The Life Cycle of a Hub

I have been writing for HubPages for a little over a year now. Somehow along the way, I've gotten a little overly sentimental about some of my hubs. We've had some good times together. Some of my hubs have gotten lots of traffic. Some of my hubs have failed miserably. To be honest, I am still not great at determining which hubs will do well.

Sometimes I create a hub I am sure only I will love, but everyone comments and reposts it. Other times, I create a hub I believe the world will welcome with open arms, yet people avoid it like the plague. I all but beg people to have mercy on that hub and visit it, but the best I will get are some "pity visitors." I know only my most loyal followers are reading some of what I write (thank you, by the way).

Lately, I've been thinking about the life cycle of a hub. Some of my hubs continue to grow, just like people do as they get older. Other hubs have become stubborn little hermits and rarely see any visitors. Many of my hubs are drama queens and experience unpredictable ups and downs. It is funny how you never know the type of life your hub will experience when you create it.

In a sense, my hubs are like my children. I try not to play favorites, but I honestly do. Many of my hubs are created with the best of intentions. I will often have ideas floating around in my head and I cannot wait to write them down. The longer I have to wait to actually write my hub (due to my annoying job or personal commitments), the more overwhelmed I feel with ideas by the time I get to it. There are still unwritten hubs bouncing around in my head that have been there for months. Sadly, they may never be written at this point since the original inspiration is gone, but you never know.

When I do write a hub, there are times when I feel like I can't type it all fast enough. Then other times, I can feel midway through the hub that it will not work out, but I force myself to continue on. Quite a few of my hubs spend some of their lives in "hub limbo" if I feel they are "not ready" to be unleashed upon the world yet. Usually if a hub has a low score, even if I feel the hub is great, it is left unpublished until the score goes up. Sometimes, I just revisit a hub for days as if it is in the prenatal unit and I continuously change it, hoping to pump life into it before it is released into the HubPages world. At other times, I write many hubs in one day, but only publish a hub a day so I don't overwhelm my readers.

A newly born hub is just like a baby; one or two babies are cute, but try having a ton of them at once and it is too much. Let me recommend some hub writing advice to anyone reading this: if you only write 5 hubs a week, never publish all on the same day. I learned that the hard way. Publishing 5 hubs in one day is like giving birth to quintuplets. Space it out and your followers will be more likely to read your work. Of course, if you are creating 5 hubs per day everyday, naturally you will want to publish 5 a day. You might also want to take a much needed vacation from HubPages within a month or so.

At first, a hub will see a lot of traffic. The fact is, your hub will hang out in the Hub Hoppers section and many Hubbers will have the chance to read it, vote on it, and comment on it. If you are writing quality hubs, you should expect each new hub to attract at least one new follower each time you publish a hub. It doesn't happen every time, but it should happen most of the time. If you hub is not playing nicely on HubPages, and no one seems terribly interested in your hub, it could be time to edit it and give it another try.

Once again, every hub is different, just like people. Some hubs are going to appeal to a large audience and other hubs will only get attention from certain people. Some hubs that hardly see any traffic will still pull in money because its small audience will click on ads. Other hubs might be the "popular kid" amongst your hubs, but not pull in any money from Adsense or Amazon. You monetary success is not always associated with your popularity.

Another little recommendation from me: write different types of hubs for different reasons. Write hubs for you, write hubs for your followers, but also, write some hubs you believe will actually increase your revenue, too. If you want to write product hub, do it, but make sure you fully understand the product. If you want to get something off your chest, write about it, but write it in a way that others will enjoy. Don't forget, your followers like you for a reason. If someone makes a suggestion, it could be a really good idea. Give it some thought, write a hub about it if you can, and consider it a compliment.

The next hub life cycle stage is what I would consider the adult stage. Playing with the other hubs and having other Hubbers read it is like elementary school. At some point, your hub is going to show up in search engines. If you are interested in making money using HubPages, this is really what you need to strive for with each hub. Now that your hub is off on its own in a cruel internet world, many things can happen to it.

First of all, people can crawl out of the woodwork and mistreat your beautiful hub. Random people will post comments and not all are very kind. People might email you to ask crazy questions. Sometimes people will even consider you an expert in a certain subject matter. I've been asked questions about canaries, hamsters, leggings, Adsense, etc. Try to answer everyone's questions, but don't pretend to be an expert if you are not one.

Second, sometimes you will receive positive feedback. You and your hub can bask in the glory that is being awesome for a while! I wrote a hub about Halloween costumes for the movie Insidious, and the actual costume designer, Kristin M. Burke, contacted me about it. She was honored and shared the link on her own blog. Just remember, you never know who is reading your hubs, so remember to only share what you are willing to tell the entire world.

Last but not least, people will sometimes try to steal your hubs. The leggings hub shown at the top of this hub has been copied and pasted on other sites several times without my permission. It is always a fight getting someone to remove your material and it brings down your ranking in search engines. That poor hub once had about 100 hits a day. Now, I am excited if it even gets 5 visitors in one day. The hub has even had its title changed due to these issues and, sadly, it is not the hub it once was. It has been abused, altered, and tossed to the side by readers. Unfortunately, my leggings hub has lived a tough life full of ups and downs. It has only lived 6 months, but it is wise beyond its age. It once had a high ranking hub score, but that has sunk into the low 80s for a while.

Is there really an end to a hub? For me, not so much. I refuse to unpublish any of my hubs. Each hub means something to me, although I take more pride in some hubs than others. I know there are some people that constantly publish articles, take them down, republish them on other sites, etc. Although I am tempted to do this at times, I have not done so yet. I feel like I create my hubs explicitly for HubPages. I don't want to take one down and see what happens to it on another site. Unless I am told I must take down a hub for some reason, my hubs are sticking around.

If someone steals one of my hubs, my hub will not go down without a fight. It was here first and it will remain the last one standing. If a hub gets a low hub score, so be it. Whatever goes up must come down; I don't kick my hubs when they are down. Once again, my hubs are like my children. They might need some tough love every now and then, but I stand beside them. Each hub is different and each experience is different, but I am not willing to part with any of them.

Copyright ©2012 Jeannieinabottle