One Long Hub or Several Short Hubs on the Same Topic?

1. 89

   Billie Kelpinposted 9 years ago

   Is it better to make one large hub that covers all aspects of your topic or to separate those several aspects on a topic into two or three hubs.  I'm wondering how this plays out in terms of each of the following:
   Reader Interest and attention span
   HubScore
   Editor's Choice possibility
   Number of readers
   
   Maybe making text images as a slide show would work or how about a PowerPoint Presentation inside a hub.  I wonder if that's possible.  I know I could link to an outside presentation, but don't want to waste my outside links. 
   
   How do you handle large amounts of information on a topic. 
   
   Thanks all.
   
   Cheers,
   
   Billie

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   1. 0

      calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      How long would the hub be (number of words) if you presented all the information in a single hub?

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      1. 89

         Billie Kelpinposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Ah Ha! someone with the name Calculus-Geometry WOULD make me look at the most logical aspect - the number of words !  I have about 780 now and could probably double that or at least at 300 more.  Too long?

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         1. 81

            sallybeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            In my humble opinion, just right.

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         2. 0

            calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            That's a good length, no need to break it up. I thought you were going to say 7000 words or something.

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   2. 36

      Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Search engines like comprehensive answers.  I'd go with making one long Hub.  Some of my best Hubs for traffic are over 7,000 words.

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   3. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      As WF says, search engines like comprehensive answers, but I'm not sure whether that means you MUST put the whole answer in one Hub.   We had another internet guru here called Sunforged (he's gone on to bigger and better things now) -- he did some experiments and he felt that writing a series of interlinked Hubs did just as well, if not better than, one very long Hub. 
      
      The trick is to use a Table of Contents and make the interlinking between the Hubs clear, and to make each Hub work as a stand-alone as well as being part of the series (i.e. don't just start writing and say "next I'll talk about..." - look at your subject and work out how you can make each Hub cover a different aspect).

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      1. 36

         Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         He's still on this site; he just hasn't updated anything in two years and is down to 61 featured Hubs.  The advice you are referencing was from before the first Panda hit in 2 011.  It doesn't relate to today's reality.

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   4. 95

      UnnamedHaraldposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      You might also consider the "NEED SOME GOALS" graphic that appears in the upper right when editing your hub. It graphically shows that the longer the hub the more traffic it might attract. It's just a guideline of course, and no guarantee. I'd just say this: if your hub is well-written and, say 1200 words, the word count is likely in your favor.

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2. 60

   Gia Moroeposted 9 years ago

   Keeping it in seems like a good length to me. 780 seems a tad short.

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   1. 80

      Marcy Goodfleischposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I agree with Gia, as well as the other good tips here.  780 is short, and as Joshua (sunforged) points out, more comprehensive content gets more of Google's attention. 
      
      Joshua - good to see you!  We miss you!

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3. 67

   seraphicposted 9 years ago

   I seem to average 1800 words per article now... is that too long?

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4. 84

   FatFreddysCatposted 9 years ago

   I just published one today that was 1500 words and change, which appears to be about the norm for me.

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5. 72

   LeanManposted 9 years ago

   I write interlinked hubs on a subject; but then individual hubs are typically 1500+ words in length also. A significant number of my page views come from people that click from one hub on a subject to another. Each hub tends to have traffic that is attracted by its own set of keywords.
   
   So I would say break a subject up; but only if it is going to be going into the several thousands of words - a hub of only 1000-1500 words is not worth splitting up.

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6. 77

   CuAllaidhposted 9 years ago

   More than anything it depends on your subject. I write a series of medieval game related hubs, they are related and I have kind of a table of contents type hub which link them all, but they are separate. Then I have several that I wrote as one long subject because it was a subject that worked better as a long artticle vs. a bunch of small articles. Examine your topic, is it logical to split it up into smaller topics or to write one longer one. As others have stated though a hub is only long once it goes over 1500 words, less than that and it's fairly short.

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7. 75

   sunforgedposted 9 years ago

   I don't feel this type of question is specific to Hubpages.
   
   
   If you look into studies (or your own data) on content length as it effects SERP's - you will often see reports along the line of when analyzing top ten results we found that pages with 1500+, 2450+ words consistently held top positions.
   
   
   
   More words, more opportunities for long tails, more food for the search engines to feed off.
   
   
   I did/do - appreciate a method of utilizing multiple pieces of relevant copy and linking them together, but the reasoning was more than strict ranking, it is also a collection tool.
   
   My primary headlines/titles are likely to dominate why/what I rank for, so I will take a similar piece of subject matter and write variations, different voices, keyword focus, reading level, perhaps a bit antagonistic, one a bit encyclopedic - whatever.
   
   This creates a net that helps me discover terms that are performing well or have lesser competition that I may have not discovered through keyword research but are usually easy to develop since I'm already familiar with the subject matter. In fact, I find that part to be fun.
   
   I don't know how current HubMetrics are influenced or of what value they have to performing in the wild or making an income,
   
   But these terms taken at face value:
   
   Reader Interest and attention span
   
   Web readers are always scanners, we usually find that the format of the text influences how long they choose to read over length eg "avoid wall of text" which is something the Hub format diverts most people from doing anyway
   
   HubScore
   
   Internal metric - no comment
   
   Editor's Choice possibility
   
   Internal metric - no comment
   
   Number of readers
   
   Multiple pieces of content provide multiple funnel openings, quantity will eventually win out as long as your minimum standards are still better than most.
   
   @Writer Fox - I'm not still around, just have old alerts in place that bring me back from time to time, I think its been at least a year.
   
   Hi everyone!

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   1. 97

      viryaboposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Hello Sunforged. It's so good to see you around here, albeit briefly.

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