Writing for HubPages: 5 Reasons Why Your Hub is Idle

Are you writing for HubPages and frustrated with the status of your Hubs?

It seems that every time I open HubPages, there is an angry Hubber or two ranting over Idle Hubs. They send pleas out into the Hub ether, demanding to know why their article is no longer Featured.

Now I'm no expert on writing for HubPages. I have been writing online using a variety of outlets since 2011, so my experience is limited. However, every time I take a gander at the work posted by said ranters, the reasons why they don't see that little black circle seem sort of obvious.

As of this writing, all of my Hubs are Featured. As you may have already determined, I'm not an amazing writer whose words exude magic fairy dust into the eyes of my readers.

I don't work for HP. I don't know--or assume to know--what's going on "behind the scenes".

But I do research my interests, and writing is on that list. I truly believe that if you want to be successful at writing (or anything, for that matter), you'd better take time to study your craft.

Otherwise, your chances of success are about as good as winning the lottery.

I'm not saying that my Hubs never go Idle. I had a couple that went to Idle status last week.

I took the time to make some tweaks and adjustments, and they went back to Featured within 24 hours.

So the next time you see that blank space after your Hub's title, please take a look at the following list of possible reasons for going Idle.

This is far more beneficial than deciding that:

• Big Brother Hubber doesn't like you,
• HubPages staff withholds a Featured status for no reason,
• Your Idle hubs are a guaranteed failure,
• There's very little you can do about Idle Hubs.

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By the way, I want to note that using social media doesn't require a lot of your time (even if we tend to spend large chunks of time on these sites). A few minutes each day can translate into a few clicks from friends and followers. And they'll tell two friends . . . and they'll tell two friends . . .

" . . . Hubs [that] may be initially Featured may return to a normal state if lower quality ratings come in or if the Hub experiences low levels of reader engagement over time."

So keep tweeting, sharing, and updating your Hubs for more exposure and impact.

"The Quality Assessment Process incorporates several factors, including . . . analysis of the how engaged readers are with a Hub over an extended period of time." -HubPages Learning Center

Successful writers everywhere have something to say that serves the wants and needs of their readership. Are you helping to solve a problem? Do you have something funny to say? Are you breaking down a complex issue that you understand well, making it easier for others to understand?

This is a crucial element of online writing, which includes writing for HubPages.

Or anywhere, for that matter.

This may be subjective: I might find a subject important and fascinating, and you might think it's a yawner (or vice versa). But if you truly find your Hub to be something of value, others will, too.

If you're just spinning information that has been repeated over and over and over until we look at your title and think, "Ugh. That's been done to death," you can bet that you've earned your Idle status.

And speaking of titles, I love this free ebook/report thingy from Copyblogger (an excellent site for online writing tips) called Headline Hacks. I printed it out and refer to it often.

So if your headline isn't working, try another one. You're not married to it. You can change it as often as you wish.

Your Hub is never going to gain its full potential as long as the headline doesn't grab your intended audience's attention.

Other than a cool headline, a great way to capture your audience's attention is to produce content that makes people want to share it using one of the major social media outlets.

If you're a writer in the year 2013 or beyond, you need to be involved in social media. Online social interaction is a crucial way of showing Google that you have credibility.

Even if your work is amazing, we internet users are constantly bombarded with messages. Many distractions keep your articles buried under a ginormous pile of LOOK AT MEs.

Join Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Get in the habit of sharing your work with your friends and followers.

Don't forget to share other cool stuff you see online as well. Share information that others will find interesting and/or helpful, and they'll look forward to your posts.

As they retweet, share, and pin, you not only expand your readership and create high-quality backlinks. You also gain more followers who will see the work you share (i.e., your Hubs).

Unless you have some level of celebrity status, this doesn't happen overnight. Eat that elephant one bite at a time, and before you know it you'll see progress.

What a gross analogy. Sorry about that.

Remember that any time you spend on the forums ranting about the injustices you face as a writer, you're taking time away from studying, brainstorming, and writing.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't use the forums; they're a great way for us to provide support and encouragement to one another. But if you go on there just to spew venom, troll other Hubbers, or generally spread negative energy all over the place, take a moment to think about other things you could be doing with your time to help yourself.

Even if that means writing somewhere else--move forward and leave the negativity behind.

I think this one is especially difficult for those of us who didn't grow up doing most of our reading online. We spent years of our lives writing term papers and essays using specific guidelines.

Guidelines that go against everything that works for online audiences.

My first online writing experience was with Suite101. I wrote less than 30 articles for them for about a month or so.

I didn't know anything about search engine optimization or writing for an online audience. Those articles are so lame--they read like something I had to turn in to my English teacher.

But a couple of months ago I received my first PayPal deposit for 13 bucks from those lousy articles on that troubled network.

The next month I got another $10, then this month another $10. Please don't hear me telling you to go to Suite101. The message here is that there's truth to what they say about waiting for your articles to make money.

That was a bit of a bunny trail.

Focus!

Writing for an online audience takes practice for many of us. See how I break my text up into small chunks? Notice the different types of text, bold and italicized? This helps readers to skim over the article to find the information that they need.

Reading information on your computer is nothing like reading from a book, so don't treat it that way. Man of the articles written by those who complain about their Idle status contain large blocks of text. Nothing that stands out or helps readers to find the main points.

I don't have all day to read everything that I'd like to on the internet, and neither do you. Keep it simple and the Google gods will grant you favor. That's what it's all about if you're writing for HubPages and you want your Hubs to stay featured.

"If you believe a particular Hub of yours deserves to be Featured, edit it to check for typos and grammar mistakes . . . " -HubPages Learning Center

There are many who blame ESL writers for poor sentence structure and substandard writing, but terrible sentences exist in all of us.

I'm not talking about perfect grammar--online perfection is about as useful as good penmanship these days.

But if I have to read a sentence several times to figure out what the H-E-double-hockeysticks you're talking about, you can bet I'm taking my eyes elsewhere. And fast.

Again, we don't have time to spend all day reading your Hub, just like you don't have all day to read others' Hubs. Make it easier for everyone and study proper sentence structure.

Put the action at the beginning. Get to the point. Keep commas to a minimum. Stuff like that.

The Yahoo Style Guide (as mentioned above) also helps with this issue. They give you examples that demonstrate the difference between an internet-optimized sentence and one that will make readers click away in a flash.

Flickr is a great place to find free photos.

Go to the advanced search area, type in what you're looking for in the top field, then check the two checkboxes at the bottom of the page that say you want only Creative Commons photos and you want to use them commercially (see the photo below).

When you find a photo you would like to use,

• download a large copy of it.
• Upload it into a photo capsule in your Hub.
• Copy the url where you found the photo and paste it in the url field of the photo capsule.
• Add the username of the person who took the photo to give them proper attribution.
• Include the license information.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) supports all of the aspects of what makes a Hub Feature-able.

SEO helps search engines find your article. It guides searchers to the most accurate and useful information. Algorithms are always updating, which is a good thing. We're all searching for information, and we've all experienced the frustration of irrelevant links.

If you want to make it easier for Google (and other search engines) to notice your work as high quality, make an effort to use basic SEO techniques.

I'm certainly no SEO expert. I do try to keep up with the basics, like:

• Using keyword phrases (in the title, url, first paragraph, end, headings, bold, italicized),
• Including relevant links to high-quality, authority sites (like WebMD or a .gov website),
• Linking back to your Hub from other articles and/or Hubs (example: write a related article on Squidoo or on your blog, then link back to your Hub),
• Using the correct anchor text,
• Labeling your original photos with keywords when you can,
• Link-building using social media sharing.

Another good way to build links is to put your original photos on Flickr. You can sign up for a free membership, then

• Name your photos with keywords before you upload them
• When you use your original photo, copy the url where your photo is located on Flickr, then paste it in the url section of the Hub's photo capsule. Now you have a quality outbound link.
• Name yourself as the source in the photo capsule.

Then you can link your photo on Flickr to your Hub. This creates a quality inbound link.

It also shows Google that you're not stealing someone else's stuff, adding credibility to your work.

If you write poetry, short stories, memoir, or other genre where you may not use keyword phrases, you might find that it's more challenging to get your Hub Featured.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't continue writing what you love. But you should also consider starting a blog and writing an ebook to boost your online presence.

And like the HubPages LearningCenter says,

"A Hub does not have to be Featured to be successful. All Hubs are still available through their URLs, via internal HubPages search, and in the Feeds of your Followers.

"All Hubs can also be shared via social media and email with friends and family, and should you choose, you may also display all of your Hubs on your Profile (by changing your settings under My Account > Profile > Edit Profile), or inserting certain Hubs into your Profile’s 'In the Spotlight' Hubs carousel, though we recommend only displaying your best, most successful work."

This option doesn't make much sense unless you want to add content to another site, like your blog.

Even then, why do you want to take an article that needs work and put it somewhere else? Wouldn't it benefit you more to improve upon the work you've already done?

You could try posting your article on Constant Content so that you have the opportunity to make five bucks or so off a usage license (or full rights license if you accept working for content mill wages). An article that needs work isn't likely to draw much money from CC clients.

Articles sold on CC don't help build your online reputation, either. You don't get a link or a byline. Once your work is sold, it's gone for good.

On the other hand, the more quality articles you post on the web with your name on them, the more you gain credibility.

This is true not only for HubPages, but also for other sites like Squidoo or your personal blogs.

Don't think of your Hub as "Featured" or "Idle", a "winner" or "loser". Think of it as a foundation; as you learn and grow more as a writer, you gain the skills that give you the ability to build on that foundation and create something you can be proud of.

So you haven't written for HubPages in a while. You came back to check on your articles and now they're no longer Featured.

And you're surprised?

You don't show up for work. You're not sharing your Hub, keeping your content current, or adding improvements to your already-mediocre article.

Stuff happens.

{Say what you want. I've been called worse.}

The most successful people writing for HubPages do the work. They don't slap something together and wait for the money to pour in.

"If you believe a particular Hub of yours deserves to be Featured, [then] add more media and information, and increase its potential for reader engagement (e.g. make it more alluring, useful, and accessible)."

I don't think I've ever looked at one of my published articles and thought, "This is perfect! There's nothing that needs to be changed or added. No photos, videos . . . no adjustment in keyword phrases. Perfection in Hubbery, I tell you!"

That makes me laugh just thinking about it.

"As Hubs mature, are edited, and are expanded upon, they are reviewed again by the Quality Assessment Process. This means that any Hub may eventually become Featured, and vice versa."

See that?

If you take the time to improve your Hub, you can get your Featured status back. If your Hub was never Featured, you can get it there with a bit of effort.

This happened to me. One day, I regurgitated my emotions into a Hub that wasn't optimized. I didn't intend for this article to be Featured, nor did I care.

But later I realized that with a few small changes, the article could be more effective. And guess what? It was Featured the next day.

So instead of clogging the forum with negative mind-poo, use that time instead to make your Hub awesome. Clean up those big gaps you have between paragraphs. Add photos. Embolden a sentence here and there. Add a few links. Dust the furniture and move it around a bit.

The quotes contained throughout this article are found in the LearningCenter Hub titled Featured Hubs and the Quality Assessment Process.

In the article, HP discusses how they determine whether or not a Hub will be Featured or Idle. It also gives you instructions on what to do if you feel your Hub should be Featured when it isn't.

Writing for HubPages isn't easy, but no one ever said that writing is ever a simple task. Like Hemingway said, "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed". It's a roller coaster ride that isn't for the faint of heart, nor is it for those who refuse to set aside their egos and learn.

© Liz Davis 2013 Writing for HubPages