The Kinds of Page that Kill a Site

1. 88

   Will Apseposted 6 years ago

   These are a few of the strategies that have been pursued on HP over the years, and that have failed, as Google has boosted its quality requirements.
   
   1. Find a juicy keyword. Search for it in Google. Read the top three results. Spin up the info in your head. Write it out as a hub, and publish it.
   
   A lot of people made a lot of money doing this six or seven years ago. When I look at the accounts of those writers, now, I see there has been no activity since Panda and no pages have been moved to the niche sites.
   
   2. Rewrite Amazon pages (same story as number 1, really).
   
   3. Write for search engines rather than people. There have been some dedicated SEO fiends here over the years who were successful, for a time. Again, when I check their accounts, there is little or no recent activity and the niche sites have been spared their efforts.
   
   It is amazing how good Google is at spotting:
   
   weak content
   over-optimized content
   content with poor presentation (including second-rate images, poor grammar, spelling. and, my own weakness, poor punctuation)
   
   The only answer is to improve your game. Read more (and analyse how writers are getting you to pay attention). Learn to research more thoroughly. Improve your graphics skills. Learn to nail those all-important opening paragraphs.
   
   Or give up on Google and sink into the swamps of social media, lol.

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   1. 81

      earnerposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I'd give up if I could marry well

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      1. 88

         Will Apseposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         That was always my ambition, too, lol. In the end, I settled for someone who appears to like me.

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2. 85

   Wesman Todd Shawposted 6 years ago

   I think the total advice I could give to anyone who can write decently in English would be to 1. find one or more niches you have proven bits of success in, and then 2. exploit those niches in the most extensive and creative ways you can.
   
   Not that I ever make much money at this. But in the past few months my income has jumped considerably for me taking the advice stated.

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3. 85

   Wesman Todd Shawposted 6 years ago

   Hey Will, random question: Do Facebook likes get your stuff ranked higher in Google search, or is that something I imagined or read somewhere shady?

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   1. 88

      Will Apseposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I reckon this is a definitive answer: https://www.stonetemple.com/googles-mat … b-is-hard/
      
      Google hasn't got enough access to social media to trust any of its signals.

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         Wesman Todd Shawposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks!

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   2. 61

      TessSchlesingerposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Google plus does, but in fairness, I have between 26000 and 31000 followers depending which page. Also, it varies, but average a million views a month. I think it does affect ranking.

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      1. 88

         Will Apseposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         If I was getting a million views a month to any of my sites, I would be paying a gang of Estonians to build me a yacht. I would make them wear antler horns 'cus that's what rich people do.

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            TessSchlesingerposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            I have no doubt that you are, in every respect, a far better business person than I sm. Unhappily social networking doesn't pay. As google plus puts the number of views on one's profile, you can easily see mine in excess of 48 million views.
            
            I would be.most happy to learn from you how to convert that into money.

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            1. 88

               Will Apseposted 6 years agoin reply to this

               On any site you need a pile of content that people find useful and a reasonable number of pages that produce decent income.
               
               So if you have a website about hiking, you spend a lot of time writing interesting stuff for hikers that will make next to nothing. Then you look for profitable hook ups.
               
               The simplest thing is Amazon stuff. Throw in some pages like 'The Best Hiking Boots for Kids', 'The Best Gifts for Walkers', 'GoPro Accessories that will Help You Make Great Hiking Videos' or whatever and monetize them with Amazon ads.
               
               You can do the same here. Now that the eds are an effective barrier against spam, I cannot see any harm in trying. You may or may not have the talent for that kind of thing. You won't know til you pump out a few.
               
               Use the suggestions box in Amazon to see which products people search for in your areas of interest/knowledge. I did hint (rather heavily) in another thread that this is not a bad avenue to explore.
               
               Buy the stuff if you need to. Or poke around in shops and get assistants to pitch you. Learn to tease out what matters to consumers.
               
               Put a huge amount of time and effort into each of the pages because if they are successful, they pay off big time.

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                  TessSchlesingerposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  The problem is that I have no idea. I'm a minimalist and have little interest in stuff. I tend to travel a lot, so do have an interest in stuff that are small, easy to carry, and highly functional. Travel articles are, howevr, over subscribed.
                  
                  The other thing I'm really interested in is robotics and artificial intelligence. I've tried writing a couple of articles on them but, at this point, not many people are looking for robots. Some of my articles have been put onto vertical sites.

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4. 90

   Marisa Wrightposted 6 years ago

   Funnily enough my dance Hubs, which I wrote out of genuine interest and knowledge, are far from being my best earners.   My best earners are Hubs that I wrote on a whim about subjects I'm far from expert in - and yes, they have been moved to niche sites.

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5. 88

   lobobrandonposted 6 years ago

   In my opinion when it comes to being successful (whatever that means) online, you're going to have to write in a variety of niches that you have little knowledge in (you need not be a master). Even your scant knowledge is definitely more than a vast majority of the population.
   
   There are always going to be better resources than what you can come up with (If you're new to a niche), but once you see what works and what doesn't you're going to have to scale up, and learn more about the subject so that you can write more and get into the details.
   
   I had a lot of hubs in the physics niche, but the search volumes were so low that they were not getting clicks even though they were on the bottom half of the first page. Mechanics and Physics is what I ought to be writing, but I don't.
   
   Instead, I wrote a hub on growing tomatoes, something that I did just once and that did well, which led to a series of hubs that are doing pretty well every year.

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6. 70

   claptonaposted 6 years ago

   Good advice, Will.
   The days of write, post and win are gone.
   If you can't get on the "shelf" - the "shelf" being used like a grocery store term - you're writing isn't going to work.
   The only thing about change is it's constantly changing. Keep up, or get wiped out.
   Great example is Kodak - never "grew" with the market, went into bankruptcy as more and more people got into photography. Had a "mind" set that wouldn't change.
   Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
   Cheers
   

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