Adding links to other sites to get more traffic

1. 90

   LiteraryMindposted 7 years ago

   My Hubs get very little traffic and earn very little. Even adding my Hubs to Network Sites, did nothing.  I am not that knowledgeable about how to increase traffic.
   
   I have posted them on Pinterest and Flipboard, with little to no activity.
   
   I was wondering if it helps to add recipe intros and then a link to my Hubpages recipe on sites such as Yummily .  Along the same idea, would it help to add some information to a site such as Hometalk with a link back to my Hubpages article for full instructions. I did add a link to my Hub on how making throw pillow to Hometalk and it didn't seem to do anything.
   
   Is there any value in doing things like this?  Is there any reason I should not?  Is it frowned upon?
   
   Your thoughts

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2. 95

   Kierstin Gunsbergposted 7 years ago

   For me, the best way to drive traffic has been to have searchable titles search-friendly summaries. Another thing I have done is to manually add my URLs to search engines. You can read more about that here: https://www.smartz.com/web-marketing/se … h-engines/

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3. 90

   LiteraryMindposted 7 years ago

   Thanks.  Interesting.  It seems to me back in my old Squidoo days, someone built a tool for submitting URL's to search engines.  I may have my facts mixed up, but I think it was "pinging".  I didn't realize there was a new direct way to do it.

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4. 95

   Kierstin Gunsbergposted 7 years ago

   I meant to say, "searchable titles AND search-friendly" summaries, I took a look at your Hubs and they are all so unique and wonderful! I wonder though if adding a few more words to each title would help them from getting lost in the fray of search engines An example of this is on your Hub titled "Strawberry Blueberry Chicken Salad" (so springy, I'll have to try it!) I might re-title it something along the lines of "Strawberry Blueberry Chicken Salad Recipe for Easter Brunch"
   
   What you'll do there is draw in results from searches like "Easter Brunch Salads", "Easter Recipes", "Brunch Salad" etc.

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5. 90

   LiteraryMindposted 7 years ago

   Kierstin,
   
   Thank you for taking the time to take a look.
   
   i would have thought that doing something like adding "Easter" would make it too narrow and dismiss the rest of the year.  But I trust your judgment, as I am obviously doing something wrong.
   
   Would you then change the title when Easter passed to something like Summer salad, or is it best to leave the title the same forever?

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6. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 7 years ago

   Backlinking is a tedious process and, frankly, not worth it for HubPages.   If you had your own blog,it would be a different story (although the technique isn't nearly as helpful as it used to be).   
   
   The reason it's not worth it is this.  When you create a link somewhere to your own blog, a reader can follow it and arrive at your blog.   Once they're there, if your articles are good, they're likely to stay, browse around, and read several pages. They may even sign up for your newsletter or your RSS feed, or bookmark your site to come back.  So one link has the potential to give you a lot of benefit.
   
   By contrast, when you create a link to one of your Hubs, a reader will follow it and arrive at your Hub.  Once they're there, they may stay and browse around, BUT they are more likely to look at other Hubs on the same subject, NOT other Hubs by you.  Even if they do notice you as author, and think "Oh, I'd like to know when she posts new recipes", there's no way to do that (except to join as a writer).  So one link probably gets you one reader to one Hub.
   
   So, it's a waste of time.  The only thing that really works is to create a situation where other people will be encouraged to share your Hubs.  One way to do that is by making your images suitable for Pinterest. This Hub explains how:
   https://hubpages.com/business/How-to-Ge … -Pinterest
   
   I also have a couple of Hubs about Hubbing which might help you, you'll find them in the slider in my profile.

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7. 90

   emi sueposted 7 years ago

   I thought this was an awesome question and the answers were even better. I'm just searching around looking for advice trying to better my hub.  I have a lot of work to do considering I haven't even been able to pick a niche in my 2 years here. haha.

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Well, that's the great thing about HubPages - you don't have to pick a niche.  There is a good reason to pick a niche if you're writing on your own website or blog - in fact it's essential.  That's because to get search engine traffic, a site needs a LOT of material and it all needs to be about one subject area.
      
      On HubPages that's unnecessary, because HubPages has already created sites with lots of material about one subject area - the niche sites. So you don't need to create a whole lot of Hubs on one subject - you just write individual Hubs and try to get them accepted to those niche sites. 
      
      If I were you, I'd be concentrating on upgrading your Hubs so they get moved to the niche sites. You can submit one yourself every two weeks, but if you upgrade them all, you may find HubPages staff will notice and move some without you even asking. 
      
      The main things to look at; try to tick as many of the boxes as possible in the Stellar Hub section (in the top right hand corner when you're editing a Hub).   Don't feel you have to tick them all - after all, some Hubs just don't need a map or a poll, and you don't want to write waffle just to reach a higher word count - but do as much as makes sense.
      
      Also check all your Hubs in Mobile Preview and make sure they look OK.   Right-floated capsules appear above their related paragraph and that can look weird in mobile view.  Since most readers view our Hubs on mobile devices, that's really important to fix.

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8. 89

   WryLiltposted 7 years ago

   100% what Marisa Wright said.
   
   Backlinking to Hubpages is just helping them gain rank and traffic. I personally rarely bother backlinking (good SEO is all you need for great traffic), but when I do, it's only to my own sites, where it'll help ME in the longterm.

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9. 84

   Coffee-Breakposted 7 years ago

   Backlinking for the purpose of manipulating SERPs is against the Google's TOS. Having said that, content creators do it all the time in an attempt to get more traffic. There is a science on how to backlink so that search engines don't detect them as a manipulation attempt.
   I strongly advise to stay away from backlinking purposely. Focus on "on page SEO": keyword research, Title optimization, writing style, diversity of content snippets, (images, videos, slides, quizzes, etc...).
   Search engines got better at understanding links. I personally suspect that they correlate a backlink with the number of times someone clicks on it. If this number is decent, it will reward you with more organic traffic. But at the same time, if you can't keep people on your page, they will downgrade your content in search results.
   The safer way to get backlinks, is to point them at your profile. The link juice will the flow onto your articles. How to link to your profile is an entire science. The easiest and fastest way is to add your profile url to all your social media accounts.

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10. 90

    LiteraryMindposted 7 years ago

    Thank you all.   I think I may have worded the question in a misleading way.  I didn't mean to suggest that I would just link back to Hubpages, I would link back to my specific Hub.
    
    For example:  I see recipes on Yummly where there are just a few basic instructions and then it says something like :  "for complete instructions and ingredient list, click on the link below".   I would think that if someone was interested in the recipe, they would go to my Hub and check out the rest of the information."
    
    I see the same thing on Hometalk and I was thinking about putting a few photos and then a link back to my Hub on how to redo a kitchen island.
    
    No?  Thoughts?
    
    I have used Pinterest, but now, for niche sites, when I try to post just one photo, I get a message that says it is viewed as spam and Pinterest won't accept it.

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    1. 86

       Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

       Yes, I know you were talking about linking to just one Hub.  What I'm saying is that will require quite a bit of work if you're going to do it for every Hub, and since it might only net you a handful of visitors to that single Hub, it's probably not going to earn you enough to pay for your time and effort.

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    2. 89

       WryLiltposted 7 years agoin reply to this

       You're still backinking to Hubpages, as your hub is part of their site. It'll bring you one visitor who will then go visit other people's hubs. Who'll then maybe follow Hubpages on Facebook or Twitter.
       
       The same visitor on YOUR site could read your article, then view more you've written then join your email list or follow on Facebook, or on Twitter.

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