I hope somebody can help. I now have 49 hubs, and yet not one of them are seen by the search engines. When I click on their stats, it says under 'search phrases,' no search terms to add.
(list of words that appear commonly in searches that bring visitors to your hub.)
It seems that all my hubs need an expert in keywords, analytics, to fix these problems. Make my hubs visible to the search engines.
Problem is I cannot pay such an expert upfront. Is it possible for this fee to be deducted from my first payment from adsense, amazon. Which ever pays out first.
Where Can I find such a person?
This is stuff we've all had to learn, Anita.
The principle is very simple:
Your titles must be topics that people are searching for. You can't attract traffic; you have to position your work **within the traffic** so that people can't avoid clicking on your article.
Use Google suggest. Type your topic into the google search bar, don't press enter, but see what comes up as suggestions. That's what people are looking for. Try it with 'tomatoes'. You should see four or five close search terms appear. Then press enter and go to the bottom of the results to see 'related searches'.
Hope that helps.
Thank you. You have explained Google suggest so clearly that I will hopefully succeed with this.
I don't use stats in the Hub to find out whether my Hubs make it in the SERPs for search terms; I just Google the keyphrases.
Looking at your titles, most of them seem too broad to me; you do have to narrow it down and make the title words people will use, often in the form of a question. Using Google Suggest is a good idea, as already suggested; probably one of the easiest ways to get search terms, short of paying for a keyword tool.
Thank you NateB11, I must admit this is one department that I feel I just do not have enough knowledge of. After all if you don't get your titles right, you seem to be invisible to the search engines. That is why I feel I need some expert help. I will do what you suggest but may still not get it perfect.
Thank you . This will help a lot. I have copied and paste the article so I can refer to it often.
Anita, it is difficult to find the person you are looking for. It is best to learn white hat seo yourself.
The title of your articles should be a clear representation of the key words your targeting. You can use the Google keyword tool to get search phrase ideas.
Once the Hubpages tool shows search phrases, you can use that to find better ones for your articles.
Let's uses your article titled "Clever Animals". This is a very broad title. The Google rating guidelines tell us that a broad topic is expected to have more content. Your article has little content, one picture and a video.
Because the title is so broad, the competition is high for this term. Your article isn't really about clever animals. Google clever animals. When a person searches those words, they would want to know about different Types of clever animals.
Your article is about a specific intelligent animal. You rank when the intent of the targeted query matches your articles intent. The title should be a representation of this relationship.
Anita,
You can also change your title if it isn't working, but be patient, give it a few months. The URL or title you originally give it will always be there, but the hub can be found with a new and better title.
Have you submitted your hub to Google Analytics and Search Console?
I can help you. I have published a few articles and the procedure that I follow, gets me traffic from google. In fact, Google and Hubpages are my only source of traffic. I published an article today and already, I have had 30 people find my hub through Google.
Thank you solardoll24. I would appreciate it. I would only be able to pay you when I receive my first payment. If you can suggest alternative titles for a few of my hubs, I should be able to get the hang of it. Thank you.
I don't know SolarDoll, but I just noticed her giving out dangerously incorrect advice on another thread. So while I'm sure she has the best intentions, I think she is quite new herself and may not be the best person to rely on.
A new post may well get a few extra hits from Google, while Google tries to see what readers think the value is of your article (i.e. how long do they stay on your article etc..) and of course you may get HP readers as well, curious about your new post.
After that things may taper off. If the article has merit, it will again begin to build readership. If not it will fade into the netherworld of serps. My point being, 30 hits at the outset is sort of normal if you have a title and content that aligns with something people search for. Also, if you edit the article frequently before publishing it, those edit/saves will appear as pageviews.
Good luck on HP and best wishes for success!
Thank you Solaras. I have changed some of my titles, so will see if the search engine sees them.
The way to find a good title is simple and you don't need an SEO expert. You just need to follow RaggedEdge's advice, BUT with one important first step added.
Just ask yourself "what would people type into Google if they were looking for this information?" Whatever answer you come up with, that needs to be part of your title.
Of course, your answer might be wrong, and that's where RaggedEdge's advice comes in. You take that answer and start typing it into Google. If you're right, your answer will auto-complete. If you're wrong, you'll see other suggestions come up. Those suggestions are based on what people are actually searching for, so pick one of them instead.
To give you an example. Your Titanic Hub is titled, "The Titanic's Terrifying Flaw". If someone wanted to know the information in that Hub, would they type in "The Titanic's terrifying flaw"? No. So that is a really bad title.
I'm guessing they would type in "Why did the Titanic sink?" So I tried typing that into Google. Sure enough, "Why did the Titanic sink" auto-completes, so that's a good title which you could use.
Thank you. I can see I have visualized my hub in a magazine and not taken in consideration the limitations of the internet when it comes to publishing.
That is a very common mistake and perfectly understandable. It's how we're all taught to write and "unlearning" it takes a bit of time!
Further to what Marisa said, you also need to know that a clever, catchy title rarely works on the internet because people are searching for specific results. So a clever, slightly oblique, play-on-words, title works great in a print magazine or a newspaper because it catches the eye of an already captured audience, but is rubbish on the net where people are using simple search terms to find information they need.
That's why 'how to' titles work so well. Try typing 'how to a' in Google and see what comes up. Then type 'how to ab' and see how it changes. It's a fun way to find ideas. Use it with any letter or word of your choice.
Similarly 'what is', 'why does', 'explain', 'how can i', and so on.
it is very time consuming job. in my opinion take your time go slow and steady
Thank you. You are right. At the moment I need to learn so many new things. Marketing is high on the list. My ebooks are not selling well and I have been reading on the forums what I should do. But it is all so time consuming that you get lazy and think maybe I can get some help. But I need to go one step at a time. Visibility of my hubs by the search engines is also high on the list. I write down a few things every evening, then try and complete it the following day. Thanks for the encouragement.
Your ebooks are fiction, I think?
You're discovering the hard facts about self-publishing. Did you know that to be classified as a best seller, an ebook only has to sell 100 copies? The fact is, no matter how much you learn about marketing, you are not going to sell those books until you've gained a reputation as a novelist, and you can't do that until you've written a best seller, and ... it's a frustrating vicious circle.
I always thought that having a profile as a non-fiction writer would help me sell my novel (if I ever get it finished). So I was absolutely crushed to meet an author a few months ago. She had a hugely successful non-fiction blog. When she switched to fiction writing, she actually deleted her blog and all her non-fiction work. Apparently being known as a non-fiction writer does you no good as a novelist, and can even have a negative effect.
I'd suggest you join Critiquecircle.com, even if you don't want to use their critique service (which is very good). You'll find you can learn a lot about self-publishing by reading the forums and asking questions there.
Yes, I have two fiction ebooks. I don't expect much from the first one, but thought the second one would do better. I have one non-fiction 'Health is Wealth,' This eBook has got a history and was also the first ebook I wrote. When my cottage burnt down in the middle of the night, years ago, everything burnt out. I had 3 bookcases, plus 2 cupboards full of books. They all burnt out. Believe it or not, not even a page left from one book. But my large hardcover book that I had all my notes from 'Health is Wealth,' fell from the top floor into the lounge. It must then have been covered immediately by bricks from a falling wall, that put out the flames. It was the only book that survived. Only the edges was burned. I take that as a sign, so I won't give up on that book.
I hope to try and sell my books from my blog at a later stage. Still have to learn how to set that up. Anyway, writing is in my blood, whether I am successful or not.
I don't think you need an expert, because I don't think there is such a thing. The notion is a myth. There are so many reputed limitations that Google has put out, that violation is almost guaranteed. Here is what I have learned over the years.
When I stopped using key word analysis, my viewership increased. I stopped searching myself for some keywords, but not too many. The problem was that planting keywords in an article wound up too much because there were always words I didn't know were key words that added to a "bad search rating." In addition, trying to write based on popular subjects put me in competition with folks who were professionals at certain topics.
Your articles should be about something that is not an everyday subject, or, you have a twist to the subject that draws attention. Don't try to compete with folks who are writing thousands of articles about probiotic health. Find a health issue that is niche. All the people interested in that issue will be looking for good information. Concentrate on something new about gut bacterial health, or reveal a personal experience that proved helpful for you or friends.
Vary your vocabulary in the articles. Do not use the term travel over and over. Use journey, sojourn, trip, excursion, etc. If you were looking for articles of interest, you would lean toward those with a variety of word usage. Stay away from the passive voice. Instead of should, would, etc, describe your actions in the simple present and past tense.
Make sure that your paragraph breaks make sense. Have related material within paragraphs. You don't need to write a complicated outline before writing, but make a simple outline with the basics you want to cover. Within those, make sure that the info pertains to the paragraph you started. As Hubpages recommends, let the reader know in the introductory paragraph what they will learn about.
When I proof read, I try to put myself in the reader's chair. Anything that seems like it is redundant, boring, incidental, or
or not tied in well to the subject, I leave out.
If you write about something that folks want confidence in, cite where you got information, or where info can be backed up. List some sources. This lends credibility to your writing.
Take your own photos most of the time. Read a basic book about taking good photos. Google "taking good photos" and read an article. There are some basics to getting a photo that will attract attention and help to hold a readers attention.
I have also found that not adding Amazon products through your own account helps (at least it did for me). Notice that many of the "ads" automatically placed are Amazon. Perhaps my experience is an outlier, but since eliminating introduction of Amazon ads, my readership has gone up, and I surmise because of the screening algorithm that is used by Google. I am only reflecting my experience, and have no statistical evidence to back up my assertion.
In short, write what you know and are interested in, consider its potential popularity, forget worrying about key words (ouch, I can hear all the folks involved in that research urping), vary your words and sentence construction, have a pre-planned structure, and don't even think about writing about something you don't know or have little interest in.
Good luck.
Thank you for the advice John, I did not know that you could leave Amazon Ads out of some hubs. Good to know as some hubs, especially the true stories, could do without the ads.
I too heard about the search phrases. Hope you would give me some information on as to what they are. Mr. John000 is saying that one does not require any expert. How to proceed now is the question for me. I am still studying the site. Until such time I have to observe and see what is what here.
try to use SEO TOOLS to increase chances to come in search engines. Hubpages will not help in this . use Backlink generators or something or other SEO tools.
I had the same problem with my titles and I got this link from Timetraveller2 and she got it from someone on the staff. I've been using it for some of my hubs and already see some better results.
Write Better Headlines.. You have to sign in, but it's free. It will teach you a lot.
Anita, learning how to create good, searchable titles is certainly a key to being ranked highly by search engines. But I think there's another issue you'll need to address, or even dynamite titles won't help much.
I notice that only one of your articles has been moved to a niche site. My experience is that articles that remain on hubpages.com are not going to get much traffic no matter what you do - the Google penalty is just too great. Are you nominating articles to be moved to niche sites? IMO, you should be doing so aggressively, one every 14 days. And if you nominate an article and it's rejected, you should work to bring that article up to standard so it can be moved. Once your articles start appearing on niche sites, your new search-friendly titles can really help them attract readers.
Thank you for the info. I have nominated about two articles for the niche sites. Will try again.
I have been with Hubpages a long time but haven't been writing of a couple of years so now I am getting back into it. This was helpful to me. Thank you for sharing.
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