Yeah....whining about traffic and scores....

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   annasmomposted 8 years ago

   I have some of my poetry up and the scores are consistently in the high fifties to low sixties.....Anyone with an interest in poetry and some spare time, can you look at them?  I am a published poet and author, but I am getting the ego knocked out of me here on HP!  Is there anyway to increase my traffic?  I do share on Facebook, but beyond that I can't seem to draw people in.
   Thank you so much.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Two things - scores do not help you get traffic, and lack of traffic has nothing to do with the quality of your poems.
      
      The question is, Anna, how do you expect readers to find your Hubs?
      
      Try it yourself - go to Google, think of a poem you know exists, and see if you can search for it.  Pretend you've never heard of the poet and you don't know the title of the poem - you have to use other words to search for it.
      
      How did that go?   Your potential readers also don't know your name or the title of your poems, so how do you expect them to find your poems?  Why would Google decide to include your poem in the results?  Google's ranking is not done by humans, it's done by machines, and they can't judge quality, only relevance.  If someone searches for poetry, Google is always going to think a site full of poems has a better chance of relevance than a site full of factual articles with a few poems thrown in.
      
      HubPages gets over 90% of its visitors from Google.  Readers do not visit HubPages just to browse around, like they would on a poetry site.  They arrive at a Hub because they were searching for something on the internet.  The active community on HubPages is very small so although you'll get readers from within the community at first, you'll soon run out of readers if you rely on them!   
      
      The above is why poets always struggle to do well on the internet, period.
      
      You can improve your chances by using the strategies Jodah has suggested.  But remember - your objective is not to build the score, which doesn't matter a hoot, but to improve your search engine visibility.

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         annasmomposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Marissa,
         I guess I didn't word my questions clearly.  It is a two-fold question.  I am trying to discern why my scores are low...if based on the quality of the poetry...and that is where they come from, correct?  The scores are from the way my peers rank my writing?  And then the second question was regarding generating traffic.  Between you and Jodah I have a few ideas.  I appreciate your response and will try to do some SEO, but it's difficult to do with this genre.  Thank you!

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            Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, SEO is difficult to do with poetry which is why it doesn't do well on the internet - if something can't be found, it can't get traffic!
            
            As for the scores - they are an old, irrelevant hangover from the early days of HubPages.  A couple of years ago there were frequent discussions on these forums between HubPages staff and Hubbers about how meaningless they were, what could be done to improve them or even if they should be done away with - then the site's owner posted to say he liked the scores, and all debate shut down! 
            
            The scores have nothing to do with your peers ranking your Hubs.
            
            They consist of:
            
            HubScore
            
            The quality of the Hub as measured through the Quality Assessment Process (i.e. one person at Mechanical Turk);
            The quality of the Hub, as measured through reader consumption of and interaction with the Hub (e.g. how long do readers stay on your Hub);
            The length of the Hub;
            The number of comments the Hub receives;
            A Hubber's overall Hubber Score.
            
            Hubber Score
            The collective HubScores of your Hubs;
            Your activity in the Forums;
            Your support of other Hubbers through comments;
            The number and quality of Questions you ask;
            The number and quality of Answers you have given.
            
            You'll see there's a bit of a circular calculation going on there, with HubScore influencing HubberScore and vice versa.

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               annasmomposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Thank you for clarifying this!  I thought the individual HubScore was based on readers ranking it.  I am relieved to know that is not the case, I was really starting to feel insecure.  I have been active in the HP community and it has been easy to find both subjects and authors that are informative and interesting.  I guess I should just relax.  Thank you very much for making this easier for me to understand.

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                  tsmogposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  Hello! I have had some success with poetry in the past most being around 70 (+/-) 3. However, most of my poetry was inclusive with information about the poem - inspiration, genre, and etc. following the poem (See following), although did post only poetry and were featured maybe with oddity? Once I had a series of Poems only with all being Pantoum
                  
                  Hopefully other poets will chime in with their experiences too like that offered by Jodah.
                  
                  Sharing firstly for Creative work is this Guide used by MTurk for the QAP and the Hub Hopper here at HP for a rating. The Rater at MTurk has to decide if it is Creative or Informational. If a poem they will most likely choose Creative. That is combined with crawl by HP determining an initial Hub Score.With a Feature status is it is creative so recommended is no affiliate capsules - Amazon and Ebay, while I don't know since I don't use them in with Creative.
                  
                  Importantly for consideration is to be sure you are classifying the Hub in the best Topic, which you probably do. I have experimented with the following for that finding success both ways. I do not know if a Mturker sees the Topic Structure and uses that for assessment?
                  
                  Choice A
                  
                  Main Topic = Books, Literature, and Writing
                  and following subtopic structure:
                  
                  Main Subtopic: Commercial and Creative Writing → Subtopic: Finding Your Writer's Voice
                  
                  I found success here when posting only a Poem at times.
                  
                  Choice B
                  
                  The next Main Subtopic for Poems and Poetry is:
                  
                  Main Subtopic Poems and Poetry, which is a choice itself followed by many subtopics of that Main Subtopic with genres by Poem and Poetry type. There is not a Free Verse subtopic.
                  
                  Bear in mind if only a poem is posted it is a creative work while the goal of HP is informational Hubs. I have found success here by posting my poem first then with additional information. However, I did find success with just a poem too. I dun'no why?

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                     annasmomposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     tsmog!!!!  Holy smokes!  I am going to keep referring back to this and try the different metrics you suggested!  Thank you for taking all tis time to try and help, I really appreciate it!

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      Kylyssaposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I think a large part of your problem is that you have single poems without any additional text on the hubs.
      
      My poetry hubs have hubscores in the eighties and nineties, but I think it has nothing to do with the quality of the poems themselves. I think it just means the human beings giving the MTurk ratings prefer some of the same elements that Google does.
      
      A brief bit of text telling the genre and subject of the poems helps people decide if they want to read the poems. It also helps Google know the genre and subject of your poems so they show up in searches when people type in a search for a poetry genre and subject.
      
      Grouping multiple poems together on a hub by subject probably makes a page more attractive to readers who seem likely to prefer to find a collection of poems rather than just one poem. It's more work to find poems one at a time and I think most people read poems for pleasure and don't want to work all too hard to hunt them up.
      
      When I write a new poem I wish to share, I add it to an existing collection of poems or wait until I have enough poems on the same subject to start a new hub. I just started a new hub a few days ago which will only include poems related to the computer age and the Internet. It only has three poems and an introduction on it right now, but I'll continue to add poems to it.
      
      I also try choose a URL that identifies it as poetry and gives some idea of the subject matter.
      
      My poetry hubs don't get anywhere near the number of views my articles, tutorials, editorials, and stories do, but it's enough for them to remain featured without frequent tweaking.

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         annasmomposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you Kylyssa!  Seems to be a recurring theme, the more than a poem to a page...I think you and your com padres probably kno2w what you are talking about.  I will try to make my poetry more searchable and appealing by adding some backstory to it's inspiration.  And maybe learn more about links and URLs and all the things I need to learn.

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      annasmomposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Just want to put a shout out to all of you here on HP.  What a lovely and helpful community!  I thank all of you for your help.  I am happy to have found such helpful and supportive people here, and I will learn a lot from all of you!

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   paradigmsearchposted 8 years ago

   I feel your pain. Been there, done that. Google hates CW and that is that.

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      annasmomposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I am thinking you are on to something...lol.

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   paradigmsearchposted 8 years ago

   I feel a flash fiction coming on... Or not.

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      annasmomposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      At my age, it's a hot flash...not fiction! 

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   Jodahposted 8 years ago

   Hi annasmom, I can relate to your concerns. Probably 2/3 of my hubs here are poetry. When I first started my poetry hubs attracted low scores especially my short micro-poems (average around 65) but I discovered that by adding extra words through extra facts on the subject of the poem or your inspiration for writing it, along with at least three photos and a video etc it was posible to get higher scores. For instance my hub called "Falling Asleep at the Wheel - The Consequences of Driving While Tired" which is essentially a poem has a score of 87. I found that recipe and how to hubs were more popular here so decided to combine a poem and recipe hub in my "How to Make the World's Best Scrambled Eggs". It also has a score of about 85. I also don't always list them under poetry but under the other relevant categories providing you meet word count and other guidelines. A lot of people say HubPages is not a good vehicle for poetry but it is if you work the system. If you just want a site to write poetry without having to add bells and whistles check out "All Poetry.com". I do love your poems by the way. Good luck. p.s. I also share on Pinterest and Google+

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      annasmomposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Jodah, Thank you for mentoring me through this!  And I think we have a mutual fan-club thing going because I like your writing as well!  I will try to incorporate a little backstory with poetry going forward and see if it helps.  I will also put in some content that is not creative writing, as much as it pains me to do it.  I participate in a couple of poetry pages on Facebook, and I do some article writing for iwriter. You can check out my poem The Gneiss on www.subtletea.com  and I have a poem in  the 2010 LAND Creative Writing Journal . My other work appeared in print.  I thank you for your support and guidance.  I am extremely grateful for your help!

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         chef-de-jourposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Jodah has given some excellent advice.
         I can also add that, whilst HP is primarily a platform for all things practical, useful and how-to, it gives poets the chance to express and that has to be welcomed.
         When I get the urge to publish I like to combine poems - say ten at a time - in a single hub and add images and some related information. It seems to be work for me.
         I wish you every success.

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            annasmomposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you and yes, the exposure is nice.  I will try to put more tha one poem per page and maybe a little backstory.  I do not want to explain the poem though, I like people to see what they see for themselves.

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   NateB11posted 8 years ago

   For generating traffic to your poetry Hubs I recommend you read Cardisa's Hub about how to do that.

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      annasmomposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Nate!  I will!

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