How do you judge which hub is ready for a niche site?

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   SakinaNasir53posted 7 years ago

   I do not understand the method of sending hubs to a niche site. How does it work? I tried sending my 1st hub to Bellatory.com but they rejected it, saying I had to make changes. It was silly on my part though, I had no idea back then, I had newly joined and had simply submitted it, without thinking.
   
   I think it's unfair that we can only submit 1 article in 60 days. They do not specify what changes they need.
   I have been waiting since 2 months to try to publish one of my hubs to a niche site.
   
   Which one should we publish and to which site? How to judge that?
   If anyone here has had hubs moved to a niche site, please help and enlighten me on this topic. Thanks. ☺

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      TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      As yet, I have not tried to publish to a niche site because I, also, don't understand exactly what is being look for. More to the point, I am not yet familiar with all the niche sites!
      
      So don't feel alone.
      
      I have found that HP will choose your articles if they think them suitable, so not need really to post them to a network site - unless they're years old. I think HP looks to see how much traffic or interest there will be for the story, but I'm not sure about that.
      
      Still feeling my way, but very excited about these niche sites. )

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         SakinaNasir53posted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Yep! You have just put together whatever I have been thinking. Nce to meet you Tess. Thanks for commenting. ☺

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         Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         A good way to find out is to try submitting a Hub using the Submit button,  It takes you through a questionnaire, asking you point by point whether your Hub fulfils the requirements they're looking for. 
         
         The Hub isn't submitted until you get to the end of the process, so you could pick any random Hub, follow the process and then just cancel before submit

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            TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I tried that. When I got to the last question, it asked me which site I wanted to submit it to. I had no idea which site was suitable because I didn't know which sites were about what. That's why I asked a few months ago which sites published what.

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               Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               I understand that.  I was not explaining how to submit, I was pointing out that you can check your Hub against the requirements by going through the questionnaire as a test.

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                  TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Thanks, I already did that. But what I meant was that I don't known enough about the network sites - not about my own work. )

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                     Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting you don't know your own work.  I obviously misread your post and thought you were unclear about the requirements for the niche sites (i.e. what the criteria were), not which niche was which.

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                        TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        My apologies. Misunderstanding.

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      sallybeaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      If you can comply with all the requirements asked for when you click the button 'submit to one of the niche sites' and if you can honestly click every box it should be a breeze:)

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      If I were you, I'd take the time to read some of the articles that have made it to the niche sites to see what it is the writers are doing correctly.  I do know that good, clear, properly attributed photos, appropriate use of capsules and titles, quality and correct writing, focus in the article and topic all matter.  Take a look and see if those writers have met these criteria, then try to do the same with your own work.

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         SakinaNasir53posted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you TIMETRAVELER2 for your advice. Yeah, I am doing that for a while, still got a lot to learn. ☺

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   DrMark1961posted 7 years ago

   Sakina, when you submit a hub to a niche site they give you a checklist to go through. If your hub is not adequate it is not going to be accepted.
   A lot of people write on acne. Check the number of articles on Google.That alone might be a reason to not post your hub on a niche site.
   The one hub/60 days is Hubpages choice. When your 60 days are up, I suggest you submit the hub on your experience with Puffy to Pethelpful but you need to make some changes before submitting it.
   The title: As a reader I am not searching for what might work. Why not try "Causes and solutions for behavioral problems in parrots"?
   Layout: You might think it is interesting how you went to the pet store, etc. As a reader looking for solutions to my parrots behavioral problems, do you think I care? Focus on his behavioral problems and the solutions that worked.
   Images: They should be full width. Most of the images should be your own, but if they are not, do you have permission to use them? (Even if you do, the photo of Puffy playing with a toy is a lot more effective and interesting than some wikipedia photo of a parrot playing with toys.) The chart from Fosters and Smith and the drawing from wikihow are being used without permission, and the curator moving this hub to the niche site might notice and care.
   Your English is great.
   Although HP staff said that most hubs should be around 1250 words, I would rather reader a shorter hub that addresses the issue than a longer hub that tells me a lot of things I am not interested in.

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      SakinaNasir53posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I didn't post the hub about acne to a niche site. I had posted only the one about Puffy to Bellatory, being ignorant about the whole niche site thing when I had newly joined. I also had no idea about using images back then. Thanks for pointing out the mistakes. I would definitely implement them.
      I joined here 2 months back. Still got a lot to learn. Thank you DrMark for your andvice and opinions. ☺
      Can you read please my new hub about lovebird mates? I am planning to submit it to PetHelpful. Do you think it stands a chance?

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         sallybeaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Have you tried simply publishing the hub as normal without trying to publish to a Niche Site?  If it is deemed suitable I am sure HubPages will move it themselves later.

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            SakinaNasir53posted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Yep! I first got it published here. Then, I tried to get it move to the niche site. I regret publishing without understanding what it meant and without giving much thought. I was new here 2 months back.

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         DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

         I thought the hub about hand raisiing a baby lovebird was better done than the one about mating. (Same question about the images source--are they creative commons/commercial use allowed? Do you have permission to use the images from other sites?) The images you do have are appropriate, but the first part of the hub is just like a blog post about your birds. HP is not a blog and you will not get much traffic if you treat it like one. To get a lot of traffic hubs should be set up like magazine articles--if the new hub was about courtship and jealousy more Lovebird owners would be interested. (I have a male lovebird that I bought to keep company with my Blue-headed Pionus. He is interesting to watch. My Pionus deserves a blog post but not here at HP. I wrote an article about my Amazon but it is about methods to exercise your parrot, so appropriate for HP.)
         If you submitted your first lovebird hub to Bellatory, that is part of the problem. The curators have a lot of submissions, and if a submission is not perfect for their needs I thnk they just kick it to the bottom of the pile.
         Some of the niche pages have excellent traffic and are well worth your while. I have had a 50% increase in traffic and I have seen some others (Solaras, Agilitymach) that have mentioned even better improvements.
         You are doing great after only 2 months. I deleted most of the hubs I wrote in the first few months as they were not as well formatted as yours. (This is a good place to learn!)

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            SakinaNasir53posted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you DrMark for your advice and kind words. For a person like me, who has never written anything before, your appreciation means a lot. I would definitely try better and yes, I am learning a lot of things.
            If we include some images from other sources other than those provided by Wikipedia Commons, is it a problem?
            I try to use as many original images as I can. How do we know there is a copyright or not on images from random sites? Can you please tell me?

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               DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Most of my photos are from the pre-digital days so I download from flickr and pixabay. Flickr is easy to use since you can select to look at only photos that are free for commercial use, and since I want to write about dog breeds that I no longer have photos of, I download a lot. If you use Pixabay, photos do not even require a source, but I put it on there just to remember where I got the photo.
               Your own photos are always best.
               This is one of my birds in my front yard.
               

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                  SakinaNasir53posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Thank you so much for your help DrMark. I have not used Flickr or Pixabay till now. But, I would surely do in the future.
                  Such a lovely bird. What's his/her name? ☺

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                     DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     Shaitan
                     You do speak Arabic too, right?
                     He is one of those birds that are super sweet with me, loves to sit on my lap and be carressed, yet when neighbor kids come over he bites so hard that he draws blood.
                     I named my Pionus for his personality too. His name is Docinho, which is Portuguese for "Sweetie". He lets anyone pick him up and scratch his head.

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                        SakinaNasir53posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        Woah, so cute! Yep, I do speak Arabic but I don't know the whole of it; 40% I guess. I am Indian but I was born and brought up in Kuwait. Did you learn speaking Arabic?

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                           DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                           I speak Darija (Maghribi dialectical).

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                              SakinaNasir53posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                              Okay! ☺

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                  lovetherainposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Don't you worry he's going to fly away?

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                     DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     He knows where he lives! (To paraphrase, if you have a parrot and he flies away, he wasnt yours anyway.)

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               Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               You can use any images provided they are licensed for commercial use.  However the easiest way is to look on Pixabay.com and Pexels.com, both of which have a wide range of photos which can be used freely.
               
               Do also make sure, if you're using Wikimedia Commons, that you're pasting the appropriate information into the Source URL.
               
               I have a Hub on how to use photos legally, you'll find it on the slider on my profile.
               
               By the way, you do NOT have to make all images full width!   I have several Hubs which have moved to niche sites with right-floated photos. 
               
               However, if you right-float your photos, always check the Preview and look at the Hub in Mobile view to decide if it works.  In Mobile view, right-floated photos become full width, and they appear ABOVE the paragraph, not below. Depending on how the image relates, that can look illogical so it's something to think about.
               
               I like my Hubs to look good both on a desktop PC and on mobiles, and I think the right-floated photos "dress up" a Hub in desktop view without disrupting the text - so I do like to use them when I can.  After all, HubPages takes care of making them full width when necessary.

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                  DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Marisa, I know an Indian hubber that submits very interesting hubs about dogs from Asia that are full of grammatical and spelling errors. Many of his hubs have been corrected by the HP team and then moved over to Pethelpful.
                  Based on that, is it okay to tell people "To be moved to a niche site, your hub does not need to be free of excessive grammatical and spelling errors"?

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                     Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     I don't see how that equates?
                     
                     Right-floating a photo is using a feature on HubPages that is perfectly legal and acceptable - if it's not acceptable, all HubPages has to do is remove the float buttons (just like they removed the RSS feed capsule and the eBay capsule etc etc.)
                     
                     The only problem with right-floating is that when the photos are made full-width, they move ABOVE the paragraph they belong to.  Often that makes it look illogical, and that's why (for simplicity) they suggest making images full-width.  However, provided you understand that and use the Preview button to make sure everything makes sense, there's absolutely no problem with right floating.
                     
                     I know desktop readers are in the minority on HubPages now, but I still like to give them the best experience i can, and to me that means using right-floated images.

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                        DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        I cannot tell you if it was Christy, Robin, or Paul that made the comment, but at some point we were told that if we wanted to edit our hubs to have a greater chance of success of being picked for the niche sites, we should make the photos full width.
                        I know that they are moving some of them without being full width, but I do not think that is what they are looking for.

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                           Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                           You are quite right, I've seen the comment recommending full width several times, but they generally explain it's to suit mobile viewers - which is stupid, because the system makes all photos full-width for them anyway!
                           
                           I suspect they feel it's easier to say, make them full width, than to explain about where the full-width appears and making sure it's not pixelated when it moves to full size etc. 
                           
                           All I can say is that it's not my experience at all.  I just had a few more moved over and they do have right-floaters.  So I'm not convinced it's a major factor if the Hub is good enough otherwise.  And I do think that if it's so vital, then all they have to do is disable the float buttons.

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                              DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                              When I read your last sentence I had to stop and smile. Be careful what you wish for.

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                                 Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                                 If they want to do it, I'd have no problem with it - I prefer to have the option but it's their site so it's their privilege.

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                           TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                           I agree.  Furthermore, ads should also be full width. Otherwise they may not appear in the right places on mobiles.

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                              Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                              ...and that's why I think the team is going with the simplistic "make everything full width" message.  It's easier than telling people they can use right-floating but they MUST make sure the image still looks good full-width and they MUST check Mobile preview to make sure the ad shows in the right place.  They know a percentage of Hubbers will be too lazy to do both those things no matter what they say, so why not just go for the simple solution.
                              
                              I find it sad because the ability to create a varied layout is one of the attractive things about HubPages.  A sequence of a chunk of text - big photo - chunk of text - big photo - chunk of text  etc is so boring!  Sure, many readers will see it that way anyway - but a goodly percentage will not and I'd like them to read something that's visually attractive as well as useful.

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                     TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     I'm pretty sure it depends on existing traffic primarily! If the hub had a lot of traffic, it was worth it for hp to fix it up and post it to pethelpful.

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                        DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        I do not think this is any longer the case.

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                     TIMETRAVELER2posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     Dr.Mark:  I am amazed that this person's work is moving to the niches, but I believe his case to be unusual.  It takes a great deal of time to edit hubs so specifically, so I suspect the team prefers those written in the best possible way.  I would never advise people to submit hubs that are not well written.

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                        DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                        I think you are right. If his grammar and spelling was better he would probably have a lot more moved over to the niche sites, but the ones that have been moved are so unusual that I guess HP considers it worth their time to clean them up.
                        I do not think they could take the time to edit the majority of hubs so carefully.

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                  SakinaNasir53posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  Thank you Marisa for your valuable comments and advice. ☺

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