Stats on High Traffic Articles - Should They Be Made Available?

1. 94

   eugbugposted 6 years ago

   I've been checking out traffic and ranking stats of niche sites on Alexa and noticed that they provide the top 5 search terms that lead readers to a site. So I wrote an article that complimented the one that had the greatest traffic on one of the sites and it now has over 800 views per day, increasing steadily, even though it was published only 2 months ago. It's not in competition with the other author's article and hopefully the tutorials will draw traffic from each other since they're closely related, but different.
   So should we be provided with a little more info on stats of top performing articles which would give us inspiration on what to write about, more than than being told that articles are "popular"?

   replyreport
   1. 78

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 6 years agoin reply to this

      How do you do this?

      replyreport
      1. 94

         eugbugposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Go to Alexa and scroll down to where it says "Browse Top Sites" and enter the URL of the niche site. Click "Find" and on the page that appears, "Top Keywords from Search Engines" is midway down the page.
         I don't know how often they update the keywords. The same ones seem to be listed for quite some time, maybe a year.

         replyreport
2. 90

   lobobrandonposted 6 years ago

   That's interesting. But, doing this would result in many people trying to copy the same ideas. I'd love to have this kind of information though.

   replyreport
   1. 78

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 6 years agoin reply to this

      They could post the key words without having to cite the article.  Probably would take a lot of work to do, though.

      replyreport
      1. 90

         lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         That would be bad. Stating the keywords that are ranking well would make people directly copy those keywords, including you and I, because we wouldn't know better.
         
         If they stated both the keyword and the article, you would make sure that you didn't target the same keyword but would write something to compensate that article, like what Eubug has done.

         replyreport
   2. 94

      eugbugposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Where would Alexa be sourcing info about keyword stats for a site?

      replyreport
      1. 90

         lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         SEMRush and Ahrefs do a much better job than Alexa. But they basically have a database of all the keywords in the world and the search volume. New keywords are constantly added, of course. Next, they track the Google results (based on locality) for each of these terms and store the URL of the page that ranks for each term.
         
         Next, based on some stats of the CTR on the top 10 search results (or top 20), they determine the keywords that bring in the most traffic to a website or individual page, etc. Once you have the data you can work with it any way you like.
         
         By you, I mean the software/company.

         replyreport
3. 90

   lobobrandonposted 6 years ago

   Btw. good job on writing that article, I just saw the term you wrote about and the term that you were influenced by.
   
   I plan on writing some tutorials too, but a long way into the future. My tutorials would be on Fluid Dynamics. First, my tomato series needs to be completed, at least another 20 articles I presume. The ideas I get from the terms I currently rank for, SEMRush helps. Right now my article on watering tomato plants is ranking for a term I didn't expect it to rank for, got nothing to do with tomatoes and it is #9. I will write a separate article on this topic.
   
   If you are doing your research and taking it to the next level by acting on it and succeeding like you've done with this article. I strongly recommend you get a subscription of SEMRush. Get it for a month maybe and that month just spend your time gathering keywords and you're good to go for maybe at least 2 - 3 years
   
   If you want to see what kind of info SEMRush gives you I can send you some screenshots later.

   replyreport
   1. 94

      eugbugposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Ok, thanks Brandon. Meanwhile I'll do some more detective work

      replyreport
4. 78

   psycheskinnerposted 6 years ago

   If a person puts in the work to find a good topic, I don't see why that info should be immediately given away to others.

   replyreport
   1. 88

      theraggededgeposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I agree. What's the point in competing with articles on our own site? It would be better to target other content sites or sites specialising in those keywords.

      replyreport
      1. 90

         lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Eubug did not write an article to compete with the other one. He just used that as an idea for other things people may search for.
         
         EDIT: But as I said earlier, most people will use it to compete with articles here itself.

         replyreport
5. 92

   Kenna McHughposted 6 years ago

   Eubug asks a valid question. I'd like to expound on it and ask: How could HP staff help us increase our rankings and views?
   
   Some of us are more proactive than others. For example, Eubug taking the initiative.  Others are not for whatever reason, learning curve, time limit, and so forth.
   
   Still, if HP staff helped us more in these areas, what harm is in that? We should be helping each other not competing. Right?

   replyreport
6. 88

   theraggededgeposted 6 years ago

   As per psycheskinner's comment and your edit, Brandon, that's exactly what I mean. Not many people are as ethical as eubug.
   
   As writers we should be prepared to learn and put in our own research on keywords, etc. There are plenty of resources out there without leeching off our top writers' hard work.
   
   As far as HP helping us... don't they already do a ton of work? Edits/Hubpro edits, network sites, Learning Center, ongoing developments... the list goes on.  We don't need to be babied, we need to put in the work to make the most of what we have here.

   replyreport
   1. 90

      lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      +1

      replyreport
7. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 6 years ago

   These days I pretty much write just whatever comes to mind.
   
   However I first check Google for two reasons.
   A. To see what sites I would be competing against.
   B. To see what keywords have the best chance.
   
   As an example, I never go anywhere near anything medical anymore.

   replyreport
8. 78

   psycheskinnerposted 6 years ago

   I think HP does a pretty good job of helping us make money in managing to be pretty much the last open-entry content site still standing. That's a major achievement.  It seems like their more specific efforts on themes, contests, challenges etc just didn't seem to be paying of and their expert editing doesn't always seem to work either.  So maybe they don't know much more about exactly what to write about for long term success than we do?  If they did wouldn't hubstaff accounts be the most profitable ones?

   replyreport
9. 92

   Kenna McHughposted 6 years ago

   Why do you stay away from medical?

   replyreport
   1. 78

      psycheskinnerposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Probs because high authority sites have topics like medical and financial locked down pretty tight.

      replyreport
10. 92

    Kenna McHughposted 6 years ago

    Makes sense. Do you think that is the same with fitness and alternative or natural health?

    replyreport
11. 90

    lobobrandonposted 6 years ago

    These niches it's less of a competition thing, more of the difficulty in satisfying Google. Google wants to see experts in these fields and even top health sites were hit after the August Maven update. It's not the competition, but the expertise necessary that makes the medical niche and the other niches you've specified (Kenna) a challenge, if not immediately, at least in the long term.

    replyreport
12. 92

    Kenna McHughposted 6 years ago

    Lobobrandon, I have some fitness, natural health, and alternative medicine articles. Though I am a former fitness instructor and have worked in the alternative medicine field as an assistant/PR, a few do well but the ones that lean toward alternative medicine are not doing as well as I'd like them to do. I am not writing those anymore.

    replyreport
    1. 90

       lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       I've noticed this across the board. Things are changing a bit, but it's still big companies that have Phd's and doctors on board that rank for these things. Not too sure about alternative medicines though. I also do not take on clients in these niches for SEO projects.

       replyreport
13. 92

    Kenna McHughposted 6 years ago

    Thank you.

    replyreport