17 featured hubs with 0 views in last 7 to 30 days...

1. 77

   Bills Placeposted 5 years ago

   What are some ways to boost traffic to old posts?

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   1. 94

      Kenna McHughposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      What are the topics? How old are they? Have you updated them?

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      1. 77

         Bills Placeposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Age ranges from like a year old to 2012 old. I've updated some of them several times over the years, most recently being when HP got stricter about amazon capsules and links.

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   2. 87

      charlesnuamahposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Try getting those articles that are on HubPages onto the niche sites. If an article doesn't make it to the niche site, it is basically dead. You will never get to see its true potential.

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      1. 77

         Bills Placeposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         I even have one or two on a niche site that barely gets views (under 100/month). Guess I have some editing to do on the others.

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2. 94

   eugbugposted 5 years ago

   Try experimenting with different titles. Sometimes there's just too much competition for a particular phrase. Add more content and photos. Try breaking text up into smaller modules and using more search friendly titles for them. Sometimes though, no matter how hard you try, a topic is so well covered that you won't make it to the first page, or even second or third even if your article is long and comprehensive.

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   1. 77

      Bills Placeposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I fully understand the topic hit or miss concept, I was just noticing the high number of hubs not getting any views (about half my published hubs). I guess i'll go through and make some edits to the titles and stuff as you mentioned, see if that works. Thanks.

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      1. 94

         eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Over half of mine only get a few views, probably 20% of articles make over 90% of views. Another thing I've done is use the interrogatives (what, where etc ) in text module titles to form a question and then add bulleted or numbered lists in the module. Then I've expanded on the items in the list further down the article with more text. Google uses these lists (or tables) sometimes to generate their featured snippets, which can result in more views.

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         1. 77

            Bills Placeposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            I try to include a list in hubs now, but I didn't think about the featured snippets benefit. Good thinking.

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3. 100

   Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years ago

   First, I agree that modifying your titles and capsule headings as well as having your articles moved to niche sites could help alleviate your issue with traffic. After changing an article’s title, you should also mention the key phrase(s) that you are optimizing for at least once in the article. However, you must do this optimizing very carefully and sparingly within the body of the article so that Google does not interpret it as over-promotion.
   
   Here is how I have done this for 18 hubs: I am currently writing a series of articles on America nostalgia by year. For my article about 1997, I am optimizing for keywords such as “1997 fun facts,” “1997 facts,” “1997 facts and trivia,” “facts from 1997,” and so forth.
   
   For the title, I chose “Yada Yada Yada: 1997 Fun Facts and Trivia.” Throughout the article, I carefully and sparingly mention keywords like “fun facts,” “fun facts and trivia,” and so on. I also mention the keyword “1997” periodically throughout other parts of the article.
   
   This article receives a lot of traffic, probably because it is close to the top of the first page on Google for the aforementioned keywords and variations thereof, and also because the title grabs people’s attention. At one point, I changed the article’s title by eliminating the words “Yada Yada Yada.” My traffic dropped substantially. Even with “Yada Yada Yada” in the title, the position of the article does not change in Google’s organic search results.
   
   After you modify your title and it is updated in Google’s index, I suggest that you do nothing with the title, etc. for at least two weeks in order in order to ascertain any changes in traffic patterns, and where your article appears in Google’s organic search results. Historically, my overall traffic peaks Tuesday-Thursday and really crashes on Saturdays. Only you know how your traffic fluctuates day-to-day.

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4. 77

   Bills Placeposted 5 years ago

   Wow, thanks for the insight. About how long does your articles take to update in Google? My best article also appears near the top of Googles 1st page, but I think it is the only one out of 30 something. Not sure what I got right with that one, but I keep trying.
   
   From the "Yada Yada Yada" part, it sounds like even though it has nothing to do with the actual topic, it's attention grabbing. I may have to try something similar on the hub I'm working on rewriting - the one on phobias. I noticed it's only about 500 words and literally a few shorts lists (I wrote it in 2012).

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   1. 100

      Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Sometimes it takes one calendar day for Google to update the article and sometimes it can take up to three to five calendar days. Just copy and paste your new title into the search box periodically to check the progress. (I have stopped trying to intellectually figure Google out. It’s just a waste of time.)
      
      Here is why I choose Yada Yada Yada: "The Yada Yada" was the 147th episode of the sitcom “Seinfeld” that originally aired on April 24, 1997.
      
      I have just done something similar with my hubs from 2012 and 2017. These two have not performed as well as some of the others. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
      
      Let me know if you need any more help.

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      1. 77

         Bills Placeposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Will do, thanks again. I'm also going to take more time while rewriting hubs, do more research to expand the topics as I noticed many are only 500-750 words.
         
         They were originally written back when shorter articles were considered better due to shot attention spans. However, I recently read longer articles are now considered better even if people simply scan them because it increases SEO efforts.
         
         Do you have a word count goal when writing hubs?

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         1. 94

            eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Short articles can generate lots of views. My hex to binary conversion article which only had about 500 words was getting almost 1500 views daily until the end of last September when it tanked. Now it only gets 300. It would be a shame if Google has a simple threshold for word count and ranks articles downwards because they don't reach it. Math articles for instance can be short and sweet without needing lots of padding.

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            1. 100

               Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               Eugene, how many text capsules did your 500-word article have? I’m curious.

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               1. 94

                  eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                  I had a look on the Waybackmachine, but the version of the article then doesn't seem to be archived. Currently it has 10 text capsules, one table and six images. It might have had two less text capsules in September, but I didn't do anything to it before traffic plummeted.

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5. 94

   eugbugposted 5 years ago

   Actually it's just over 900 words now, and I think was about 700 then, so I'm incorrect about the 500 words.

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   1. 100

      Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for letting me know. I initially thought that I might try a shorter hub with my American nostalgia series of articles. However, I probably should stick with my current format.

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6. 100

   Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years ago

   Bill, if you have a longer article, you might want to include a Table of Contents in a separate text capsule under the introductory paragraph(s) or even in the same capsule as the introduction. For each of my American nostalgia articles, I have a Table of Contents in a separate text capsule right under my introductory paragraph. In the Table of Contents, I simply repeat the titles of every text capsule in the article. I believe that this strategy has helped with my seo and has even helped me to rank high on keywords that I did not initially optimize for. For example, I receive hits for “1997 sports trivia.” Initially, I did not optimize for the keyword “sports.” Nevertheless, the “Yada Yada Yada” article is #2 on Google for that keyword search.
   
   In addition, make sure that your text capsule headings are “seo friendly” and directly correspond to the title of your article. Keep the text capsule headings clear, complete, and concise.

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   1. 94

      eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I used to have a TOC in my lawn mower troubleshooting article because it was 10,000 words or more. An editor took it out though. Can't remember why. Might be time to revisit the idea. Reading long articles on a mobile device is such a pain. Maybe HubPages could come up with a floating TOC or something to that effect. Maybe tabs?

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      1. 100

         Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Eugene, can you remember how long ago the editor removed the ToC? I am asking that because I didn’t begin publishing the nostalgia articles until August, 2018. Maybe HP changed the rules along the way or it was the editor who was working on your hub at the time. Who knows? Anyways, three of the nostalgia articles went through HubPro before they were moved to HobbyLark and the editor(s) didn’t remove the ToC. If done correctly, I think the ToC can really help seo.

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         1. 94

            eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            I think it could have been two years ago. As far as I recal it ws during a premium edit.

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7. 94

   eugbugposted 5 years ago

   From Danny Sullivan of Google on Twitter when I queried him on the subject of short articles. Doesn't tell us very much.
   
   "@searchliaison Does Google downrank short articles if they're below a threshold word count? Math articles for instance by their nature can be short and sweet and concise"
   
   "@JohnMu might be able to better answer here, but our systems are far more complex than trying to just look at word counts. information can be long or short and still be relevant. we focus on just trying to figure out what's relevant."

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8. 100

   Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years ago

   Interesting. I wonder what the ideal number really is. I do agree with you 100% about math articles.

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9. 94

   Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

   I am going TOC an old article that was popular or something similar like bullet points.

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10. 100

    Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years ago

    I use numbers for my TOCs. I also number the text capsules accordingly and introduce the TOC with a statement like:
    
    For your convenience, I have divided this article into the following categories:

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11. 94

    Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

    Great, thanks.

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12. 100

    Gregory DeVictorposted 5 years ago

    Bill, I changed the title of one of my articles on Friday and it was updated in Google’s index in less than 48 hours.

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13. 94

    Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

    Same here, Google is pretty fast on updates.

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