My first experience with an Exclusive has been a positive one...

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   Paul Maplesdenposted 11 years ago

   Since I passed the Exclusive threshold Hubber score of 80 recently, I thought I'd try my hand at creating an Exclusive.
   
   Searching around, I typed 'Google' into the 'Exclusive' naming box and got the suggestion - How To Send a Private Message in Google+.
   
   I've been working on the hub on and off for the past few days, submitted in yesterday and it got featured today. It got featured around 8 hours ago so I decided to do some promotion in Google+.
   
   The result: Nearly 200 visits, 57 Google +1s and 20 shares over the last few hours. In fact, for the last seven days, this hub is now my second most popular, despite only having been live for less than half a day!
   
   The message is clearly that exclusives really are worth it, and I would definitely recommend them to people that haven't tried them yet, it seems like a great way to get traffic, so long as you can promote them well.
   
   Thanks HubPages! Exclusives are a great idea.

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      Sophia Angeliqueposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      As far as I can see, you have 8 shares and 11 plusses.
      What am I mising?

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         Paul Maplesdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I posted it in several different communities and it was reshared onwards from the original post. The 57/20 is the cumulative total.

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            Sophia Angeliqueposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Which communities would those be, because they certainly don't show up in a search. Just like to check these things out for myself.

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               Paul Maplesdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Sophia, you had a problem with me posting about stuff before and questioning what I was saying, I don't know why.
               
               I have no idea why you have a problem 'believing' me and needing to check things out, after all what possible reason do I have to not tell the truth?
               
               My purpose for posting about my experiences is to help others and that is all; I hope that my contributions to HubPages are positive.
               
               It is of course up to you if you believe me or not, but if you think I am going to provide chapter and verse 'proving' what I am doing to you, I am afraid you are mistaken.
               
               That is all.

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                  Sophia Angeliqueposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Just saying. I did quite a thorough search and couldn't find all of them - only the one with all the figures I mentioned...

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                  MelissaBarrettposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  If you are happy with what you are doing keep doing it.  I congratulate you on your happiness.
                  
                  I learned a long time ago that anything I did was going to irritate someone.  Then I asked myself if I cared.  Since my answer was no I just ignored the people who I irritated.
                  
                  After all if they choose to raise their own blood pressure and make their own life more unpleasant by being irritated then that's really on them eh? I just don't see any reason to join their self-imposed misery.

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                     Paul Maplesdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Heh, very true!

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                  ktrappposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Paul - I've noticed you around over the last couple weeks and I think you contribute very positively to HubPages and elsewhere. I followed you here and G+ for that reason, in addition to being interested in the business topics you write about. I am considering joining the small business community that you help to moderate on G+, as well. Thanks for sharing your latest Hub experience with us. It's also a testament to the benefits of being a true participant  in a social community with people of similar interests - very encouraging!

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                     Paul Maplesdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     Thanks for your kind words and you'd certainly be welcome on our G+ community.

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               rebekahELLEposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               ???
               
               
               
               I think it's a helpful hub, and well-written.  I gave it a tweet.

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                  Paul Maplesdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks Rebekah, I really appreciate that

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      ronhiposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      wow! and to think i always ignore the suggestions! I have already claimed my title.Hope i will be half as lucky as you Thanks for sharing

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      Sheri Fayeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I am new and would love to know how to promote on google+. Any suggestions? I did an exclusive and it is getting almost no traffic although I do think it is good and I spent days and days researching it. Thanks

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         heidithorneposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Sheri, I've been pretty active on G+, but I have to tell you that my experience there is, well... I don't know exactly how to describe it. I have some great and fun chatter with folks I already know pretty well online. Have met some VERY interesting people, lots of them more tech oriented. But here's the biggest problems I have with it: 1) All the chatter seems to occur on G+, with people commenting on the platform, not on my HP or blog links; and, 2) Traffic from G+ to my blogs or HP is difficult to determine. There is a bunch of traffic on Google Analytics that says "google.com" which means what? It apparently  is not organic search. Rumors swirl about whether Google is cloaking data which, of course, is somebody's conspiracy theory. But I've found that the actual figures that say "plus.google.com" are negligible at best. Yet, everyone is hot to be on G+ because of Search and Google authorship. I will tell you that my biggest social media traffic driver for both my blogs and HP is Twitter.

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            Sheri Fayeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            hmmm...I haven't been very active on google plus. Thanks Hiedi.

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            younghopesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            @heidithorne, would really be happy if you could please explain a bit how you are driving traffic from twitter to HP. i have tried hard but failed to get any response from twitter, though i have been tweeting, following people of similar interests and retweeting their tweets too.

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               heidithorneposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               Hello YoungHopes! I know, Twitter can be frustrating at times. I took a look at your Twitter feed and noticed a few things. I will send you a message with my observations which I hope can help.

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                  younghopesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Thank you so much, i would really appreciate your help

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      heidithorneposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I've done several Exclusives. I've found that they help me come up with some ideas that I may not have considered. Keep up the good work, Paul!

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   Simone Smithposted 11 years ago

   That's so awesome, Paul Maplesden! Congrats on the Hub's success!
   
   You've presented a perfect example of Exclusives being properly used.
   
   1. You chose a topic that is not already extensively covered online (not all Exclusives are like that- it is important to check)
   2. You have expertise on and interest in the subject
   3. You created a well-formatted, attractive, detailed, truly useful Hub.
   
   I'm glad you've shared your story, as I am sure many in our community could learn from it!

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   Gail Meyersposted 11 years ago

   Congratulations, Paul!  I am considering following you, if you can "prove" to me that I should...lol.

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      Paul Maplesdenposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I have nothing to offer but my observations, my Britishness and my love of hats...

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         ajwrites57posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Paul--"hats off" to you--you are an inspiration! Thanks for contributing! I was able to write two exclusives so far and haven't had as much success as you've had. I'm struggling with the the crossplatform backlinking and such...Keep up the good work, Paul! Go Pens!

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         Louise Latelyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Congratulations and thanks for a great example of how to use Exclusives!

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   daydreamsposted 11 years ago

   Lucky you. I wrote a couple of entries with exclusive titles, and can't say there has been any noticeable difference in how well they do compared to any other hubs - I reckon the sort of topic you choose has a lot to do with it though.

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   Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

   Because there has been some confusion on the potential of Exclusives during the months since they were launched, I am posting a paragraph directly from the information AP members (who were still 'in training') were given seven months ago, when those titles were first made available on a beta-testing basis:
   
   *********
   "What are Exclusives? Exclusives are high-potential titles that don’t already exist on HubPages and will be made available to the best Hubbers within our community. Think of them as on-demand versions of the search-friendly titles we provide in the first month of the program"
   *********
   Based on what is stated above, all AP members (everyone in my group, at least) assumed these titles had been vetted and had high-potential in the search engines. There was a subsequent paragraph that mentioned they were still being beta-tested and may have some kinks.  We were not originally told, though, that we should vet the titles in any way.
   
   Because of this - a number of us published quite a few Exclusives titles and then began seeing that they weren't 'taking off' the way thought they might.  Also - because some got practically no traffic, we began checking out whether they were indeed search-friendly, and there were numerous cases (again - the earliest months) of no searches, etc. 
   
   We also were told (as you can see above) that these titles did not exist on HubPages.  It was a new program, though, so there indeed were some kinks. Because we quite naturally entered words (in the hub title box) related to our interests, we were seeing titles almost identical to hubs we had already written. So the idea that the titles didn't exist on HP was another confusion.
   
   Simone is right - now that these issues are known, it's important to check out the search-worthiness of an Exclusives title before claiming it.  Sadly, many of us spent considerable time writing these hubs (again, you can see from the above paragraph that we had a right to think the titles were 'good to go') and finding out they did not always attract the traffic we hoped we'd see.  I probably wrote at least 20 of them - some are doing well, but several are not moving traffic, even after tweaking the titles.
   
   So you can see why some people with experience in writing exclusives titles have mixed feelings.  I think it's a fantastic idea, and whenever the kinks are ironed out, it will be a boon to the site and to the writers here.

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   Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years ago

   By the way as HP staff and the experienced Hubbers here have always said, after the initial surge of traffic any new hub gets, it takes mobths for a hub to get the organic Google traffic we all want. I was amazed the first time it happened. I admit I rarely socially  'promote' my own hubs & should probably do that more often, but I'm also glad to see I'm growing a healthy ratio of Google traffic, and that's what counts. I just got a bit turned off of the social network repetitious posts from some people - literally five hubs (mostly poems) a day, from the same person. And, the months during AP were very intense and many of us became less active on FB or even on this site.

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      Sheri Fayeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Marcy that is good to know it takes months. I am new and got the first surge, and was getting discouraged! Of course patience is not one of my virtues. Thanks

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         Marcy Goodfleischposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Just stick with it, Sheri, and keep writing those great hubs!  I love your topics, and it's great to have you in our family of Hubbers. I felt the same way, when I'd see a burst of new traffic & then . . . nothing!  But good hubs, on good topics, will get traction in Google - suddenly you see a bunch of views, with no comments.  That's Internet traffic from search engines.  Yay!

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      heidithorneposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks, Marcy, for the great insight! As a blogger on my own two sites and contributor on others, I know how the traffic can be frustrating at times. So I'm not too worried about my HP newbie traffic. In fact, I'm kind of impressed with it, considering my niche topic. Appreciate your encouragement for us newbies!

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