What's the point?

1. 72

   JustLivingOnlineposted 9 years ago

   
   17 Hubs published and I get about one view per day between all of them?   I realize it takes a while to establish yourself but is that normal?  Does it pick up over time?  All my articles are well over length and get maximum hubber checkmarks? 
   
   Now, granted, I don't research the most obscure topics and write on them (ie: 'how to make a good musk oxen chili', or 'Should you braid your pubic hair' or '10 things I notice about grass ').  I also don't put a ton into SEO.  Most of my topics are travel guides based on personal experience, or financial stuff.
   
   I don't care that I am not making pennies through Adsense, but I feel what is the point if no one benefits by me publishing the stuff.   Should I just fold it up?  Or should I capitulate and write a really great article on how to tie your shoe blindfolded in a wind tunnel?  Or 'how to tell if Bigfoot is eating out of your birdfeeder'    If anyone can give me some advice I would appreciate it.

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   1. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      HubPages is a long term investment, like most writing online.   An internet guru once said to me, "what you write today will earn you money in a year's time", and I think that's true. 
      
      If you're lucky, Google will pick up your Hub early and start featuring it highly - but for most of us, that doesn't happen.  It can take weeks or months for Google to like your Hub enough to put it on the front page.   If there's a lot of competition on that topic already, your Hub may never make it.
      
      Have you tried thinking of what people might search for to find your Hub?  Try typing those searches into Google and see what comes up.  Is your Hub better than those other articles? If not, why would Google decide to include your Hub on that front page?
      
      By the way, you may see your Hub there already - but don't get too excited. Google personalises your results based on your Google account and your IP address - you're not seeing what other people see.

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      1. 72

         JustLivingOnlineposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Marisa!

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   2. 96

      Solarasposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Change your title to:
      
      Top 9 (or 10) Things to do in Seattle | Seattle Underground Tour and More. No one is searching for Best of Seattle.
      
      There are 12,000 searches for Seattle Underground Tour a month and 1300 "Top" things to do a month. 
      
      If you can add a related hotel hub for Seattle Hotels and Underground that would have real potential. Seattle Hotels get 23,0000 searches a month.  Try to make a longtail key word to get some of those hotel searchers that also want to be installed in/near the underground.
      
      By the way that was a well written piece!

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      1. 72

         JustLivingOnlineposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks.  I will follow your suggestions and see where it leads.

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   3. 83

      ILoveLegosTooposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I looked at your Seattle article and thought it was well written.
      
      I have written a few travel articles and they typically represent a vacation I have taken with my family.  So although, the destination is what I really want to highlight, I try to represent where I'm coming from, which is Chicago.   So in your case, you may want to highlight that you are traveling from Wisconsin to visit the places you highlight.  Also think about why a person from Wisconsin would visit the specific spots in your article.  For example, when going to a sporting event, are any of the Milwaukee or Green Bay teams playing while they are there.
      
      I understand the generic version of the article, but its hard to compete with everything out there on the same subject.  Making the article about someone from Wisconsin traveling to these places, puts on a unique spin.

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      1. 72

         JustLivingOnlineposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks for the tip.  I will keep that in mind.

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2. 81

   Availiasvisionposted 9 years ago

   I have a similar question, is it normal for most of your Hubs to get zero views a day?  Even several year old ones that have tons of good content and pictures.

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   1. 73

      Barbara Kayposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I read one of your hubs and it is fantastic writing. If you don't have the right keywords getting 0 views can be normal. You might do better writing eBooks. I don't know, since I've heard that selling 100 of them is doing well.
      
      I hope someone here gives you the right advice, because I for one, enjoy your writing.

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      1. 81

         Availiasvisionposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         @ Barbara, thank you for those kind words of encouragement.

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   2. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      First, check to make sure your Hubs are still Featured (i.e. they've got a H next to them on your account page).   If they're not Featured, they're invisible to everyone except those you've sent a link to - so they're going to get no traffic.
      
      If they are Featured, take a look at the Hubs which are getting no traffic and ask yourself, "what would people need to type in to Google to find this Hub?"    Note them down.  Now ask yourself, "How likely is it that someone's going to use those search terms?"   
      
      90% of HubPages traffic comes from people searching on Google, Bing and Yahoo.   If you have difficulty thinking of search terms to find a Hub, there's your problem.  If people can't find your Hub in search, no one can see it.    Also, if you can think of possible search terms but very few people are likely to search for them, there's your answer. 
      
      You can also try typing your search terms into Google and see what comes up.  Are they better than your article?  Couild you improve yours to beat them?   Perhaps they just have a more descriptive title?   
      
      I wrote a Hub on optimizing your Hub, you'll find it in the slider on my profile.

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   3. 96

      Solarasposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      It can be, depending on your competition.  You need to try to find some angle that no one else has exploited yet, if you have gotten no traffic in several years.  Some topics are tough - health for instance is dominated by Web MD and other specialists.
      
      Check Google Analytics and look for that phrase that none of the big guys are gunning for, then tailor your keywords and content to fit that search term.

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3. 87

   Rik Ravadoposted 9 years ago

   I agree your Seattle article is excellently written and well illustrated.  As others have said its the scope of the article that is the issue.  Your article is totally lost in the search engines.  You need to find very specific things in Seattle that no one else has covered.
   
   Stuff like: Staying in Seattle on a tight budget, Seattle on 100 dollars a day, Best Vegetarian places to eat in S, Being gay in S or Seattle for the Disabled.
   
   This is a problem we all share.  Its not a Hubpages problem.  Its the writers problem to write stuff that is being searched for but not answered.
   
   I made a lot of money when Downton Abbey first appeared.  Everyone wanted to know what would happen next and this information wasn't in the public domain so I wrote articles predicting what might happen (tongue in cheek) and got immediate massive amounts of traffic.

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   1. 72

      relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      One piece of advice from a Seattle resident:  if you have not actually ever spent time in Seattle doing those things (I see you live in Wisconsin), it's not recommended to write about things to do here. 
      
      And as a resident of Seattle, in reference to the below.... Please send me some of whatever you are smoking in your state, because despite our legalization, your stuff clearly is more potent.
      
      "While residents experience more rainy days than almost any city in the lower 48, you could swear they don't even notice most of the time."

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      1. 72

         JustLivingOnlineposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Relache,
         
         Yes, you are correct, I am from Wisconsin.  If you noticed many of my articles are about travel and are from the perspective of a tourist, not a local.   I don't just pick a city, research it on the internet, and try to write a piece.  I love diving head first into an area and doing everything possible, then I try to help others if they want to do the same.  If I didn't do it, I don't write about it. 
         
         With that being said, your comment insinuating that I am an idiot or on weed (which is basically the same thing), because I say that people in Seattle are immune to the rain can not be judged by you solely based on the fact that you live in that atmosphere and probably don't know how other people react to rain outside of your home city.  Ironic actually considering your comment. 
         
         Perfect example, look at events at CenturyLink Field, a Sounders game for example.  Rarely is there a game where it is not raining ( I know, they are my favorite MLS team and I watch them regularly).  Despite this, the stadium is always packed.  A scan of the field shows raincoats and umbrellas, but even more so are people wearing little gear to protect them from the rain.   Go to another city in the USA and if it rains the stadium would clear.  People would be taped up in a plastic sheet and rain galoshes.
         
         I have relatives and friends there, some native, others transplants, that have attested to the exact same thing about the rain.  For the transplants they equate it to winter in Wisconsin.  For us, if it is Spring and the temperature goes above 40 degrees, everyone pulls out shorts.  Get someone from Florida up here in November and they will be wearing a jacket, hat and gloves while the rest of us just broke out the long sleeve shirts.  You get used to it.  Honestly, to say that a Seattle resident is not used to the rain would almost be like an insult.  Many wear it as a badge of honor (one of which is a cousin who works at Microsoft).
         
         So I must apologize for insulting your intelligence by writing about something you are an expert on and I am not.  I have only been on Hubpages for about two months but I was early on made aware of your presence on this site.  You insist on reverence because you were "one of the first" here  and spend time trolling other writers trying to antagonize them because you don't feel they belong or are worthy of your status.  There is constructive criticism and then these is this.  It does not help me to be a better hubber by you telling me that I am on drugs and shouldn't be writing. 
         
         Anyway, I know I should not feed this nonsense by responding but sometimes a bully needs to be confronted.  I have seen you troll others and don't feel like you serve any useful purpose in the forum discussions.  A score of 98 just shows that Hubpages has a crappy way of evaluating people that is not based on thoughtful evaluation but rather a dumb computer algorithm.   
         
         To everyone else who has offered me help on this post, THANK YOU!  It has been helpful and it is good to know there are others who are genuinely interested in helping others.  I have read your suggestions and will implement them!  I will work to be like you and will not 'relache' others.

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         1. 68

            Paul Wardposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I gave you some approving ratings - mainly for the hub but also for the forums post.
            
            I think we have to accept that there are a few posters here who act in a manner that isn't conducive to a good community spirit but are tolerated by the moderating authority. A shame, as "official" forums can be very valuable resources  but I, like many, will be doing no more than visit here occasionally.
            
            However, let's not hijack your thread    One benefit of searching out other channels of help and communication could be that you connect with people of like interests - that might both guide your writing and guide some traffic to that writing.

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4. 71

   sockiiposted 9 years ago

   Everyone's already made some great suggestions regarding narrowing focus and trying to think what people are actually going to search for. As another example from your hubs, "What to do in the San Francisco Bay Area" - that's too broad or generic a title, and doesn't even really suggest that it's specifically about excursion, day trips, etc.
   
   Travel is also just a hard topic to get a real edge on traffic-wise, with so many huge sites like TripAdvisor out there which people will go to by default. So you need to tackle specific topics and perhaps build a niche collection of related travel articles to do better on the subject.
   
   It's also, honestly, been my experience that I pretty much never start seeing real traffic - and real earnings - on any writing platform until I have at least 50 articles posted there - and preferably 100. I know that seems like a lot of time and work to invest in a site before getting much return but, with those higher numbers, you can begin to see what kind of topics bring traffic on a given platform, what is working for you, and what isn't. With that you can go back to the start and revamp earlier works, tweak them, or just move them elsewhere or delete if it's not panning out.

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   1. 81

      Availiasvisionposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I do very well on Pintrest with the travel articles because people enjoy pinning pretty pictures of where they'd like to go.  My Maui article has already been pinned 600 times in a short while.  The hard ones for me are the more generic articles like, "Small Acts of Kindness." 
      
      I've done SEO research, but i'm still having a hard time sucking up to Google.

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      1. 71

         sockiiposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, thanks, that was another point I forgot to mention. Some subjects like travel, and food, can really benefit if you can take/use good photographs that are suited for social media promotion. Not just Pinterest but Tumblr can be good for that as well, if you start a themed micro-blog on your topic(s).

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5. 84

   SANJAY LAKHANPALposted 9 years ago

   Thanks Marisa Wright for the tips.

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6. 88

   Len Cannonposted 9 years ago

   I looked at a few of your articles, and I thought they were quite good. Your problem isn't your work, it's what you are writing about. The fact of the matter is, all of your travel guides are things that have been written about literally thousands of times by other websites.
   
   These websites are dedicated travel/lifestyle sites and HubPages is never going to be able to compete with them for Google search results.
   
   I think there is a place for travel articles on HubPages, but titles like "Top 10 Things to do in (Name of Hugely Popular Tourist Destination)" are competing against established websites that have had a similar article up for years.
   
   One of the things I do is if I google a question and I can't find any good, simple answers, I'll spend some time and research exactly what I would want to know and make it into an article for here or elsewhere. That way, you know if your content is good you have a real chance of becoming the top result.

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   1. 72

      JustLivingOnlineposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Len, I think you are right.  It is just that I like travel stuff.  Maybe I just need to reconsider if this is the right place for me.

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   2. 72

      JustLivingOnlineposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I think I am going to try an experiment.  I am going to write an article that is ridiculous but has a good chance of showing up in Google results.  I want to see what the Hub Score will be, and what the traffic will be.

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7. 90

   Teeuwynn Woodruffposted 9 years ago

   I've got the same kind of issues as you. I have 21 Hubs posted and get little traffic. I've tried to think about what keywords might be searched, but I'm not sure if I'm getting the hang of it. Heh.
   
   My Hubs tend to be entertainment and animal related. I've got an article on leashes which is undoubtedly too generic, but I've also written on what to name your Chinese Crested which seems more targeted to me.
   
   Thanks to everyone who's posted so far for the insights.

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8. 61

   Chauncey St Clairposted 9 years ago

   You might want to consider placing a sitemap with Google Webmaster Tools, that way your articles can be index with Google.  This is not just an issue of "popularity" or SEO, it's helping to connect your content with readers who will appreciate what you've written.  Social media like twitter and facebook can also be great sources for sharing with your friends what you've written.

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9. 67

   KL Kleinposted 9 years ago

   Have you been having low traffic for a while, or just since the latest Google update?
   
   I have 30-odd hubs, and used to get between 50-100 views a day most days. Now it's down to 6, grand total across all my articles.
   
   It's become very discouraging!

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10. 88

    liladybugz26posted 9 years ago

    Hi KL Klein,
    
    I do not want to change the subject, but I am wondering when you noticed this sudden decrease in views? I have also just had this happen without making any changes to the one hub I'm concerned about. It has regularly received on average 600 views per day, and in the past three days it took a nose dive down to around 200. I'm quite baffled. Is this the same time frame as your decline?

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    1. 67

       KL Kleinposted 9 years agoin reply to this

       It's been about a week for me.

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