Table of Contents and Traffic

1. 91

   Urbane Chaosposted 6 years ago

   I have added a table of contents to one of my hubs.  The hub has a list of famous people from Oklahoma.  To divide it up better and make it easier for people to read, I added links to each capsule. 
   
   The question is, has anyone tried this and do you think that it would have a negative effect on the article?
   
   The hub can be found here: hubpages.com/travel/FamousOklahomans

   replyreport
   1. 98

      theraggededgeposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Well, I love it. I'm pretty sure this is something HP used to do anyway back in the day. I know that we used to be able to do it with Squidoo lenses.
      
      I really hope that the editors approve and move your hub to a network site so that I can apply the format to a few of my longer hubs
      
      Make sure you let us know, yes?

      replyreport
   2. 92

      HoneyBBposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Having the TOC is definitely an awesome feature for the reader.

      replyreport
   3. 96

      Eurofileposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      I've just given it a go and found it very useful.  I'm still getting the hang of this site, but would be interested in finding out how I can use the tool in my future articles.

      replyreport
2. 94

   Gregory DeVictorposted 6 years ago

   I think that it is very impressive.

   replyreport
3. 95

   EricFarmer8xposted 6 years ago

   It likes nice to me and I would use something like to jump to where I wanted to go. This is something I have thought of doing but I do not have any Hubs long enough to use it really.

   replyreport
4. 88

   lobobrandonposted 6 years ago

   I have used a toc before and am working on one on a new hub. It helps in search with Google giving a link in the meta description to the specific part of the article if relevant.

   replyreport
   1. 91

      Urbane Chaosposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      That makes sense.  Have you seen any negative effects from it?

      replyreport
      1. 88

         lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         Always only positive.

         replyreport
5. 91

   Urbane Chaosposted 6 years ago

   Sure will.  I had a few hubs that were like that before but edited out the TOC.  It creates a lot of links in the hub, so that's what I'm mainly concerned about.  But, since they are internal links, I don't know if that will affect anything or not.

   replyreport
6. 96

   eugbugposted 6 years ago

   I did this on a very long article (10,000 words) and it worked ok, but a reader had to scroll all the way back to the top to get to the contents again, so it wasn't totally effective. Contents in the side panel would be nice on a desktop, but not much use on a mobile device with a low aspect ratio (too skinny to fit it at the side). Eventually an editor removed the contents capsule.

   replyreport
   1. 88

      lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      They removed it from a 10k word article! Not the best imo. Because if you cover a topic that thoroughly, some people are only interested in a part of what you say, and they can directly jump to that place in the article at the start, and also, as I mentioned earlier, these links show up on the meta description of the search results, offering people to jump there directly (and of course helps Google better understand what you offer on this page).

      replyreport
      1. 96

         eugbugposted 6 years agoin reply to this

         I think the problem was getting back to the contents at the top of the page without having to scroll all the way up. I could probably have put a "contents" link after each module which would allow a user to return to the start.

         replyreport
         1. 88

            lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

            I think the HP team would remove this, saying it's spam. I don't know the article. On my own site, I got heat maps and almost every visitor uses the TOC even to go to the first section in there. They go to the section they want because my pages are always detailed, and 5k words etc.
            
            I will try a TOC in one of my hubs, let's see how it goes with the editors. Will keep you all informed.

            replyreport
            1. 91

               Urbane Chaosposted 6 years agoin reply to this

               On my hub, I put in a "Return to Top" link that goes back to the TOC.  I've always kept my articles at 1,000-3,000 words, but longer than that, and especially with lists, you almost have to have a TOC for it to work right.  I checked it on my tablet and phone and it works well.
               
               Let me know how it goes for you as well.  If it works well then I have a number of hubs that could use it.

               replyreport
7. 96

   Glenn Stokposted 6 years ago

   I do the same thing in a couple of my hubs that are on niche sites, not necessarily for a TOC but just for the purpose of giving the reader a quick link to another section of a long hub.
   
   HP has no problem with using this method as long as you know how to do it. There is no feature built in, you have to locate the url of the individual capsules and use that as the link. There is no negative effect on the article.

   replyreport
   1. 88

      lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Ok good to know that they are not being removed. There are two benefits:
      
      1. Better user experience, this is what Google wants and therefore HP
      2. A better ranking, who does not want this? And if it leads to improved rankings this means Google likes it too.

      replyreport
   2. 91

      Urbane Chaosposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      That was really my biggest concern.  HP doesn't like a lot of links but I consider this to be a different type of ballgame.

      replyreport
8. 96

   eugbugposted 6 years ago

   The TOC in that long hub was just hidden, so I might try re-enabling it if it's going to be beneficial as regards Google.

   replyreport
   1. 88

      lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      It is beneficial if you know how to use it. Otherwise, there is just no harm.

      replyreport
9. 91

   Urbane Chaosposted 6 years ago

   Update:
   
   I just had a hub that was moved to Delishably that uses the Table of Contents: "14 Totally Unique Restaurants in Oklahoma You Have to Try!"  I asked the editor about the Table of Contents and they liked the idea.  There were a couple issues with the article that needed to be fixed - nothing major, but I was excited to see that HP doesn't frown on the concept.
   
   I want to see how the traffic does over time to see if the TOC helps but I have no doubt that it will.  Thank you for all of your help with this!!  It's something that I'm going to be using a lot more on my longer hubs.  (Wait, they are still called "Hub's", Right?)
   
   For those who don't know how to do it, WriterFox replied in a previous forum post with his instructions.  So far, I think they are the easiest to follow:
   
   ###
   
   I make a Table of Contents for my longer Hubs.
   
   Basically what you do is find the module you want to link to by viewing the Page Source. (I usually link to a picture or a line graphic on my Hub.) When you find the module you want, create a URL like this:
   
   Hub URL Goes Here#mod_put the number here
   
   For example, if you want to go to the section about Keywords on my SEO tutorial, here is what the link looks like (remove XXX):
   httpXXX://writerfox.hubpages.com/hub/SEO-Tutorial-Guide#mod_22780480
   
   Then just choose the anchor text you want for the Table of Contents. Linking to a module with an H2 Tag (Hub, image or video title) can help with ranking if you use keywords properly and only use H2 Tags sparingly.
   
   ###
   
   To find the capsule(module) ID, I use either Firefox or Chrome, then go to Inspect Element.  It's a lot easier than using view source.  With that open, I right click on the capsule title then click on Inspect Element.  Usually, the Module number is right above that.  I use notepad to copy the title and the module number for all of the capsule, as well as the top one.  With the top one, I save that to use as a "return to top" type of link. Then it's just a matter of inserting the link capsules and pasting the information.
   
   Hope this helps!

   replyreport
   1. 88

      lobobrandonposted 6 years agoin reply to this

      Good to know. Thanks for the update.

      replyreport
10. 0

    em_saenzposted 5 years ago

    I did the TOC only to get warned that my hub was in danger of being unfeatured for violating the rules of the links capsule!

    replyreport
    1. 88

       lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       A TOC is made using a regular text capsule and not a links capsule.

       replyreport
11. 96

    eugbugposted 5 years ago

    Since there's no button for returning to the top of an article to view an author implemented TOC, it would be nice if pressing the hamburger button could display contents, but I suppose that's just for categories. Actually when logged out / not signed up to a site (which is the scenario for new readers), only a tiny "show all categories" appears on the menu, which isn't ideal for those people with visual impairments.
    
    Edit: When I had a TOC on a 10,000 word article, I had lots of "return to TOC" links all down the length of the article.

    replyreport
    1. 88

       lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Scrolling up to a known point is easy. But finding a particular section is not as easy. So if they know that there is a TOC the user can easily just scroll back up and jump to the section they want to. Adding code for the jump back up is pointless if the TOC is not right at the top and it's also pointless if there is no TOC. In all cases, more code = slower load time especially if it's a JS script or something.

       replyreport