I've had this account for 6 weeks now and received 285 views

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   Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years ago

   That may seem low to some, however that is without going to 72 different sites to get backlinks, and very minimal sharing on my part, as I can't share publicly on facebook due to a past.  All in all I think 285 views is actually quite good for just writing and publishing.  What do you think?

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      Mark Knowlesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I would like to bet 99% of those visits originated within hubpages. Not impressed.
      
      Love the name by the way.

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         Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         50% hubpages views, 25% come from my profile and 25% comes from searches. 
         
         Thanks

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            Mark Knowlesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Still not impressed. Searches for what?

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               Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               35 different search terms relating to my topic, I would give exact however I've already had envious people flag my profile for fear that my advice will soon overcome theirs, and I don't need a black hatter attack as that takes weeks to recover from.

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                  Mark Knowlesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  

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                  psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  ROFL

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      relacheposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I think your choice of screen name was less than optimal.

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   psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

   That's about 1 view per hub per day.  Not really good or bad.  I wouldn't count it as impressive.

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      Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      It may not be impressive for someone who might have 100 or more friends on fb, but as for someone who only connects with family or immediate real life friends having a friend list of 30 at most as well as not having backlinks to improve SERP, and not being able to share publicly, I was a bit impressed as I am starting out in a saturated niche to begin with and usually it takes a bit more posting to build up an on line reputation. But at least it's not bad in your eyes, thanks for your opinion.

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         Sapperposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I got my 1000 views at week 10, maybe 11. I only use HP for backlinks, I don't promote it, with a few exceptions. Of the almost 1200 views I have now, only 115 have come from links.
         
         I'd also go with not bad, but really not that good either.

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            Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            The main thing to remember though is niche saturation, both you and psycheskinner write on various niches, some of which have less saturation on the net, where as this account focuses on the SEO niche which we all know is overly saturated, although not all by people with an education in the niche.

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         psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         It isn't impressive full stop.  Any hub on any topic with no promotion at all and no really great keywords will get about that amount.  And there is a contrast between that and calling you account "SEO tactics" IMHO.  It raises expectations.

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            Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Sorry, but your response partly doesn't make sense, and the part that did make sense about any hub on any topic receiving that amount of hits, is not correct. Write on a saturated topic such as removing viruses without antivirus, without promotion, and without a related keyword as your account name, and you may get 1 or 2 hits a week if you're lucky, I know this as fact as my first account I started with an article based on that topic and without promotion or a keyword in my account I was lucky to get 1 -2 hits a week until I started to promote and get backlinks to it.  Saturation does make a huge difference, even with a keyword in the account name.

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               Mark Knowlesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Why ask what people think if you are then going to argue with them?

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                  Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  That comment was not meant to be an argument with them, it's to inform them.

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                     psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Just being honest here, but if you have great information to share, you hubs would be doing better.  The proof is in the traffic.

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                     Mark Knowlesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     LOL
                     
                     Sadly you are wrong so it is just an argument.

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               Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               So now I give those who disagree about saturation a chance to prove me wrong... Create an account that focuses only on a highly saturated niche without the use of a keyword in your account name, and let me know how your traffic is.

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                  Greekgeekposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Traffic on my video games account this week: 4817.
                  Zero social promotion. In fact, I keep that one under a pen name which is a made-up word, and don't let people know it's my account, because I use that account only to test my SEO skills and don't want social factors such as online reputation muddying my experiments.
                  And I consider that number low. I'm an SEO journeyman, and wouldn't call myself an expert, only experienced.
                  
                  (As in, I've been interested in search engines since the days of Archie and Veronica.)

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                  Greekgeekposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks for a fun challenge. I decided to take you up on it.
                  
                  You've mentioned various parameters throughout the thread:
                  "285 views in six weeks...without going to 72 different sites to get backlinks, and very minimal sharing on my part, as I can't share publicly on facebook"
                  "50% hubpages views, 25% come from my profile and 25% comes from searches. "
                  "as for someone who only connects with family or immediate real life friends having a friend list of 30 at most as well as not having backlinks to improve SERP, and not being able to share publicly, I was a bit impressed as I am starting out in a saturated niche"
                  "Write on a saturated topic ....without promotion, and without a related keyword as your account name, and you may get 1 or 2 hits a week if you're lucky."
                  
                  
                  I kept all of the above in mind, but my primary goal was to follow the challenge you set:
                  "Create an account that focuses only on a highly saturated niche without the use of a keyword in your account name, and let me know how your traffic is."
                  
                  I realized after I'd published seven hubs that you only have five, so I stopped there, although you hadn't mentioned a "number of pages" limit in the challenge.
                  
                  First hub written: Nov 28, but it was held in moderation and not featured until Nov 30. Last hub published: Dec 5.
                  First hub crawled by Google on Dec 1, last three hubs crawled Dec 6.
                  285 views reached: Dec 12, 13 days after first hub went live.
                  
                  "Stats" on dashboard as of this evening (12/12/12 9:30 PM PST):
                  
                  
                  "Traffic sources" on dashboard:
                  
                  That only shows top sources; there were also a few Bing hits plus visits from various parts of Hubpages (see below).
                  
                  So, here's what I did.
                  
                  Saturated Niche:
                  For my saturated niche, I chose the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Ever since the first batch of films, the web's been flooded with Lord of the Rings fansites, official websites, news articles, blogs, gifts and forums. The media/fan frenzy has been building for the past two years leading up to the new films. Every day, thousands if not millions of new articles are being written in this niche.
                  
                  Username:
                  I started a new hubpages account with a username that was a made-up nonsense word from one of Tolkien's invented languages. The word is not in the movies, it's not a popular search according to the Google Keywords Tool, and Google has no idea that the word is related to my niche, as you can see from the "Related Searches" it spits out:
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  Promotion (or lack of):
                  I did not share my niche hubs on any social networks (in fact, I don't have a FaceBook account). I mentioned in the Hubchallenges subforum that I was starting a challenge, so as to log the date when I began the challenge, but I kept the username secret so as to keep followers of my "Greekgeek" account from finding the new account and skewing the numbers.
                  
                  I did zero backlinking until two days ago, when I added links to my hubs from one PR2 page of an old web 1.0 website (istad.org) I wrote over ten years ago. By the time I added those links, the hubs were already getting search traffic.
                  
                  I found that despite lack of promotion, my new hubs picked up 8 followers and many random pageviews from Hubpages' "latest news" feed and from "related hubs," other, competing hubs in the same category. It is surprisingly difficult to stop Hubpage users from finding your new hubs, even if you don't advertise them!
                  
                  285 pageviews in two weeks is not anything to boast about, and the search traffic is just starting. Nevertheless, it does demonstrate that it's possible to get more than "1 to 2 hits a week...on a highly saturated niche without promotion, and without a related keyword in your account name."  Normally, I would also use Twitter hashtags (a form of SEO) to draw in strangers interested in the topic, and I'd take the time to cross-links from my related articles on other websites to give these pages a leg up. But you had stipulated that we avoid promotion.
                  
                  SEO used for this challenge:
                  
                  --Two hub titles were based on keyword research (checking out popular related search queries and competition).
                  --Two hub titles were not based on keyword research, but had specific names or phrases in them, so somebody might search them.
                  --The other three simply had titles appropriate to the hub content, with no attempt to optimize the title for search.
                  
                  I specialize in loose, fuzzy on-page optimization using semantically related words.
                  
                  I don't use any formulas or research to pick particular terms or phrases. Rather, I try to be specific in my language, talking about Who, What and Where, the sorts of things my readers are interested in. I stay focused on my niche instead of wandering off on unrelated topics. Instead of trying to target any one keyword phrase -- which could fall flat if I've underestimated the competition -- I simply try to keep in mind what sorts of things real readers might search for that are related to my topic. As a result, rather than getting search traffic focused on one or two keywords, I get search traffic scattered over many niche-related words, phrases and questions that I didn't anticipate.
                  
                  Hubpages also gives us an SEO boost in the form of relevant, related content in categories and on related hubs that already exist on the site and draw search traffic to the site. So I check to make sure the related hubs at the bottom make sense, since links on my hub to them also means links from related pages to my hubs. Also, I employed Hubpages groups, to get a little bit of link flow between my related hubs.
                  
                  
                  ===
                  
                  Again, thanks for the challenge.
                  
                  I'll post again when I've got 71 search visits, to see how long that takes (since you said 25% of your visits came from search, and 25% of 285=71).

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                     mathomposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     And we're done. 75 search queries since Nov 30, out of 620 total page views, although nearly 200 of those views come from a single hub that made Hub of the Day yesterday (HP must've been casting about for a competent Hobbit hub to coincide with the movie premier).
                     
                     Interesting challenge.

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                     Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Right on, that is really cool and great to hear, and glad you took me up on the challenge.  That's the main reason why I started this forum, because I wanted to give a challenge to the writers here and maybe elsewhere, to kind of bring a new spark to writing here.

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               psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               It's plenty correct based on having written a bunch of hubs under a bunch of accounts on a bunch of topics.  Data beats theory.
               
               I am sure it is possible to get even less hits with even poorer hubs, but this is IMHO beside the point. I was assuming hubs of decent length in correct English.

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                  Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  It seems to me your statement is accusing me of having poorly written hubs that are short in length, which is not the case. All my articles are at least 1000 words or more and always in correct English, to the best of my ability.
                  
                  So you have an account that focuses on a highly saturated topic, and you have data to back up that it is highly saturated, but with no promotion still receives 1 hit a day?  If so it is only due to the keywords you have used in your URLs and content that have low competition.  As in a highly saturated topic, that is the only way you can get any hits without promotion, well as long as you are publishing on a website that you don't own anyway.

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                     psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     May statement does no such thing.  It describes you as having average to unimpressive traffic for a competent writer doing no promotion.  Dead average.
                     
                     How saturated your topic is, is entirely your problem.  Maybe you should write on a different topic.

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                        Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        Thank you for clarifying that, and sorry I misunderstood your statement.  Yes you are right how saturated my topic is, is my problem, however I chose it as one of my many because with my background in website design and development I felt I could provide a bit more help on the subject then what I've seen out there.  I've only covered a tiny bit thus far, but I do have much to offer.

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               Greekgeekposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               If you're having to rely on a keyword in your account name to get search traffic, you need to learn more about SEO. There are plenty of other on-page factors which don't involve subdomain, the backlinking hamster wheel or posts on social media sites which Google can't even crawl.
               
               The fact that you assume the other people in this thread are getting their traffic from Facebook or through friends also speaks volumes.
               
               I mean, come on. We've been talking about upswings in Google traffic for the past week, and you're saying we're getting that traffic through Aunt Molly and some school chum on Facebook? Use a little deductive reasoning before putting your foot in your mouth.

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                  Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Greekgeek you misunderstood what I have said, and then you try to belittle me with the misunderstanding, I created this forum to get an idea on how my SEO techniques are working based on results from hubbers who are in the same boat as I am, meaning a highly saturated topic without public promotion.
                  
                  I do not assume that other people are getting their traffic only from their friends, nor do I rely on just a keyword in my sub-domain to bring my readers.  I am after all, a website programmer as well as a content writer, however on HubPages there is only so much SEO you can do.

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   gaganbhatiaposted 11 years ago

   I know many hubbers who do not use many backlinks & just post some good hubs. There views are much higher than yours. So sorry, 285 is just not good.

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      SarahLynnBposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I agree, that is an average of 7 views per day. You should be receiving more traffic than that.

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      Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm sorry, but I cannot base whether 285 is bad or good on other hubbers you see that get more hits as I cannot confirm whether they use many backlinks or not, I also have no idea how big of an audience they have on facebook or other social networking sites that they share  their work on, nor can I confirm that the topics they write on are highly saturated. I ask for other hubbers opinion based on their personal experience to compare.

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         Sapperposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         You got your answer, then proceeded to argue with everyone over the answer they gave. Despite how great you think it is, and any reasons you give for thinking its great, it's not.

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            Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Only because I'm trying to compare to actual data not data that I assume.

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               Mark Knowlesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I take it you don't do this for a living?

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         psycheskinnerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Bad or good is implicitly relative.  Those who get more traffic that then the average a good.  Those who get a lot more are excellent.  Those that don't, are not.  Content writing is brutal like that.  You don't get a trophy just for turning up.

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   Uninvited Writerposted 11 years ago

   I have one hub that consistently gets about 200 views a day. I promoted it on Twitter and Facebook only. It gets 99% of its hits directly from Google.

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      Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      That's really great you get 200 views, and the fact that you didn't do any backlinking is impressive. The article I wrote about removing viruses was receiving views like that until my past caught up with me and blocked my site from the search engines several times.  I had only promoted it through facebook and twitter, and it's traffic came 99% from the search engines.

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   psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

   Most of the SEO you can do on your own page, you can also do on Hubpages.
   
   Also, no one has insulted or belittled you.  They just haven't given you the praise you seem to expect,

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      Page1 SEO tacticsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yes probably about 85% but that other 15% of SEO that you can only do to your own website can make quite a difference. I don't expect praise as most people do, however I do expect people to treat others as they would want to be treated, and when there is a misunderstanding maybe instead of implying that the person doesn't know something, say something along the line of maybe I misunderstood your comment , but I understand your comment to mean that you assume all traffic is coming from social sharing. We don't have to belittle people and tell them they don't know something, when possibly it is us with the misunderstanding.

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   Mark Ewbieposted 11 years ago

   I thought the idea behind this stuff was to post on here saying "I made a million views in eight weeks - want to know my secret".

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      NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      lol

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      Kangaroo_Jaseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Tell 'em the price Mark!

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   Alphadogg16posted 11 years ago

   I like Mark Ewbie's idea, when you have a million views, then you can blow your own horn. No one is belittling you, you asked for opinions and you got it. No matter how you look at it, 285 views in 6 weeks is not impressive. I agree with Psycheskinner, you seem to want praise, a cookie, or a hug, & your getting defensive and argumentative because your not getting the answers you want

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      Sapperposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Now I kinda want a cookie

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   viryaboposted 11 years ago

   Thanks for that link GG. Never heard of that (semantically related words) before. Its really good to know.

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   sparkleyfingerposted 11 years ago

   I'm currently on week 6 on hubpages. I haven't really shared it anywhere. A couple of pins to pinterest, but that's all. I'm first page on a few search terms and I haven't really been trying, just been writing on topics I like talking about. Iv had 700 views so far, and I'm up to about 30-50 views per day, although my recent rising star award may account for that...I don't know many of the terms ppl are throwing around... But if your happy with your views, then that's all that matters!

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    sparkleyfingerposted 11 years ago

    I'm currently on week 6 on hubpages. I haven't really shared it anywhere. A couple of pins to pinterest, but that's all. I'm first page on a few search terms and I haven't really been trying, just been writing on topics I like talking about. Iv had 700 views so far, and I'm up to about 30-50 views per day, although my recent rising star award may account for that...I don't know many of the terms ppl are throwing around... But if your happy with your views, then that's all that matters!

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    Greekgeekposted 11 years ago

    Congrats! Good to see.
    
    Well, it suggests that the rumors of Hubpages' traffic demise are somewhat exaggerated, although no less exasperating to those who have experienced a drop.

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       sparkleyfingerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks! Yeah I have heard some grumbles about page views, but I haven't noticed. I probably haven't been here to see the "norm" long enough!

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