Product Reviews vs Recipe vs Random Hubs

1. 80

   Bills Placeposted 8 years ago

   I haven't been active in probably 1+ years on here other than checking in. I am wanting to get more active, but not sure what to write about these days.
   
   I have been debating what types of hubs to start writing and was wondering if product reviews or recipes actually get many views, or if I should just write randomly?
   
   I know with product reviews or recipes I could add a sales widget for the product or related cooking product and possibly increase sales that way, but I have only sold 3 things from my hub referrals so...
   
   Which do you think would get the most views/attention?

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2. 88

   Jodahposted 8 years ago

   Product reviews probably aren't as successful as they used to be, as you need to have 300 words at least for each Amazon or eBay ad capsule in your hub. Recipes seem to do ok if they are original, but it's up to you what you are most comfortable and qualified to write about.

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3. 85

   Marisa Wrightposted 8 years ago

   Your profile says you're a professional online writer, so I'm surprised you need to ask the question.  Perhaps you are not understanding the nature of the HubPages site as it is now.
   
   Virtually no one visits HubPages to browse around, so that's not a source of traffic.  You will get next to no traffic from other Hubbers either - HubPages' members are writers, and they read Hubs to network with other writers, not to buy products or click on ads.  Therefore, over 90% of HubPages' traffic comes from search engines. 
   
   Sub-domains have been removed, so your account exists purely for administrative purposes now - Google treats HubPages as one big site now,  it doesn't look at your articles as a group on its own.
   
   So, the answer to your question is - what gets traffic is whatever people are looking for on the search engines.   If you are a writer and web designer, then you understand SEO and should know how that works.

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   1. 66

      relacheposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Marisa, this person's freelance writing business site was started in October 2015 and the site is rife with statements such as "Our Writer's & Editor's will always put clients first, giving their work utmost attention."  One of their Hubs is titled "Why does our eyes itch."
      
      @billsplace, you might want to check and see how many of your Hubs are featured and how many are not.  That may be part of why your Hubs don't get as much traffic.

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      1. 80

         Bills Placeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         @MarisaWright
         
         The last time I was active HP still had sub-domains, so it's been a while. I have checked in from time to time and updated a hub now and then for broken links, but in the past week of  looking around I've noticed several things has changed.
         
         That makes sense as reviewing hub states I'm noticing Google and Pintrest are the two highest referrers now, where it used to be Google was the lowest and HP sub-domains used to be my highest referrers.
         
         Basically, where in the past writing about a specific niche may have been better, now it's more focused on SEO and getting noticed in search engines.
         
         @relache
         
         Not sure where you got October 2015 from, we actually started offering services around September of 2014 as a hobby for pocket cash. Then by early 2015 we had already build up a decent list of clients, and we officially became a business in April, 2015.
         
         Currently only about half of the hubs I have published are featured, two are for quality and the rest are un-featured due to traffic. The reason for the post was to get opinions on what type of topics are popular these days as I haven't had the chance to be active in a year or more.

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         1. 88

            Jodahposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Bill, I just checked out some of your existing hubs. You really need to think about editing them first before adding new hubs. Your hubs do contain a lot of spelling mistakes, typos etc.(even in the titles) Admittedly they were written over 18 months ago so your writing may have improved since then. It just isn't a good advertisement for your writing when you say in your profile that you are a professional writer and editor etc.

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            1. 80

               Bills Placeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               @Jodah
               
               I am working on editing the existing hubs when I have time, I am hoping by the end of the month I will have them all revised, or at least most of them. I don't plan on adding more hubs until early next year, I am just trying to get familiar with the site again and figure out what I want to write about as it's been 1-2 years since I was active.

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            2. 80

               Bills Placeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               On second thought, maybe I won't edit them... Every one of the hubs I have edited since I got back that showed featured prior to editing, now show unfeatured due to quality, same with "unfeatured due to traffic", they have become unfeatured due to quality...
               
               Any advice on why they would go from featured to unfeatured due to quality?
               
               Below are the latest two that became unfeatured, and I've revised the employee reward hub multiple times, reducing widgets, etc.
               
               http://hubpages.com/business/10-Ways-to … Low-Budget
               
               http://hubpages.com/health/Why-Do-We-Get-Watery-Eyes

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               1. 88

                  Jodahposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Bill, I think you'll find the main problem is that HP has tightened it's requirements for hubs to pass the quality assessment process since you last wrote here. I read your hub on rewarding employees and thought it was quite well written and offered good ideas. The only thing I could see that nay cause it to no longer be featured is that the Amazon advertisement for perfume may not be directly related to the content. even though the text it is next to is about rewarding the employee's spouse it does not mention perfume. You also need 300 words per Amazon or eBay ad now.

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                  1. 80

                     Bills Placeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     Thanks for checking it out. I will make a note and try to revise it tomorrow and either make the widget more related, or mention perfume and see if either of those work. I believe it has more than the 300 words per widget, but will double check on that as well.

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                     1. 85

                        Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                        Mentioning perfume won't help.  Hubpages is now extremely strict, and every link (whether product capsules or text links) MUST be directly related to the subject of your Hub. 
                        
                        So, for instance, if you wrote a Hub about slow cooker recipes, you can advertise a slow cooker, but you cannot advertise other kitchen utensils.  Or if you wrote a Hub about sewing a dress, you could advertise the pattern for that dress, but you can't advertise a sewing machine (too general).
                        
                        That means in your example of Employee Awards, you can advertise employee award kits but not perfume - it may well be something you could give as an award, but that is not related enough.

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                        1. 80

                           Bills Placeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                           Wow...
                           
                           I understand wanting to weed out the spam and have quality content, but that seems like overkill. There are many topics that could promote a product that relates to it, but may not be a product that relates directly to the topic.
                           
                           It clears up an article I read a few days go comparing HubPages and some other content site that said they post certain topics to Hubpages that they can directly market/promote, and the more general topics they post to the other site. I don't remember what site that was though as I can't even find time to keep up with HubPages.
                           
                           Thanks for the explanation though, saves me time.

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                           1. 85

                              Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                              I'm not saying I agree with the policy, just explaining how it works.  Many Hubbers feel HubPages is being too strict, but it's their site so they're entitled to make their own rules!

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         2. 85

            Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Google has ALWAYS been the highest referrer for HubPages as a whole, and therefore the biggest referrer for most successful Hubbers.

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            1. 80

               Bills Placeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               @MarisaWright
               
               As a whole, Google probably has been the highest referrer. Although, when I first started and was more active 2-3 years ago, the hub stats showed most of my views were from other hubbers profiles or hubs. Of course, I barely knew the basics of SEO back then as well which likely affected this.

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4. 84

   NateB11posted 8 years ago

   Apply SEO principles and you will find out what will get traffic. My experience is that in-depth informational articles on very specific subjects that people are looking for get very decent traffic.

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   1. 80

      Bills Placeposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Nate, I will be applying SEO principles to future hubs, and updating old ups with the same mind-set. I am thinking of doing a couple recipe and product review hubs just for kicks, but after reviewing my hubs I found my informational articles are also my best hubs and will focus on those for now.

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