Any Interest for a Tutorial on How to Rank Well Using the Niche Sites?

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   lobobrandonposted 6 years ago

   If people want to know how to work on a hub so that it ranks well once published on a niche site, I would be open to writing a guide. I will show you my research process and the way I generally structure the content and how I determine this structure and more. This will take some time to get done as I will create the guide as I update a hub of mine. I aim to take this particular hub from page 2 of search to the upper half of page 1 just by working on the content and I think this can be done. I've done it with other hubs in the past.
   
   If you're interested you could follow this thread and/or post a reply so that I can see how many people would actually benefit from it.

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      jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      That’s a great idea. Count me in. What’s the title of your article?

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         lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         I've not written it yet, I wanted to know if people would be interested before I spent the time writing it. I will be writing it this month.

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            jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            Can you provide some stats on your current articles? How many views per day on average?

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               lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

               Read this: https://hubpages.com/community/forum/33 … c---part-2 I'm not going to provide stats on traffic. You can take what you get from the guide or don't bother reading it. Simple

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                  jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                  It seems to me, you claim to have some expertise in getting traffic to your articles...
                  It should not be a problem to share your results and not a violation of HubPage rules.
                  I am just commenting from a user perspective.
                  I will read your article and voice my opinion.
                  I have strong ideas on what works and what doesn't and some of it depends more on the topic at hand rather than anything you or I can do in the design process.
                  Some topics will naturally attract more readers than others...no amount of SEO optimization or other techniques will improve on that...

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                     lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                     I beg to differ. You have 506 hubs and only have the 10k accolade. So I'm going to assume you have 99,999 views and are 1 view away from the 100k accolade. I must say your strong ideas on what works and what doesn't, doesn't seem to be working.
                     
                     Yes, some topics get more traffic than others. But ranking for the term you want to rank for is what I want to help people achieve. Whether it's pink pigeon poop (Susannah's famous example) or something millions search for, there's a way to rank better.
                     
                     I'm close to a Million views if you really want to know, 975,933 right now. And if you read the previous thread I linked to, you will see how I jumped up the rankings. I don't have to share. I can keep it to myself like the others who are successful here keep things to themselves.

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                        jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                        No need to assume. I have no problem sharing my stats. My total view at the moment after 3 years on Hubpages is slightly over 50k...  I have 500 hubs and I never write to make money for myself or promote my hubs. I am donating all my income on Hubpages to charity.
                        As far as SEO, you may have some edge but it is a loosing proposition. Google changes its algorithm periodically and you are always playing catchup...
                        If you check some of my hubs, you will note many are commentary on various topics. I write for my own satisfaction and don’t really care if no one reads it.
                        If someone finds my writing interesting, or helpful, so much the better.

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                           lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                           It's not a losing proposition. If you try to game the system like most SEO people do, then yes it's a losing proposition.

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                     EricDockettposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                     I would never expect another writer to share their traffic stats. I know I would never share mine. What Brandon is offering to do will benefit everyone here -- everyone who is willing to try to improve, anyway. No matter what they write about.
                     
                     Understanding even a little bit about SEO can make a big difference in your traffic. Even a small change to your writing and editing process here and there, such as creating better titles or better meta descriptions or better headers, can lead to improved results. With 503 Hubs, if you can get an extra 3 views per day per Hub that's 1500 extra visitors per day. 45,000 more readers each month. More than half a million more readers each year.
                     
                     Whether you care about the money or not, anyone who bothers to write wants people to read their work. Surely you want more traffic, right?
                     
                     Basic SEO matters. Brandon does it for a living so he is more advanced than most of us, but everyone can easily learn enough to improve their traffic and earnings here.
                     
                     That's what this forum is supposed to be for. Not for silly word games, quotes and jokes and philosophical arguments.

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                        Monique K-Gposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                        What is SEO? I'm still new, and just figured out this forums page...

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                           Barbara Kayposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                           Monique, It stands for search engine optimization.

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                              Monique K-Gposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                              Thank you!

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            Solarasposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you Brandon.  I look forward to reading it!

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      liesl5858posted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Count me in please, I would like to learn. Thank you, Brandon.

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      Natalie Frankposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Following. Thanks.

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      Monique K-Gposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I would love to!

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      TessSchlesingerposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Following. I'd like to compare notes. I wrote something similar on a hub about how to earn money on hubpages. It was selected for one of the niche sites, I think.

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         lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Cool. I'll check it out later, too once I am done with mine Made a note of this.

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      TessSchlesingerposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Following

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      Teeuwynn Woodruffposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I would be interested,

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         lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Teeuwynn, it's already been published. You can check it out on my profile, it's titled: Hubpages On-Page Seo Guide 2018

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            Teeuwynn Woodruffposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks

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               lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               You're welcome.

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   DrMark1961posted 6 years ago

   Following. Thanks for your continued willingness to help us all.

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   Titiaposted 6 years ago

   Following. Don't know if I will understand it all, but we'll see.

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   gerimcclymposted 6 years ago

   Following and thank you.

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   Grant's Worldposted 6 years ago

   Interested and following.

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   NateB11posted 6 years ago

   Following.

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   Shesabutterflyposted 6 years ago

   I would definitely be interested. So far I have not seen much traffic or page increases from articles that have been moved to niche sites.

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   Sherry Hposted 6 years ago

   I am following too. Thanks.

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   MelRootsNWritesposted 6 years ago

   I am interested.  Thank you for sharing what you've learned!

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    Lee Charles Laingposted 6 years ago

    I would be very interested Brandon.  I'm new here to HubPages so I'm looking to learn everything I can.  I also appreciate the fact that you would be willing to that to help others.  Can't wait to see it!

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    lobobrandonposted 6 years ago

    Nice. It should be done by the end of March. Will update this thread once it's published.

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    viryaboposted 6 years ago

    I am very interested in this and will definitely be following.
    Many thanks for sharing this, Lobobrandon.

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    sallybeaposted 6 years ago

    Yes, I would be interested.

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    kannanwritesposted 6 years ago

    Interested and following.

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    jamesjackoposted 6 years ago

    You can follow this site.
    
    https://www.nichepursuits.com/how-my-ni … n-62-days/
    
    & https://nichehacks.com/niche-seo-tips/.
    
    These sites actually post case studies on niche sites. They are very helpful and rest depend on your actions.

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       lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       Yup, they are both pretty decent case studies. But, translating the knowledge to Hubpages is what is important. There are so many things you can do on your own website which you cannot do here. The niche sites here are already built up very well and they use decent JSON LD markup too. It's definitely easier to rank using the HP niche sites as they stand today than beginning your own website.

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          jamesjackoposted 6 years agoin reply to this

          Yes you are right. Having the authority HP has an advantage to start niche site here rather than putting up new one.

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             lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

             Yeah, that's not what I meant. Just saying that it's easier. Does not mean you shouldn't start your own. Like everyone says, never have all your eggs in one basket.

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    EricDockettposted 6 years ago

    I'm interested. I do okay with the niche sites, but there is always room for improvement!

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       lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       Yup. That's my philosophy too.

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    HoneyBBposted 6 years ago

    Definitely interested and looking forward to it. Thank you.

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    Daniel Mollatposted 6 years ago

    I'm definitely interested in your project and following this thread. I'm curious though. Your profile shows that you only have 15 articles published. Could you give us newbies an idea how your 15 articles are doing traffic wise and earnings wise? I understand these are confidential questions but could you give us some guidelines on these questions?
    
    I asked because I've been made to understand that one must write hundreds of articles to rate high in viewer rankings and earnings. But here you are with only 15 articles and already expert enough to offer your help to those of us who are still trying to get a good grasp of how things work in HP.
    
    I'm very much looking forward to seeing your completed project.

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       lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       I have only 15 of articles, yes. And of those 15 most are not the best. I just have not had the time to work on them. Like Eric pointed out above, I do SEO for a living (over 8 years now) and at the same time, but I am also in the last stages of my master's course in a particular branch of renewable energy. I don't want to open on a public forum. So no more details on that.
       
       You did ask in a very nice way, so yeah I have close to 1M views and last summer I had 4 hubs getting me around 700 visits a day and this year I expect it to be even higher as I worked on 2 of those hubs and the rankings have improved significantly. Throughout the year I have a hub getting around 400 a day and many throughout the year get 100+ a day. I make payout through the HP ads program each month and I cross the threshold by a lot, I'm not just scraping 50.
       
       But like I said earlier, take what you want from the guide. I believe in learning something from everyone. A newbie can teach you stuff too. I have a few websites of my own, HP is just the place to be where I can interact with others and I do see that the niche sites have a lot of potential. So I am planning on writing a few more hubs, but only after I update the ones I have right now to meet the quality I am happy with.

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       DrMark1961posted 6 years agoin reply to this

       You do not HAVE to write hundreds of articles to rate higher. If lobobrandon had more time to write here, however, he would already have the 10million accolade. Your articles I have looked at are good and you could stop now, edit them several times a year, and easily make payout each month. If you want to earn more though I recommend you write even more high quality articles.

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          jackclee lmposted 6 years agoin reply to this

          Quality is subjective. I am not convinced a higher quality number by HubPages will being higher viewers. It really depends on the subject matter and what people are searching on. The title and keywords are important to rank high with google and other search engines. Just by being with hubpages, we already have an advantage. Many of my hubs rank in the top 10 of google search...and bing search engine.

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    WryLiltposted 6 years ago

    I'm looking forward to reading your hub, Brandon. From everything I've seen you post in the forums, you're obviously quite up to date and intuitive with SEO.
    
    And hub numbers certainly don't matter - I recently passed 7 million views and only have 65 hubs published now - I rarely hub anymore, but it's still a good income source. I usually write on other sites, the majority of which I own, so I can keep all the income.
    
    If anyone remembers Misha, he used to have less than 20 hubs and one of those hubs made him over $100/day.

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       lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       Oh yeah, Misha, that name does sound very familiar. Good to know.
       
       Btw, Susannah since you have websites too, you may be interested in this article by Matt Digitty, my favourite On-Page SEO dude: https://diggitymarketing.com/keyword-cannibalization/
       
       I did know about Keyword Cannibalization before, and I've worked on it too, but there are some pretty cool ways to track it which would help you work on it. This is if you want to increase your traffic via search. I would think you have a good brand name for your sites so this may not be a huge concern to you, but it's worth a read.

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          WryLiltposted 6 years agoin reply to this

          Interesting. I've always been wary of any of my articles competing with each other in the same SERPs, but I didn't know there was a name for it. Usually when I create duplicate content articles, I change the titles so there's no or little competition.

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             lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

             Yup, there's a term for it. Using an example on the topic of my hubs, what I noticed was the pages on Growing tomatoes in pots and containers was competing with my main page Growing tomatoes from seed.
             
             The titles are obviously different, but the term Growing Tomatoes is probably what confused Google and makes it think that they are both on the same topic.
             
             So what I did was, I merged those two pages and had a H2 heading for the section that discussed growing tomatoes in pots and containers. And after the merger, I rank better for both those terms, firstly because there is no internal competition (in Googles eyes it was probably duplicate content which is actually not the case) and secondly because the single page now has more in-depth content. I do have a very helpful table of contents on the top and this helps my readers too as I'm sure people looking for guidance on how to grow tomatoes would be interested in details on how to best grow them in pots.
             
             Also, Google now shows a clickable link to the section "growing tomatoes in containers" on the meta description when someone searches for this term.
             
             P.S: I don't have a gardening website, just used this as an example.

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                DrMark1961posted 6 years agoin reply to this

                How do you notice when one article is competing with another of your articles though? I have several articles on skin and ears and sometimes the information overlaps. Will Google consider this duplicate info?

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                   lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

                   It's hard to track on Hubpages. You're going to have to manually check the page that is ranking for that keyword in incognito mode over a few weeks to see if the wrong page ever ranks.
                   
                   Right now my watering tomatoes hub ranks better for how to grow tomatoes than my how to grow tomatoes hub. I noticed this by checking rankings occasionally. This is because the latter is relatively new to Dengarden and also the former is a lot more comprehensive so it does rank better. I need to work on the second one and make it good. Right now I'm not at all proud of it.
                   
                   What I would do in your case is study 5 hubs which you think could be competing at a time for a period of 3-4 weeks. I would look up the main keywords of these hubs and see which hub ranks for that term. If they do not switch around you're good. Else, you would have to do something about it, an internal link with the right anchor does help. But I am not sure if your topics are directly linked for you to do this.

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       Wesman Todd Shawposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Yes. I remember him. When I joined this site they had just published an interview with Misha and his $100 per day income. That got me really really interested in this whole business. 8 years later and I'm nowhere near that....and of course everything has changed drastically since then.

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          lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          I, unfortunately, don't really remember Misha, is he still around? The name rings a bell that's all.

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             Wesman Todd Shawposted 5 years agoin reply to this

             No. Misha was the backlinks king. At the time backlinks were just about the single most important thing there was for page rank. Once that deal died away, we no longer saw him around here. His account might still be here.
             
             Here's his account. He's only got 7 pages left as indexed or featured, but when he was making $100/day, he only had 20 something articles doing all of that. It was all adsense, ebay, and amazon then.Oh, and there was something else called kontrero, or something like that which one could use for ads.
             
             My memory is that he was making the $100 average per day with adsense.
             
             https://hubpages.com/@misha

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                lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                Thanks for this I really enjoyed reading his friends' review of the Google Search Engine (on his profile). It's hard to imagine there was a time when people were writing reviews about Google.

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    SheilaMilneposted 6 years ago

    I read on another thread that you may not be publishing a hub, but instead put the article on a website. If that is so, I'd like to register an interest please.

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    lobobrandonposted 6 years ago

    No, I will put it up here. If it can help many people, the one or two that use it and don't appreciate it don't really matter.
    
    I will begin working on this on the 21st of March as I have university stuff until then. And I am waiting for changes on a few hubs to take effect so that I can include them in the study. By the end of the month, it should be live.
    
    One thing I can say to those who want to work on their hubs is: Analyze your competition for the keyword. Look at the top 20 results. Is there something they are talking about that you aren't? Even if it is just one sentence. Is this information useful to anyone who comes to your page? If yes, do a little more research on that sentence and include it in your hub. Check out my hub, is the tomato a fruit or a vegetable. I recently followed this principle and extended it. Also, the quality wasn't the best. The older  version of the hub is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20180310183 … -Vegetable
    
    EDIT: If you see, I included another link to a dengarden hub, from a hubber I do not know. I did this because the hub is good and related to what I was discussing. This adds a quality external link and at the same time helps the search engines better understand my topic through analyzing the other pages I link out to. Details on why I did this and how if affects you will be presented in the hub.

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       Grant's Worldposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       Awesome tips thank you.

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    theraggededgeposted 6 years ago

    I'll be watching this one Thanks in advance.

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    janmodricposted 6 years ago

    Why don't you mention some quick tips about how to rank niche topics right here?
    
    I would be interested if you have something to say about the structure of the subtitles, for example. Also, what you believe about links. This has changed lately. What is potentially not/effective link?

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       lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       I can't discuss subtitles quickly, but links, yes. It's good to have outgoing links to sites that are related to your work. Never overdo it.
       
       - Always make sure your article can stand on its own.
       - There are going to be interesting branches of your topic which you don't cover, link out to those.
       - Add references to your work
       
       The references and the other links show search engines that your article is indeed what it thinks it is about (based on the words of your article). Just placing links for no reason is pointless. This does not on its own increase rankings in topics with even a little competition. But it does help search engines determine what you are writing about.  And more importantly it adds to reader satisfaction and they don't go back to the search results (lower bounce back to search) to find other helpful articles on the same topic. There's a lot more to it though.
       
       EDIT: SEO is not gaming the system, it is as the abbreviation suggests, search engine optimization. You are helping the search engines determine the worth of your work. Keyword stuffing, placing links when not necessary etc just shows that your work is sub-par and that is the signal you give search engines when you do this.
       
       So anyone who thinks that SEO is changing is wrong, search engines are just getting smarter and can now figure out when you're trying to play with the system.

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       lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

       I did mention a tip just before your post, not sure if you read that: http://bit.ly/2DrvUNK

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    Leland Johnsonposted 6 years ago

    Brandon, if write it I'll read it!

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    daydreamsposted 6 years ago

    I would be interested. I tend to just write articles and hope for the best- it would be useful to learn some tactics to try.

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    Leonie Manguilinposted 6 years ago

    Wow, interesting. Following!

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    Joshua Crowderposted 6 years ago

    Yes please!

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    ILoveLegosTooposted 6 years ago

    Following.  I could always learn more.

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    Marie Flintposted 6 years ago

    It couldn't hurt. Maybe I'll actually understand it.

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    DanieleRobbersposted 6 years ago

    I think that would be an amazing tool. I have searched the internet and most things I have found that were not on this site were far too vague.

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    lobobrandonposted 6 years ago

    Update: The article is 2700 words, but there is a lot more to cover. I will continue working on it after Easter. Have a nice holiday season everyone

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    Daniel Mollatposted 6 years ago

    We're all looking forward to see and read the final product.

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    RedElfposted 5 years ago

    Interested and following - looking forward to reading the finished article

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    Marcy Goodfleischposted 5 years ago

    I'm in - my hubs are overdue for some updating and tweaking. I was very interested in your example of tomatoes - I may have some hubs competing with each other. It's also been a while since I've written new material, and I need to get into my Zen state for writing and address that a bit.
    
    Thanks for posting this, Brandon - I admire your work and I know I can learn from you!

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    Barbara Kayposted 5 years ago

    I'm looking forward to your advice too.

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       Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Hi Brandon,
       I would be very interested. You have a lot to teach us .

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    lobobrandonposted 5 years ago

    This is gonna take longer than expected, got into a Ph.D. program so getting ready for that, etc.

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    lobobrandonposted 5 years ago

    I have just completed writing this guide. It's over 8000 words. Thanks to all of you for your patience. It took me nearly 3 months to get this done due as I was super busy in life. I'll update this thread again when I finally hit publish sometime in the next 24 hours. I'm just going to have to go through it and edit it before it's finally ready.

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       gerimcclymposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Thank you so much for doing this, lolobrandon--especially in the midst of your super busy schedule. We look forward to reading it whenever you are finished with it. Best to you as you complete your PhD program!

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          lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks a lot Geri.

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    lobobrandonposted 5 years ago

    Good news, the guide has just been published. It's titled Hubpages On-Page Seo Guide 2018 and can be found on my profile. I can't post a link here as we are not allowed to promote our own work. I hope you guys find it helpful.

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       EricDockettposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I found it helpful! I bookmarked it so I can come back and review. I suggest everyone check it out.
       
       I used to think about this stuff a lot and I believe it was one of the keys to doing well here. However, I've really let it slide since we changed from subdomains and the editors came onboard.
       
       One of my goals is to get back to concentrating on-page SEO, and this article is a great place to start.
       
       I already use Answer the Public and Ubsersuggest. Do you have any suggestions on tools for analyzing which keywords a page ranks for?  Even the lowest subscription for semrush is awfully pricey.

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          lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          It's just SEMrush and Ahref that can do this. There's no other tool out there, unfortunately. This is why I didn't include this on the article.
          
          Would be cool if HP could give us a spreadsheet on all hubs with keywords the hub ranks for. With one subscription they could get this done for all hubs. At least once every few months. Not too sure about this.  I think it's a very useful feature to have.
          
          Glad you found it useful, was aiming for that, especially coming from someone who also knows their way around SEO.

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             EricDockettposted 5 years agoin reply to this

             Would HP just be able to get that data from search console? We used to be able to get it ourselves when we had subdomains and webmaster tools.
             
             While I am thrilled that everything is going so well, one of the things I really miss is the ability to reference that data every time I update a hub.

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                lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                Not really webmaster tools does not really give you the best results, that's why I don't use it for my own websites and use SEMrush instead. Webmaster tools is better than nothing though.
                
                I am not sure how easy it is to provide data from webmaster tools.

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       Wesman Todd Shawposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I will certainly read it. I've been able to tell for a long while that you were really doing some serious and likely reliable analysis of such things.

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          lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          Let me know once you do, and if you've got any comments/feedback.

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       Lissa Clasonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Thank you for posting that hub! I used the tips you put in there to revise one of my newer gaming articles and it's moved up to the second page for its main keyword. It was very helpful for me since I'm just coming back to HubPages after 3 years and didn't know anything about SEO before.

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          lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          Awesome, glad to have been able to teach you a thing or two about SEO.

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    RedElfposted 5 years ago

    Awesome - bookmarked for future absorption... Thanks Brandon

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       lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Nice. You're welcome

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