3 weeks in and a few hubs created, can you help me to get the most from hubpages and give back to other members too. What do you wish you knew when you started out?
Think niche, write niche..... and persist. Then persist some more.
Write about what you love or know a lot about. Also, read all the rules before you dive in. You have to be patient, you won't make money for about six months, but once it begins it's steady.
I disagree about the "niche" advice. If you are able to concentrate on one niche and write knowledgeably and well about it, you'll be FAR better off starting your own website or blog. The beauty of HubPages is that you can write about a variety of subjects and HubPages has already created the niche sites to host your various writings.
I agree with this comment from Marisa, if you know your topic, start your own site, that exactly what I did and it worked perfectly!
Absolutely agree. I started a niche site 4 years ago and it's excelled beyond my wildest dreams.
I now use Hubpages for either quick time based viral content, 'testing' a subject before creating a site, guides, or 'homeless' content I'll never write more than one article about.
If you're going to write on the Internet, you have to learn to roll with the punches. We are at the mercy of the search engines, and they are fickle creatures. The article they loved last month suddenly becomes poison.
The first time I was getting good traffic and the bottom fell out, I was totally despondent and didn't write anything for quite a while. Now I know that it's to be expected. It's kind of like playing the stock market.
Try to write good, useful stuff and keep doing it no matter what your numbers say. For HP, I think the thing that saves me is diversity. One niche tanks, and another rises.
It's hard to answer "what do you wish you'd known when you started out", because the things I needed to know then, are not the things newbies need to know now. So much about the site has changed.
The main thing you need to know is that HubPages is not one site, it's a suite of sites, and your goal must be to write Hubs that will be transferred to the niche sites. Otherwise you are probably wasting your time.
Your profile says you're experienced with Google search so you'll know that Google strongly favours specialist (niche) sites. That's why all the big generalist sites have closed down, except for HubPages. HubPages was also failing, and that's why they created the niche sites, using the best Hubs from the main site.
They are still trawling through the main site to select more Hubs for the niche sites. Also, every new Hub that's published is considered for the niches. Obviously, the end result will be that the main site will eventually consist only of Hubs that don't make the cut. As you know, when Google ranks an article, it considers both the innate quality of the article plus quality of the whole site it's on, so you can see there won't be much point in having articles on the main site in the long run.
To write articles that make the cut - look at the Stellar Hub guidelines in the top corner when writing, and try to tick as many boxes as make sense (you will never tick all the boxes because polls, tables, etc are not relevant to every subject). Take a look at my Hub the Basic Rules (you'll find it on the slider on my profile). I'd also suggest reading the one on Etiquette, because the notion of "giving back" to other members is erroneous.
The social network on HubPages is fun and motivating--but it's a myth to think that by following, reading and commenting, we're somehow helping each other. The activity of our small community is a drop in the ocean and makes virtually no difference to our traffic or our earnings. Recently, HubPages has started featuring some of its top earners on the front page (you have to log out to see it, try it), and everyone has been surprised to see they are Hubbers we've never heard of. That's because they focus on writing good Hubs and networking outside HubPages, to attract a paying audience. That may seem anti-social, but in the long run it does all of us a lot more good than patting each other on the back in our own little circle!
Thanks for your detailed and concise reply, very useful information that I will be using going forward. I did submit my first hub to the relevant niche site, but have not heard anything - I assume this is what happens if it not considered right for the site, do you receive a message if a hub is moved to a niche site such as hobbylark?
All new Hubs are automatically considered for the niche sites, so you don't need to manually submit them. The manual submission process is for old Hubs, or substantially revised ones.
If a new Hub is considered suitable, it will be moved within a month after publication. If it hasn't been moved in that time, you can assume it wasn't deemed suitable. In that case, there's no point in submitting again UNLESS you revise it substantially to improve it.
Poetry, creative writing, essays, spam and saturated topics (weight loss, making money online) will almost never make you money.
Your participation in the site (forums, hub commenting, following) has no impact on earnings.
As long as you don't write spam, hub and profile scores should be ignored and have no impact on earnings.
A good hub is written like a magazine article - stands alone, informs, has an easy to read layout that includes clear subtitles and images to break it up into bite size chunks.
Your hub title is the most important part of your SEO, as that's what helps Google decide which searchers to show it to.
People Google answers, not questions (thanks to Cardisa for that one).
Writing in topics with low competition (ie, Google results show not many relevant answers), can get a lot of traffic. So can lists.
Creating images with titles on them (MFP - Made For Pinterest) is a great way to generate traffic from Pinterest.
After you share your hub links via social media etc, keep an eye on the Stats - Traffic Referrers. I added Pinterest Boards last year to support my hubs, and some other related hubs I found here.
Surprised to find that Pinterest is the 2nd highest referrer of traffic (google.com is #1) to my hubs.
So if you have not already created a Pinterest account, you may want to do so now.
Side note - for my own website - Pinterest is 3rd highest traffic referrer.
Thanks for the advice and suggestion, I will look into creating a Pinterest account.
by Kylyssa Shay 8 years ago
The focus of HP has turned to the niche sites. Editing services will only be used on hubs being considered for the several new niche domains for the foreseeable future. The niche topics chosen for the next year or so seem to be pets, tattoos, piercings, beauty, food, and beverage. If we don't write...
by Missing Link 6 years ago
I'm thinking the answer is probably yes?If you have hubs that have been deemed "not featured", for one reason or another, will that factor into lowering your overall score/rating as a HubPages member? Example--let's say your overall rating is 75. If 10 non featured hubs become...
by Kylyssa Shay 8 years ago
Only the best Hubs on HubPages are being moved to niches, so everything on the niche sites is spam free and trash free. There are no pieces written in broken English or written in ways that appear to be spun. Everything that's low quality is left behind. Even the ads are high-quality on the niche...
by John D Wilson 8 years ago
The chart showed a loss of about 55% of the traffic on Hubpages in the last 6 months.I also looked at the traffic trends on some of the niche sites, and they don't seem to be making up for the loss.In fact the bounce rate seemed higher than that of Hubpages.What are the old timers thoughts about...
by Sarah Spradlin 6 years ago
I pretty much have the same amount of traffic everyday but last week 5 of my hubs were moved to niche sites and since then I've has less half the traffic as normal. What could cause that?
by Trudy Cooper 8 years ago
Hi all. Have been away for a while. Can you please update me to the effect that the niche sites have had on your hubpages if any. Look forward to chatting with you all my fellow hubbers!
Copyright © 2024 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2024 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |