeatedly to get more followers:

• Write quality hubs. This will have great influence on how well you will do on HubPages. If people come to know you as a great writer with high quality articles then you will gain followers easily. If your written work is so so then your following will be similar. Make sure that you know what you are writing about and write clearly. Improve your writing skills and make it interesting enough to read. Go the extra mile by adding photos and giving the article a good layout.
  
• Post comments on other hubs. These comments should genuinely add to the discussion around the hub or they should add to the hub's contents. Just posting that the hub is great won't do much good because that won't make you stand out as a commenter. Write something that you know about the subject or relate it to something that you have experienced. Those comments are really useful and can cause people to click to your profile page.
• Answer questions in the Answers section. Help people by answering their questions in the Answers section of HubPages. There are questions about anything so there must be some questions where you can share your knowledge and experience.
• Participate in forum discussions and help people on the forums. Show your presence in the forums to let people know that you joined. Let us know what you think on certain issues and provide solutions to problems that people post. When you are inexperienced yourself this may be difficult but in the long run this is a good way to gain followers.
• Follow other people. Just clicking the follow link for another Hubber can be enough to get a follower back. Some people reciprocate easily while others are more selective in who they follow. Please don't start following loads and loads of people as that is not good for your HubberScore and there is no point really. If you find a person with hubs that are similar to what you write about then chances are high that they will follow back. After all, you are sharing some interests.

So tell me, how much should I do to get followers? You need to do this all the time! One answer to a question or one helpful comment can be enough to turn someone else into a follower. Simply be active in all areas of HubPages and people will start to notice you. When people notice you they look at your profile and if it appeals to them then they will follow you.

All the above can be summarized as: provide something of value to others. That could be interesting material to read but also useful information when someone needs it. That is how you turn people into followers.

I will now share something that I have seen on profiles of many experienced Hubbers. Once you have reached a particular number of hubs and followers you don't need to spend any time anymore to get followers: people will start following you without effort on your part. They see that you have many followers and many hubs and that alone is enough for them to see more of your work.

If you are known for writing quality articles or for making money on HubPages, people want to see how you are doing that and they follow you. In other words, you have reached a certain "critical mass" of HubPages experience that makes people want to follow you. Even Hubbers who have not contributed to HubPages for many months are still getting followers daily if you look at their profiles.

Look at the profile of Hal Licino for example. He has written an unbelievable number of hubs: 2500 hubs! His last hub even mentions that he has written his last hub but he gains new followers almost daily. He may reconsider his decision and start contributing again but even if he does not contribute again on HubPages his number of followers will keep growing. You don't need to write as many hubs as Hal to achieve this effect - it happens to many experienced Hubbers.

I will conclude this article with some approaches that will rarely if ever get you followers. Even if you do get some followers, your reputation on HubPages will be harmed when people notice the following behaviour.

The following actions are frowned upon by many:

• Asking for followers. Just asking for followers makes you look like a beggar. Usually people who do this have not followed the earlier steps that are needed to get followers: they have not demonstrated that people should follow them so they resort to asking.
• Mass following of others. I touched upon this earlier but you really should not do this. People who do this hope to get followers this way by getting noticed. But people frown upon it when you are following an arbitrary amount of people for no reason other than getting noticed.
• Spamming for the sake of getting noticed. Some people ask questions or create forum threads just to get noticed. That is not a good idea. If you are asking a question in the Asnwers section and I then notice that your recent hub is also about that, then you are just being annoying. What you just did was not a genuine question, not a genuine forum post or not a genuine comment on a hub. People don't like that so don't do it.
  

Others have written helpful articles about how you should comment on hubs and how to participate in the HubPages community. I'm linking to them here so you can continue to learn!

This article was written by Simeon Visser. I am earning money online by writing here at HubPages.com. Would you like to earn money online as well? Read the success stories and sign up today to get started!