Promoting your Hubs, which is most effective?

1. 87

   Marisa Wrightposted 14 years ago

   IzzyM and I have been chatting about backlinking, and disagreeing on what's the best way to go about it.
   
   She's been spending hours backlinking her Hubs on social bookmarking and backlinking sites, because she feels that's been recommended on the forums by Hub gurus.  I'm not at all sure that's the best strategy.
   
   We all have to strike a balance between writing and promoting.  Assuming you had limited time (and no money to invest in software to automate backlinking!), which of the methods below would you concentrate on?
   
   1.  Submitting RSS feeds to directories
   2.  Posting on Backlinking sites (e.g. SheToldMe)
   3.  Posting on Social bookmarking sites
   4.  Posting articles on other sites
   5.  Commenting on do-follow blogs on related subjects
   6.  Participating in forums on your topic
   7.  Finding places to guest blog
   8.  Something else?

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   1. 76

      cashmereposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Personally I get back links from Facebook and twitter and no other social book marking site. I also link my hubs to articles on other sites which is not as effective as some people say. Primarily I focus on good content which people may be looking for in search engines to get organic traffic.

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   2. 68

      nicregiposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I normally use:
      
      Backlinking sites (stumbleUpon, Redgage etc)
      Links between hubs
      Participating in forum
      Social sites
      Promote on own blog
      
      This 5 is something I always use.
      
      The best is till backlinks which i see the most 'returns'.

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   3. 60

      Randy Godwinposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      What do you guys consider as getting good traffic?  I mean, how can you tell if your methods are really working?  I don't have my own site and just wonder what kind of stats you are trying to achieve.

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   4. 58

      Mark Knowlesposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Something else. Drop me a PM and I will explain.

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      1. 87

         Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Mark, if you're going to say article marketing, I'm deliberately excluding paid services because that's not an option for Izzy right now. 
         
         But I'm interested to note you don't favor ANY of the other options! 
         
         And here's Mark's blog if you're wondering what I mean by article marketing:
         
         http://redwagondesigns.com/link-building-software/
         
         ...in which, I'm interested to note, he talks about the differing value of backlinks, too.

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   5. 93

      Susana Sposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      I would concentrate on these 3 approaches:
      
      1. creating unique RSS feeds for each niche and promoting them through RSS aggregators
      
      (Once you have the feeds set up there's nothing else to do, if you have chosen to use the "latest" feed option, except add the correct unique tag to new hubs.)
      
      2. participating in related forums (that allow signature links)
      
      3. Guest blogging
      
      But it's really only worth promoting hubs that have a good chance of a worthwhile return, which comes back to making sure the initial keyword research was done well.

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      1. 87

         Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Susana.  That's my thinking too.

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         1. 71

            earnestshubposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            I agree as well.

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            1. 77

               Shadesbreathposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               Me too.
               
               Uh, what are we talking about?

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      2. 64

         Greek Oneposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         what are these RSS aggregators of which you speak?

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         1. 95

            wildernessposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Greek one, I think she's referring to sites that allow multiple rss feeds to be posted.
            
            Sunforged's hub:  http://hubpages.com/hub/RSS-Submission-Sites-list  goes into it at length and has many such sites. 
            
            I split my hubs into separate niches and posted a RSS for each niche on 10 or 15 of the sites and it seems to have helped.  It certainly helped get them indexed quicker.

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         2. 93

            Susana Sposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            
            
            Places on the net that want your RSS feed such as http://www.feedage.com/ - there are hundreds of sites like these. Sunforged and Mark both have hubs listing many of them.
            
            http://hubpages.com/hub/RSS-Submission-Sites-list
            
            http://hubpages.com/hub/Making-money-on … e-rss-feed

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            1. 64

               Greek Oneposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               thank you very much!

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   6. 81

      thisisoliposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      4.  Posting articles on other sites
      8.  Something else?
      7.  Finding places to guest blog
      5.  Commenting on do-follow blogs on related subjects
      1.  Submitting RSS feeds to directories
      2.  Posting on Backlinking sites (e.g. SheToldMe)
      6.  Participating in forums on your topic
      3.  Posting on Social bookmarking sites
      
      
      When it comes to posting articles on other sites and guest blogs, I feel they are pretty much one and the same with the types of software I use.

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   7. 74

      livewithrichardposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I have to say that not every hub I write will get the same attention.  They all get social bookmarked(use socialmarker.com to make things very easy), submitted by RSS, and promoted on my own blogs with a unique post. 
      
      However, a good portion of my hubs were not written for adsense they were written for Amazon or EPN. A lot of those hubs have earned only a few cents from adsense but every one of them has earned from the other two programs. This came from the above mentioned promoting.
      
      My adsense hubs get more attention and promotion by way of an article syndication service (paid) and even then it depends on the competition for the keyword phrases I'm targeting.

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2. 74

   soni2006posted 14 years ago

   The best way to get backlinks for a long time is signing up with http://www.ping.fm and then adding all your social networks and microblogging sites in one place, i.e. ping.fm. Now when you publish a hub, write a brief review (two lines) of your hub and post it on ping.fm vai dashboard. You will not need to submit separate links on separate sites if you will do that. This is regarding getting back links from social bookmarking, microblogging, and social networking sites. I do this and I am getting benefit.

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3. 61

   Fiction Tellerposted 14 years ago

   Marisa, as you've probably gathered by now, I don't promote my articles.  Backlinking isn't always necessary if you focus on low-competition niches and SEO, and in my case it ends up sucking up more time than I can afford.  I gather that people who compete in more popular niches find they need to build links and promote using social marketing.
   
   So I'm no backlinking pro.  But if I did need to backlink, I'd do it by linking relevant original articles in one direction, from the better performer to the lesser.  Not rewrites or blurbs.  That's because the backlink would have better longevity.  I'd also want both articles to be earning money in their respective homes.
   
   Randy, I think the way to know if you're getting enough traffic is if you're happy with your earnings when you take into account what you put in.
   
   For example, if you find you're earning an average of $12 per article per year, and think your articles have an earnings lifespan of at least five years, that's an average of $60 per article.  If that seems a good sum for your investment, then you're doing fine.
   
   Performance really is an individual thing.  You can't compare straight incomes.
   
   Some search engine marketers outsource their copy at Textbroker, oDesk, eLance, Constant-Content, and the like.  They need to recover that cost, plus their time investment in posting listings, reviewing work, revising, and/or troubleshooting the acquisition process, and earn a profit above that.
   
   Some affiliate marketers buy PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising for their own websites (not for HubPages.)  They need to manage their campaigns and recover their spend, and then some.
   
   Some people pay for subscriptions to keyword tools, image providers, and other services, or have overhead spending like photo editing software, video equipment, digital cameras, etc.
   
   Some writers put in only time, but it's time they might have spent earning in other ways, and so they hope to make up at least the income they "lost."  But the so-called sure income from other sources can involve stress, which has its own costs.  (That's more or less the category I'm in.)
   
   Other writers just have extra time and write.  Pretty much everything is gravy for them.
   
   As I said, an individual thing.

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4. 61

   brettbposted 14 years ago

   I've hardly backlinked any of my hubs apart from linking a few from my existing sites. I'm very pleased with my hub traffic to date.
   
   This talk of backlinking has got massively out of hand. It's NOT essential - good content will attract it's own backlinks and you only need 1 good link to a page for it to surge up Google's rankings.
   
   Another alternative to backlinking is to write 40 hubs in a related niche and link them all together.

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   1. 87

      Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      That's kind of how I feel too.  The trouble is, a lot of the advice about intensive backlinking relates to websites, not Hubs - and there's a huge difference in time commitment between backlinking a handful of websites and backlinking 100+ individual Hubs.
      
      I mean, I know Nelle Hoxie says she backlinks her Hubs - but I'm not sure she means she posts links on 20 social bookmarking sites and 50 backlinking sites every time she writes a Hub. With hundreds of Hubs published, there wouldn't be enough hours in the day!
      
      And I know people like Misha and Mark Knowles bang the backlinking drum, but they outsource or automate the task, and that changes the time equation drastically.

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5. 76

   sunforgedposted 14 years ago

   1-4-8
     5
     6
     2
   
   3- automated or outsourced only ...its dreary

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   1. 87

      Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      So you're putting the backlinking sites at the bottom of the pile, and the social bookmarking sites in the bin unless you can automate it.  Looks like you, me, Susana, Earnest and Mark all agree on those, so far!

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6. 0

   BRIAN SLATERposted 14 years ago

   I'm going along with IzzyM here, in the 4 months i have been on hp's the forums and feeds have all been about backlinking your work to promote it. In the thinking that these sites would push your hubs further into google rankings. How does promoting Rss feeds differ from that?
   Susana, are you saying that as long as your keyword research is done properly your hubs will get into google rankings without promoting them on sites like Redgage etc.?
   So if i understand this correctly, if you don't write hubs on money making ideas,adsense,how to backlink,affiliate programs etc.ect. you really are waisting your time because there the only hubs that that have a large following, and if you don't write on those type of hubs like Izzy and myself, you can backlink all day and night but it will not get you anywhere.

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   1. 76

      sunforgedposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Not at all.
      
      The level of promotion required depends on teh level of competition.
      
      Often high competition is a reflection of high profit potential but just as often one can find some fun little terms that are untouched - writing to them at a site like Hubpages could lead to first page high results with little to no promotion.
      
      high competition = more promotion/backlink work
      low competition/ set and forget
      
      writing about money making ideas and traffic etc..can get some fun bursts of interest ..but its rarely a crowd that will amke you money ...they know all about adsense and affiliate links..they dont click on them.

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         BaseBallHubberposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I'm going to have to agree with this statement right here.
         
         I have had hubs made that appear on the first page of google straight from good keywords and others ( with good keywords) show up on page 3 because of the competition. So naturally I just promote the ones on pages 2-3.

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   2. 93

      Susana Sposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      Sunforged answered as I would have answered, but I have an addition to his (very good) response. What's the point in ranking number 1 in google for a term thats only going to get a few hundred hits per month for a term that's not going to covert? How much money will that make? Is it worth your time in promoting it?
      
      Here's an example. I've got a hub that's number 1 in google that so far has made a whopping $5.53 in 6 months! So it doesn't really matter if that hub is at number 1 or 101, the earning potential is so little it's not worth bothering with. If it was at 101 I wouldn't bother promoting it, because it's not going to be enough return on my time. This hub is an example of poor keyword research and a misunderstanding of the earning potential of that hub.
      
      I've got another hub that has various keywords ranking on the second page and some on the first page - this one is well worth promoting because if I can get it at number 1 for 2 or more of the high search volume keyphrases it could bring in well over 1000 visitors a day and has the potential to bring in a good deal of income (and the topic is nothing to do with working online.)
      
      My best earning hubs are not on making money online, or anything related to that, they are the ones that get the most visits and/or are highly commercial.
      
      I hope that makes sense!

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   3. 87

      Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      It doesn't, Brian, but the point is that once you've submitted your RSS feeds once, every new Hub you write is automatically added - that's much more time efficient than manually backlinking every single Hub every time.
      
      The other point (and my main reason for asking the question) is that Izzy is focussing most of her efforts on social bookmarking and backlinking sites - and if you look at the responses from experienced Hubbers, they ALL put those two backlinking methods at the very bottom of the pile - so if you have limited time, the other methods are the ones to focus on.

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      1. 0

         BRIAN SLATERposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         thanks Marisa

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7. 64

   Mishaposted 14 years ago

   435218

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8. 60

   Randy Godwinposted 14 years ago

   I prefer to go with the subjects which have little competition and so far this has worked well for me.  Of course, I have much experience in these fields and find it easy to rank high on a google search without doing all of the linking stuff.
   
   But I do understand how writing to a competitive niche would require more work to rank high on the search engines.  I still feel quality writing with comprehensive coverage of a subject is the best route to take.  But then, I am still learning this stuff.

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9. 86

   Pcunixposted 14 years ago

   I am talking about niche websites here because that is where I have the most experience - 13 years vs. 2 months at HP.
   
   As Susanna noted above, being number one in Google isn't necessarily meaningful.  I have hundreds, maybe thousands of articles that are top SERP for searches that are rarely made.  I nake money from them, but not often.
   
   But even a page with high SERP and high traffic can be a poor earner.  As an example, I have a page that answers a specific technical problem that people often have.  When they come to my page, they read it and then go fix their problem.  They don't click on ads and they don't visit any other pages.
   
   Your ideal earning page is one with high SERP, high traffic and that carries *advertising* that solves problems for people who land there.   The page I referenced above has instructions to follow - if someone advertised a quick automated solution for the problem, I could make money from selling it directly or from ad revenue.
   
   Those are the pages you want.

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   1. 76

      sunforgedposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      The focus of the niche matters - perhaps you are answering there specific questions and they are focused, but they also certainly know what an adsense ad is... most people dont click on ads knowing they are ads
      
      tech blogs usually report abysmally low click-through rates on webmaster forums / adsense forums
      
      Such traffic is best monetized through other means
      
      
      Really good adsense niches attract less net savvy people

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      1. 86

         Pcunixposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Well, yes: stupidity is your best friend for Adsense earning.  Tech blogs are visited more by savvy people than by those of a befuddled mind.
         
         However, that is not quite the case for the page I am talking about there.  It gets unsavvy people probably more than savvy, because the problem it solves is one usually created by ignorance.  Remember, searchers do not know they are going to a "tech blog" - they are just looking to solve a problem.
         
         If you are writing a page that solves a problem, it needs to be monetized with something that solves it more easily or that solves a closely related problem.  If it cannot be, it won't earn, savvy visitors or not.   
         
         I can give opposite examples.  I have another page with good SERP but relatively low traffic - a few hundred a day or less.  It doesn't solve a problem; it is pure opinion.
         
         It has been earning a little less than $200 a month for years.  Why?  Because it has perfect ads on it.  The ads DO solve problems that these specific searchers may have.  Even better, the ads might cause you to suddenly realize that you have the problem!
         
         They just hit the spot - you  can instantly see why anyone who came to that page from search is very likely to hit one of those ads.  It is like plunking down a lemonade stand in the desert - the traffic may not be great, but those that come will buy.
         
         We would all love to have a website full of pages like that, but it is rare to have that perfect match. I am lucky to have a few like that - and believe me, it was just dumb luck, nothing more.

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      2. 60

         mcbeanposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I am 100% behind Sunforged here. I target a lot of my websites and hubs at elderly people.
         They are getting into the Interweb in increasing numbers and have no idea that their actions result in money changing hands.
         I have a website that converts adsense at 3 - 5 times the standard rate due to all the oldies reading it.
         Thanks Granny!

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10. 68

    Flightkeeperposted 14 years ago

    When i post at other forums, I have as my automatic footer my profile at hubpages so that they can go directly to my hubs.  I've gotten some good traffic.  It's not consistent though and I noticed a rise in clicks but I have no way of linking the two convincingly.

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11. 88

    IzzyMposted 14 years ago

    Can I just clarify some stuff here. I only got Market Samurai a few weeks ago, and I found that many of my hubs were already on the front page of google. I honestly hadn't known because I use google.co.uk which has different results. I couldn't get google.com because google.es always came up, but with MS I can now get to google.com.
    Now if any of you have looked at my hubs, they are on diverse topics and none of them are particularly highly searched items..well maybe one or two.
    MS taught me how to change my hub titles/description to get three red lines which puts my potential ranking above my competitors, and several hubs rose nearer the #1 spot.
    Then I found that several of my hubs had a PR 2 or 3, above my competitors in many cases but they beat me on # of backlinks, so I started backlinking like Hell to catch up.
    I have several hubs that if they got to #1 are worth a small fortune and they are so near just now.
    I've done the rss feed thing, but only on my latest hubs. I like Susana's idea about linking the hubs I want to promote into an rss feed. Might try that, in fact.
    The hubs I'm promoting are worth anything between $10 and $600 per day (according to MS)so are well worth trying to get there (#1).
    I have up to 20 hubs in this position. The rest can find their own place in google. I have done my best with them, but if any of them turn up on page 1 they will get the same treatment.
    Oh and the backlinking to social networks is working - one hub in particular gained 15 new backlinks from different sources (and OK yes they were all PR 0, but so are most of the competition's backlinks), but I really need a couple of hundred.

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    1. 81

       thisisoliposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Did you get the email I sent you about backlinking software?
       
       I have been slowly increasing the backlinks to my article directory over the last month to the tune of 1200 from a large number of domains for around 6 hours of work.
       
       Make sure youu are checking your Google rankings with scroogle.org!
       
       Are the 15 backlinks do-follow or no-follow?

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       1. 88

          IzzyMposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks I did get the email - I'd forgotten and had to go looking for it. I'm really not in a position yet to pay out that kind of money, but I'll keep it in mind for the future thanks
          I've no idea if the links are dofollow or not, but they seem to count as they are showing up in Market Samurai?

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          1. 81

             thisisoliposted 14 years agoin reply to this

             It depends, Yahoo for instance includes no-follow links in site explorer, however it does not use them when ranking sites.
             
             If it uses Google on the other hand that could be a good thing.

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    2. 69

       Peter Hogganposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       You can change to google.com from within the google toolbar if you have it installed.

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       1. 88

          IzzyMposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          I didn't know that thanks

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12. 49

    mailxpressposted 14 years ago

    Hi all,
    
    I learned about creating backlinks here at Hubpages and it's been good to me.
    
    At least once a month I sit down to create backlinks.  When I view my Adsense statistics I do receive impression and sometimes revenue from backlinking.  This is just a handful of sites I use but I do use shetoldme, xomba, page360, stumbleupon and so on.
    
    I read all of the good suggestions here in this forum post and I feel using all of them are great suggestions.  Over time all the little ways add up to a whole lot.  Good topic and was worth reading, thank you.

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       thisisoliposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Just so you know Xomba and stumble upon are no follow, not sure about that 360 one.

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13. 87

    Marisa Wrightposted 14 years ago

    This thread is relevant to the discussion:
    
    http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/50564#top

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14. 61

    Boomer60posted 14 years ago

    Market Samurai seems to be well worth the investment Izzy. If this is making a difference on your rankings than it is worth every penny.

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15. 60

    katiem2posted 14 years ago

    Marisa, Great post thanks.
    
    I ;
    1) first and fore most
    4) articles on several sites
    2) do follow a habit and just to easy so why not
    8) some things I've yet to see posted here
    
    but hea WHAT  I know is that I know nothing and always looking to learn better and do better.
    
    Hi All! 

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