Hardly any traffic in one year

1. 68

   Esmeowl12posted 13 years ago

   I've been with HubPages a year and have 33 hubs.  While I realize the topics are not terribly "hot" ones, I get virtually no traffic and therefore, have made no money.  Any suggestions?
   I have followed everyone's tips on backlinking, social networks, etc. but nothing seems to help.  Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

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   1. 69

      tritrainposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      My suggestions:
      --Try expanding to "hot" topics.
      --Be ahead of the curve and create Hubs based on up-and-comers in games, movies, actors, ideas.
      --Write sets of Hubs, meaning find a topic and write several Hubs and group them together.  My brother dominates a certain very competitive niche due to his writing very, very long Hubs and grouping them.  It worked on the search engines and it has paid off big time for him.
      --Do you have a big following on the forums and social networks (that you regularly use)?  If not, then you probably won't see much traffic from them.

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   2. 72

      relacheposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      What do your Hubs have to offer that other web pages on those same topics don't?  Do readers find something unique and useful in what you are writing?

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2. 68

   lrohnerposted 13 years ago

   Put the backlinking and social networking stuff aside for the moment, and focus on two things: keyword selection and on-page optimization.
   
   Read as many hubs as you can on these by folks like Sunforged, Darkside, Peter Hoggan, Mark Knowles, Thisisoli, etc.
   
   I looked at three of your earlier hubs. I know the topics you're going after, but I couldn't figure out the keywords to save my life. And Google ranks webpages by keyword.
   
   Let's say that you went to Google's keyword tool or Wordtracker and found out that "inexpensive gardening" was the keyword you were going to go after. That phrase should show exactly like that in the URL, title, first sentence, at least one subhead and one or two other places in the body of the article as well as the tags. (I realize you can't change the URL on existing hubs, but follow this for new hubs.)
   
   You have good hubs. I think if you can nail keywords and on-page SEO, you'll be good. Then go back to the backlinking.

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3. 87

   IzzyMposted 13 years ago

   I had a look at your homemade laundry soap hub.
   
   It is not on-page optimized. You used the word 'detergent' in your first paragraph instead of the word 'soap' which you have in your title and url.
   
   None on the first page on Google are optimized either, so this small change could make quite a difference.
   The phrase 'homemade laundry soap' gets a decent 730 searches per day.
   The phrase 'how to make soap' gets nearly 3000 searches per day.
   
   If I were you, I'd change the title to "How to make homemade laundry soap'.
   
   It is also on the short side at less than 300 words.
   
   Try and add another 100 if you can, or at least make the hub more interesting by adding photographs of the process.
   
   There are also several youtube videos about making laundry soap that you should utilize.
   
   Hope this helps

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4. 69

   thisisoliposted 13 years ago

   Hey,
   
   When you say you have followed everyones advice on backlinking, social bookmarking, etc, you have to remember that most people who talk about this - don't know what they are talking about.
   
   I am sick of seeing social media beign talked about as a backlinking technique, because it simply has nothing to do with SEO (Apart from in the last 6 months where google and bing incorporated the Facebook/Twitter firehose.
   
   Backlinking is getting links from high quality spam free sources, if the backlink takes you less than an hour to get it is probably not worth the minutes worth of effort you put in to it (in terms of SEO).
   
   To be honest though, the majority of getting traffic from search engines is all about keyword research, finding a niche can be difficult, but it is not impossible.

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5. 69

   tritrainposted 13 years ago

   I would like to add that the presentation could be updated.
   
   I know that most people don't like to read lengthy paragraphs, or one long one.
   
   Use graphics/images to break up the pages.
   Spice them up a bit.
   
   
   
   
   *I think these topics are of interest to you and I commend you for writing about your passions.
   
   Perhaps expand on these passions and make them useful and interesting to the reader.

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6. 68

   Esmeowl12posted 13 years ago

   Thanks so much, everyone, for your helpful advice.  I am taking each suggestion and re-evaluating all of my hubs. I really appreciate your input!

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   1. 96

      PaulGoodman67posted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, there's a lot more to it, than there appears at first.  Every time I think I've got my head around creating high ranking/earning hubs, I read another great piece of advice and realise how much more I need to learn!  :-)

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7. 62

   freecampingaussieposted 13 years ago

   I had a look at one of your hubs which is interesting on camping but you have the photos where the ads should be to the right of your words at the top,
   Promote your hubs on stumble upon, digg , facebook etc for more viewers

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8. 68

   Esmeowl12posted 13 years ago

   Thanks, freecampingaussie and PaulGoodman67.  Great tips that I can't wait to use.

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