Advice on how best to review snacks: box by box, or bunched into theme

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   Emma Lindhagenposted 10 years ago

   Hi everyone!
   
   I'm pretty new to Hubpages and I'd like some advice from more experienced users. My first hub was about a hobby of mine: swapping snacks with people from other countries. My second one featured reviews of the items I received in one of the swaps I've done. I had originally planned to do one review Hub per box of goodies I've received in swaps, but as I've been working on the second one it's dawned on me that I don't think the first review hub came out as particularly user friendly. First of all, the items reviewed don't have much in common except having been sent by the same person. Additionally, at over 2k words and featuring almost 20 products I'm thinking maybe it's a bit long for a group review of this type. So I've been wondering if it wouldn't lead to better quality, more reader-friendly hubs if I disregarded which products I received in which swap, and instead just grouped them together according to some sort of theme. So instead of hubs like "Mixed snacks from Texas" I'd have hubs like "5 peanut butter candies" or "5 Wonka Brand candies". I'd have shorter hubs, but I'd have more of them and, more importantly, I think they'd be more fun and easy to read because of the shorter size and because of them featuring a certain type, brand or whatever else of snack. I also think they might be easier to find using the search feature because the headlines would be more specific.
   
   What do you all think? Does this sound like a better strategy?

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      sheilamyersposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      My choice would to be to group like products together in the same hub so you can compare and contrast similar items. You can answer questions like why one peanut butter candy tastes better than another or which one will melt and make a mess in your lunchbox while the others won't. Also, by each hub focusing on a particular type of snack (chips, candy bars, etc) I think it will help drive more specific traffic because some people won't want to wade through a wider variety of snacks in order to find the information about one in particular. If someone is looking for information about corn chips and your hub pops up in the search for that keyword and they have to read about everything but corn chips until the end of the hub, they may leave your hub without reading past the first one or two sections.

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      1. 67

         Emma Lindhagenposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for the input, Shiela. I was thinking along those lines and it's nice to see a more experienced hubber agrees with me!

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      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      The first thing that occurs is that most people have a preference for either sweet or savoury.  So that's an obvious split to make.
      
      After that, I think the best plan is to think of it from the readers' point of view.   What are people most likely to be looking for?
      
      Two possibilities occur:  (1) people who are curious about the different kinds of snacks available around the world, and (2) people who are looking for new and different snacks to try. 
      
      Obviously if you aim for category 1, then your idea of comparing peanut butter candies, regardless of origin, is perfect.  Whereas if you aim for category 2, then you need to group your snacks by where they're from (because they want snacks they can buy locally).
      
      The other thing you need to consider is length.  If your Hubs get too short, they may not pass QAP, become unFeatured and then almost no one would ever see them.  So especially for category 2, you might find you need to broaden the topic of each Hub.
      
      Final note:  you have a few "non-snack" items in your first Hub. They don't seem to fit and I'd definitely be putting foods in another Hub.

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      1. 67

         Emma Lindhagenposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Marisa and thanks for your input! I'm definitely going more for option 1 of the two you list. Although in some cases all snacks in one category may be from the same place anyway (for example, I've only had peanut butter candy from the US), it still seems to make more sense to group by type.
         
         I do need to keep the length in mind. I know "stellar" hubs are supposed to be about 1k words long, but I have heard (and seen) that shorter hubs than that can also pass QAP so I figure if they're well written it might still be worth a try. Additionally, I think if I group by theme I will be able to say more about each product since I can make more comparisons than I can when I mix all sorts of snacks together.
         
         For my first hub I wrote maybe 100 word per snack/candy. I think that's fairly reasonable, though at times it may of course get longer. Add to that an introduction, some extra words for comparisons and a conclusion, and I'm looking at say 700-800 words for a hub of 5 items. Hopefully that should still be enough. Plus, with themed posts  I think I'll be able to use polls and stuff more easily. "Which is your favorite M&M?" is a better poll than "which of these 18 random products do you like best?", lol.
         
         Separating sweet from salty (and food from candy), and when possible even different types of sweets from each other, will definitely make them more... I can't find the word, but it'll be easier for people to find what interests them.
         
         Thanks again!

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