Who Reads HubPages? Audience Stats to Increase Your Traffic and Maximize Your Hubs

© 2012 by Aurelio Locsin.

HubPages offers a lot of data on how many page views your individual hubs receive, and plenty of hub advice on how to increase your traffic. But it shows no information on who actually reads hubs. This is a bit puzzling since understanding your audience is the key to writing usable hubs that people want to read.

Third-party websites can supply the missing stats, with the most well-known being Google Analytics. However, using it requires registration and some setting up, which can prove complex to the beginner. A simpler alternative is Alexa, which requires no registration, and provides the information below. Google Analytics can provide data on individual web pages. Alexa only handles domains and not subdomains.

The traffic rank is based on a site’s average daily visitors and page views, with the highest combination going to number one. In the U.S., that honor belongs to Google. HubPages ranks differently depending on the county, with the top three ranks belonging to the following: (The traffic rank is the number after the country.)

1. Philippines: 49
2. Pakistan: 81
3. India: 91

The UK is number six with 186, Australia is seven with 188, the U.S. is nine with 192, and Canada is ten with 209.

TIP: Hubs targeted to countries where HubPages ranks higher will have a greater chance of being seen and read. For example, a general travel hub on visiting Los Angeles can have a spin for India if you include visa information and travel times from the subcontinent.

The left column shows what percentage of hub readers come from what country. For comparison, the right column shows the same information for Google.

Google

1. U.S: 30.6%
2. India: 8.2%
3. China: 3.6%
4. Brazil: 3.1%
5. Japan: 3.1%
6. U.K: 3%
7. Germany: 2.8%
8. Russia: 2.7%
9. Italy: 2.4%
10. Iran: 2.4%

HubPages

1. U.S: 32.9%
2. India: 21.8%
3. U.K: 6.1%
4. Canada: 3.3%
5. Pakistan: 3.1%
6. Philippines: 2.6%
7. Australia: 2.2%
8. Nigeria: 1.4%
9. South Africa: 1.3%
10. Indonesia: 1.1%

TIP: The big surprise is India, though it probably shouldn’t be because it is soon-to-be the most populous country on the planet and speaks the English required to browse hubs. Given the high traffic rank of HubPages in the country, it might be worthwhile targeting hubs to an Indian audience.

The typical hub reader is female, has no children and has some college. She is either aged 18-24 or 65 and over, and makes $30,000 a year or less, though many also make from $30,000 to $100,000. They are most likely Caucasian, African American or Asian. Men, which to many form the typical Internet audience, are underrepresented, and so are those with children or who browse from school or work.

For comparison, Google visitors are almost evenly split among all ages, genders, educations and whether they have children. Students from school use the search engine more than those at home or work, while senior citizens avoid Google. Alexa provides no breakdowns for income or ethnicity for the search engine.

TIP: Given the audience, articles that should do well include budgeting, dating, earning money, fashion, celebrities, travel, crafts and retirement.

The following are the top 10 search queries for January 2012 and change from monthly. The percentage represents the amount of search engine traffic that reaches HubPages due to the search term.

1. profitable business ideas: 0.74%
2. hubpages: 0.45%
3. best infant car seat: 0.18%
4. christmas messages: 0.15%
5. types of computer: 0.13%
6. louis vuitton handbags: 0.13%
7. oau admission list: 0.12%
8. hub pages: 0.12%
9. learning web designing perfectly: 0.12%
10. calculate self employment taxes: 0.12%

TIP: Hubs that cover these topics, especially as keywords, will get better traffic.