Short Hubs?

1. 72

   LauraD093posted 10 years ago

   I really get confused. One school of thought says longer more descriptive hubs are the edit-answer then I am told the average internet reader prefers shorter content. A majority of my hubs are 700 words or less which may be drastically effecting my views. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      There is a simple reason for the confusion.
      
      Yes, internet readers have a short attention span.  However, you're not writing just for the reader.
      
      In order to get readers, your Hub has to appear on the results when someone searches on Google (or Bing or Yahoo).  So while your ultimate goal is to please readers, you first need to please the search engines.
      
      As TimeTraveller says, the longer the Hub, the more opportunity you have to use lots of different words relating to your chosen topic, which will improve your Hub's chances of being found.

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   2. 83

      Laura Schneiderposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Haha. I'm still mostly confused, too, you're not alone!
      
      But, I suspect that the "gems" we can glean from the comments to your questions (thanks everyone!) are:
      
      1. Research keywords and use them in various forms throughout your Hub. What is the search engine looking for? What is the reader looking for? Use those various terms.
      2. Write longer Hubs to improve search engine visibility.
      3. "Chunk" your Hub for easy reader consumption of even long Hubs--break it into bullets, pictures, headlines, underlined important text, different types of capsules, intriguing separators/dividers, pull-quotes, etc.--to help the eventual reader to quickly scan the document for what they're looking for.
      
      Also:
      * Don't forget to include Amazon and eBay capsules as appropriate to make more money.
      * Include links to your own and others' articles near the end of the piece. (Toot your own horn and collect the loose change from your horn case at the end of the day.) You also get paid a slightly lower amount for referrals to other Hubbers' works (I'm 98% sure), so don't hesitate to include relevant cross-references that you didn't write.
      * Add an "About the Author" section with a clickable reference to your profile page in hopes of getting another page hit.
      * Remind readers to scroll down and vote up/down and how they liked it. (Call to action.)
      * Include a solid but generic copyright/trademark statement that you can use on all Hubs (you don't want to have to rewrite a unique one each time).
      * I, personally, don't understand the various trackers (especially since Google Webmaster Tools says to have only one, and there is no way to delete multiples). However, learning about trackers and including them if appropriate is probably a good idea, too, (it's next on my learning list).
      * Don't forget to "Pin it"--the article and any/all interesting graphics, submit it to many different search engines (however many you have the patience and time for), "Like" it on Facebook, and otherwise pick up back-links to each article. If you have your own website, don't forget to add a back-link to the Hub from your own website, too.
      
      Anything I'm forgetting? My apologies!! Please enlighten us/correct me if I'm wrong.
      
      Excellent question and enlightening answers! Thanks everyone!

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2. 73

   livewithrichardposted 10 years ago

   There is no right or wrong answer for this.  I still have a few hubs that have fewer than 350 words but they continue to get me views and sales through eBay.  I also have a few hubs that are over 1500 words but get very few views per month.
   
   If you do your keyword research correctly then you take a lot of the guess work out of the equation.  Try to find keywords and phrase that get more than a 1000 global searches a month and also have fewer than 500,000 competing pages on Google for the terms.  Here on HP it use to make sense to target high paying keywords with large search volumes and low competition but the HP Ad program has pretty much killed Adsense earnings so you shouldn't concentrate too much on high paying keywords.

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3. 66

   tamronposted 10 years ago

   Its a guessing game!  I have hubs 300 to 400 word that get 50+ views a day I have hubs with 500 to 700 words that get a 100 + views then I have hubs that are researched and took a couple of days to publish..Get very little views.  I have post on my blogs that get 200+ views a day all Google traffic.  Don't ask me whats different I have know clue!

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   1. 86

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Here are my two cents:  The longer the hub, the more key words there are and the greater the chance for people to read it.  To me, it's pretty clear, but what do I know??

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4. 72

   LauraD093posted 10 years ago

   I want to thank everyone-I'm going to concentrate on key-words and experiemnt with longer hubs.  It seems like every time I write a new hub new practices are out there---lol

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5. 88

   Stacie Lposted 10 years ago

   Most readers skim articles for certain words...not necessarily Google keywords,but those of interest that may answer a question for them.
   I try to write and bold subheadings so a reader can find whatever they are looking for easier. I'm sure this isn't any new information.
   Most of my hubs are over 500 and some are over 1000. it all depend son the subject matter as others have stated.

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6. 81

   ologsinquitoposted 10 years ago

   I think in general longer is better. However, my best hub in terms of traffic was one I put together rather quickly and it's shorter than some of the others. I did no keyword research because I didn't even know what it was. Go figure

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   1. 86

      TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Here's the kicker in all of this:  I am now hearing and reading that keywords are becoming a thing of the past because people have been using them to game Google's system.  If this is true, then what is the next step for writers?  Anybody?

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