A Hub Challenge Journal -- 30 Day Challenge or 30 Hubs in Thirty Days
Okay, so I've decided to again attempt the 30 Day Hub
Challenge or the 30 Day Challenge or just Hub Challenge. Whatever it's
called, my first one did not turn out so well. I tried in November,
and with high ambitions of well over thirty hubs, I ended up with a
paltry 12 hubs. It seems that may be more than I would have gotten
written without the challenge, and if that's true, it is certainly a
sad fact. Some of us need external motivators, and the Challenge is
that for me.
Since I am now self employed, it has become apparent that I'm my own
worst employee. This fact is somewhat ironic given that my previous
employment was in management. When you are worrying about keeping
everyone else in line, I suppose you tend to fall right into place, but
left to our own devices some of us are all over the place. It is for
these reasons and more that I am doing the challenge this month of
January 2010.
The purpose of this hub is simple. It will be a journal
of my hubs done for this challenge. I will also document my current
standings in traffic and adsense, although this may be moved to a
different hub later. Right now since this is rather short, though, I
will leave it here for any other challengers to take a look at and
compare their results. I would love to hear from anyone else doing the
challenge.
Day 1 -- My first hub in the Challenge is for Chicken Wings Recipes. There are two recipes there you will most likely enjoy, especially if you want to cut back a little and have baked chicken wings instead of fried. There is also this hub, so that is two for day one.
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 6,915 total views and 51 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 8,426 total views from 5,581 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $44.50.
Marking from day one if this affects my fan/follower base as well, so I am starting with 137 fans(followers). I don't plan to update this number everyday, just beginning and ending.
Day 2 -- Hub #3 for this Challenge is a hub on the Twitter app Hootsuite where I reviewed the features of this neat and user friendly way of keeping up with multiple social networks. It is useful for the casual user as well as powerful enough for business and is an awesome tool for someone who uses social networking in their internet marketing business as well.
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 6,999 total views and 84 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 8,519 total views from 5,651 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $44.50.
Day 3 -- Today was a Sunday. Sundays are very hard for me to get any writing done for various reasons, but guys with wives may have their day. Saturday is still a work day for me, so I suppose all honey-dos get moved over one day. For the last hour or so, I have managed to do some narrowing down of keywords and titles for several upcoming hubs in the challenge, so my productivity wasn't a zero sum today. Tomorrow I shall have a good head start. I aim for 3 - 4 hubs published by this time on day 4. And now for stats:
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 7,060 total views and 61 in the last 24 hours.
Just wanted to comment on the weird traffic lately. Prior to December I had better than 100 page views for any given 24 hour period, but that number fell off a cliff after the first week of Dec. It came back last week to previous levels, and then a couple of days before starting the challenge has dipped again. Although not quite as bad as the December decline, my traffic this week is still off by 40%. Let's hope we get that rectified soon with my new hubs!
My Google Analytics page view stats are 8,590 total views from 5,714 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $44.50.
Same comments are to be made with adsense as I stated regarding page views. Last week I made $11 in adsense, and this week I've made less than $5. Again, I am counting on improved numbers here!
Day 4 I got two hubs done today. I was really shooting for more, but a good chunk of work time was unexpectedly interrupted today. The other two hubs I was working on will be published tomorrow, but I needed to get this update done. I'm trying to be posting at consistent times so the stats are for 24 hours each update. This is my right before bed time usually.
Hub #4 for today was a review of my favorite keyword analysis tool, Market Samurai. If you are willing to spend money on a piece of software that makes zeroing in on the best keywords a very fast and not tedious task, then this is one you want to strongly consider.
Hub#5 was just something I stumbled on today called the Corpus Clock. I really thought it was cool, and so I just put together a hub about it. It is guaranteed to be the most unusual clock you have never heard about.
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 7,173 total views and 108 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 8,686 total views from 5,793 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $45.10. Woohoo, got clicks today...albeit cheap ones.
Day 5 The sixth hub in the challenge is about how to come up with front yard landscaping ideas, which has never been a problem for me. I come up with too many ideas and then indecision paralyzes me. It's hard to resist getting outside and doing something in the yard, though, when the weather is nice. Writing about landscapes and lawns helps me get though the winter, I suppose.
My seventh hub is on tips for interview and preparation. With so many people competing for jobs right now, candidates are going to need all of the help they can get. This hub fits right in with my others on interview questions.
My eighth hub is about a really cool place I visited in Jamaica; a haunted house called Rose Hall. I had taken a ton of pictures, but only a small sampling will be in this hub. It is as much about the story of the White Witch and her ghostly appearances.
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 7,263 total views and 90 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 8,766 total views from 5,859 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $45.95.
Day 6 I had to take a break from hubbing today to work on some other online tasks, so just stats this evening:
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 7,366 total views and 103 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 8,859 total views from 5,921 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $45.96.
I am about an hour early posting these compared to the last several days, so if the Google stats seem to disagree with Hubpages, that would be why.
Day 7 My ninth hub in the Challenge is also a Hub Mob hub. This week's topic is Exercise and Fitness, which is fitting for the first week in January as many people make their New Year resolution to get into shape. With the current economic situation many people cannot afford to spend much money on physical fitness equipment or gym memberships, so they could benefit from a way to build muscle without weights. Of course, if they are not interested in "bulking up" then a simple aerobics regimen would do as much good. Now for today's stats:
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 7,454 total views and 83 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 9,008 total views from 6,005 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $46.21.
Day 12 The tenth hub in the Challenge is another in my Job Help series, and is about phone interview tips. As I am actually posting this on day #22 in the Challenge I do not have the HubPages stats for this day, but the Google Analytics and Adsense follow:
My Google Analytics page view stats are 9,421 total views from 6,340 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $49.59.
Day 18 The eleventh hub for this Challenge is as commercial a hub as I believe I've done. There will be a couple more in this series of hubs that are specific brands, but this one is just about external USB hard drives in general.
Due to unexpected out of town visitors, I did not get much chance to make hubs. I manage a network of sites that are keeping me busy, and all I was able to get done was some articles written or partially researched. This, of course means I am behind severely, but I can make it up.
Again, this is being posted on the 22nd, so no HubPages stats, but I will provide the rest:
My Google Analytics page view stats are 9,968 total views from 6,753 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $51.80.
Day 22 Okay, we are getting up to date. I was able to get three hubs finished today, and have at least three others I will get up over the weekend. Today is Friday. My twelfth hub is on a subject I was already more familiar with due to my wife having trouble with candida yeast and the hub is Treatment for Candida and Symptoms of Candida Overgrowth.
The thirteenth hub is somewhat timely, unfortunately, with the recent earthquake in Haiti, but preparedness is never untimely. In order to survive a natural or man made disaster, it is essential to have supplies stored, and often they need to be portable to make a quick run for the hills. It is for this reason that I recommend putting together some disaster kits just in case.
The fourteenth and final hub today is as much to help me remember as it is to help someone just starting out, but it is The 7 Basic Steps to Successful Internet Affiliate Marketing. This hub shows the steps from start to finish that comprise a successful affiliate marketing campaign online. It does not show techniques of give any theory, but hopefully a newbie will save it and be able to refer back to the simple basics until they are making some actual dinero in their business.
And, finally some stats...the complete view including HubPages. I will ensure this is updated every day until the 31st.
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 8,723 total views and 113 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 10,364 total views from 7,076 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $53.03.
Day 23 It is only going to be stats for today:
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 8,800 total views and 82 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 10,434 total views from 7,135 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $53.68.
Day 24 Finally, I have reached the halfway point! Woohoo! This upcoming week will be a real test, but I do my best work under pressure, so we'll see. Anyone following along, please feel free to send me messages of encouragement or a good swift kick in the pants if you think I need it!
Hub number fifteen is another in the external hard drive series. This one examines one of the biggest players in the industry with this particular product. I have seen many computer peripheral round-ups with Iomega external hard drives coming in at or near the top in most for both value and quality. No doubt they have improved their previously tarnished image, and continue to innovate. Read the hub for more detail.
Stats, stats and more stats...you're just here for the stats aren't you? Here you go:
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 8,886 total views and 87 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 10,540 total views from 7,224 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $53.68.
Day 25 The sixteenth hub in this months Challenge is something that should prove useful for hubbers trying to create hubs that are magnets for organic traffic from the search engines. The question of keywords comes up often, and there are some misunderstandings as to what is good search volume and competition as well as how to use the Google keyword tool to make this process a piece of cake. I decided to show fellow hubbers how I go about finding keywords with my latest hub.
There are some more great hubs in the works, mostly written and partially put together, so tomorrow should see several published. Until then, I leave you with my stats which show some fine improvements in traffic and adsense from the weekend.
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 9,023 total views and 137 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 10,650 total views from 7,311 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $58.21.
Day 26 Three more hubs went up today. This Challenge is going to be down to the wire, but I'm determined to try and finish. Advice to any Challenger reading this, is to keep your pace going. Losing a week has really put the pressure on for this last week, but sometimes the pressure motivates me. Hub number seventeen is about the Bio Orb fish tank, which is to really say biOrb, but I found that several folks are apparently searching for it the other way. Hey, I'm more than happy to give them what they are looking for. :-)
The eighteenth hub is some news everyone could use: How to find deals and online bargains. This is a round-up of some sites that could help you to save a boatload of money so long as you don't just buy more stuff with the leftover cash.
The final and nineteenth hub for today is a short and sweet help guide on getting those who are too intimidated to show how to make your own websites by planning ahead and using Wordpress as the CMS.
And for the traditional end of the journal update, some statty stat stats:
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 9,140 total views and 117 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 10,792 total views from 7,424 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $59.16.
Day 27 Twenty hubs...I now have completed twenty hubs. To tell the truth it feels like I've done a hundred hubs. I don't know what it is. Writing articles at other sites is one thing, but doing it at HubPages and putting the other touches on a hub is hard work. That is for quality hubs. There are a lot of hubs out there that are better than mine and well put together, but I still want to make sure my quality level is kept high during this Challenge. If I were not taking time with SEO, research, and writing quality content, I would have been done already.
So, anyway, rambling now done, my twentieth hub is about a safe smoke and how I quit smoking with electronic cigarettes, also known as e-cigs. I think these things are truly neat, and am grateful for their availability, actually, since I was able to kick a bad habit thanks to them.
Traffic stats are improving slightly over the course of this Challenge, and these are actually a little off from what I saw earlier today when I checked them. Adsense has actually been quite good this week. Let's hope that this is a permanent trend. So, without further adieu, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you....STATS!
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 9,282 total views and 139 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 10,920 total views from 7,529 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $62.70.
Day 28 Hub number twenty one is a collection of Crappy Poetry, and is probably not even worth reading. If you think it sucks, don't say you weren't warned, but I welcome any comments you have on that hub just to see if anyone actually will read it.
My twenty-second hub in the JanHubChallenge is about Lewis Carroll, who penned Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and his use of nonsense as an escape from everyday reality in his real life; not just in the books. Interesting to note that not all of the characters were completely fictional, and several were actually based on real people including Carroll himself.
The twenty-third is a commercial hub on solar landscape lights. Spring is around the corner, especially for those of us in the Southern half of the country, so it's not too early to start thinking about our outdoor landscaping and lighting is a part of that. I've made some good selections of products on that hub as well as given some good information.
I wrote a couple of other hubs, but don't want to publish them yet before I get my fiftieth hub written. I am up to fourty-nine, and I want my fiftieth hub to be one of those milestone hubs that everyone seems to do at that point in their hubbing, so there will be several more hubs published tomorrow. I'm hoping for five or even more, which should put me in striking distance of completing this Challenge which has been an absolute monster for me to manage in addition to a growing number of niche sites and two other secret profiles here on HubPages.
Hub stats are stuck today. I will still publish them, but just know that nothing in them has changed since 10AM on the 28th. It is now almost 3AM on the 29th. Oh well, here are your stats:
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 9,302 total views and 138 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 11,041 total views from 7,629 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $66.73.
Day 29 We are almost there Challengers! What a ride, we've made the final turn and are heading down the home stretch to the finish line. Guess what? There's a very good chance we will make it, and hanging with the pack. That means we win! Okay, late night, sleep deprived delirium notwithstanding, we cranked out four more hubs.
Hub twenty-four in the Challenge is My Fiftieth Hub, and it's a hub commemorating that number in my short time here hubbing. I spent a lot of that hub giving thanks to the hubbers who've helped along the way and my fans.
My twenty-fifth hub is about podcast microphones since just any old cheap microphone won't really get the job done. It will, I suppose, but the quality of sound will be what could be expected from a crappy cheap microphone. This hub gives enough information to make a good choice and not break the bank.
The twenty-sixth hub? Well it's another hub on external storage options. This time it is Western Digital external hard drives that we focus on.
Twenty-seven is a hub giving tips on creating garden design plans. Now is a good time for planning since Spring will be here before we know it. Gardeners and landscapers need to go ahead and prepare for thawing ground that is just asking to be dug up and turned over and given new life.
Okay, finally, before I doze off on my keyboard, here are stats. HubPages stats just came back online after more than a day of no movement, so I'm not sure of the accuracy.
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 9,504 total views and 114 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 11,142 total views from 7,716 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $67.29.
Day 30 We've done it, Challengers! Thirty hubs in thirty days. I have to say, that I almost doubted I would finish at one point, but perseverance paid off in the end. I am totally sapped. Even though I have enough ideas to get my number up to sixty hubs and beyond, I am going to take a break. I'm really looking forward to going back to reading and commenting hubs and, frankly, I'm about burnt on hubbing for a couple of days.
My twenty-eighth hub is all about Tennessee whisky. Yes you can spell it with or without the "e", and the two producers of Tennessee whiskey even don't agree on spelling. Even if you don't drink you should check out how it is made and read the Federal law that specifies what can be called bourbon.
The twenty-ninth hub is about one of my favorite knife makers, the Benchmade Knife Company. I'm partial to their tactical folding style of knife, but some of them are just works of art.
The last, the final, hub number thirty is a commercial hub on Porter-Cable routers. I use several Porter-Cable tools including the routers, and they are almost locally made for me; in TN at least, so I'm supporting local business. It's all good.
And that, ladies and gents, is how you put your head down and get it done. Reflecting back, I am glad I attempted and completed this challenge, but there is no way I could keep the kind of pace I've had for the past four days or so across a whole thirty days like the 100 hubs in 30 days. That is absolutely insane!
Your final dose of stats (actually, I will update and wrap up this whole thing with a final fan count tomorrow):
My page view stats from HubPages right now are 9,638 total views and 134 in the last 24 hours.
My Google Analytics page view stats are 11,269 total views from 7,810 unique visitors.
My Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date are $67.42.
Day 31 and Debriefing, Stats Analysis, and Joviality; Oh my!
Well, my Challenge is over. January has moved on, and I am quite happy with the fact that I somehow pulled it out in the end. It was looking hairy starting the last week, but what a sense of accomplishment I have! Now I will let the Google bots do what they do, and hopefully some of these topics that I researched will begin rising up the SERPS. It is not an overnight process, nor are my expectations unrealistic. This is why I going to keep plugging away with other online projects as well as HubPages (albeit a tad less here temporarily). At this point in time, I plan to come back to this hub in four to eight weeks to see what sort of progress has been made in my traffic and earnings. I am really excited to see how it will turn out. I will write and publish another hub, and may move some of the stats over...not sure exactly yet. This hub is currently 4000 words and counting!
So we started the Challenge with the following baseline stats:
Page view stats from HubPages of 6,915 total views.
Google Analytics page view stats of 8,426 total views from 5,581 unique visitors.
Google Adsense earnings from HubPages of $44.50.
Follower/Fan count of 137.
It had taken three months and twenty-six hubs to achieve those numbers from my hubs prior to publishing my first hub in the JanHubChallenge. So one month and thirty hubs later what happened? Well, I did see my own hubber score go up to 94; the highest it's ever been. Oh, you mean stats? Well here, then.
Final stats for Jeffrey Neal's Thirty Day Challenge:
Page view stats from HubPages of 9,777 total views and 153 in the last 24 hours.
Google Analytics page view stats of 11,371 total views from 7,895 unique visitors.
Google Adsense earnings from HubPages to date $67.43.
Follower/Fan count of 161.
My HubPages page views increased by 2,862 (41%).
My Google Analytics page views increased by 2,945 (35%), and the unique visitor count went up by 2,314 (41%).
Google Adsense earnings added $22.93 (51%).
So, does this show that the Challenge is worth it? Well, if you can't see that it does, perhaps I've failed here somewhere. I will take an average 42% increase for my stats any month of the year I could get it! If you are considering taking the Challenge, do it. I imagine that when I come back and revisit the numbers in a couple of months, that my increases will be surprising from where we started. Definitely a worthwhile effort, I say. Jump in and announce you're taking the Challenge now!
