Monday, August 29, 2011

What does "A" Mean on My Hub List? How To Create a Hub Summary

In recent days, you may have noticed a mysterious letter "A" appear on your account page after a hub title.

What does this "A" mean and How do I fix it?

The "A" tells you that your hub has no summary. Plain and simple.

How to Fix it.

  1. Click EDIT next to the Hub title.
  2. When the hub appears scan down the right side of the page, above the Tags area you will see an option for summary.
  3. Click Summary option.
  4. Write a brief summary of the hub, up to 160 characters including spaces is recommended.
  5. When completed click on done editing to save the changes.

HubPages say that this summary should appear when your hub  appears in the search engine window. Giving the reader a brief enticing summary should bring you more traffic.

You need to allow yourself time to create an enticing summary, create a hook to bring the reader to your hub, don't tell them the whole story or they have no need to come.

Tease but don't Relieve.


I now have 40+ hubs so I think it may take me a couple of weeks to complete all summaries. It is an important job, so don't rush it.

Your summary is an advertisement for your work. Don't sink your ship for poor workmanship on your summary.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Succeed as a Student: Finally Published.

As I mentioned over the weekend I was waiting on the publication of a couple of my articles on YAHOO! Contributor Network (YCN).

One of the articles was finally published today, after three weeks waiting. 

The article is "How to Succeed as a Student" some of my easy to follow tips from my experience of gaining my Honors Degree with a 4.0 GPA.

You can use the tips to improve your grade at any time during the courses, which you are taking, but if you are able to start early, I believe that you too will achieve a 4.0 GPA (grade Point Average) and you too can become an Honors graduate.

To read the full article CLICK HERE!

Saturday, August 20, 2011

How the Cash Grows

Of the online publishing sites which I have joined this year: Yahoo Contributor Network; List My 5 and Squidoo. There is a noticable disaster.

Squidoo has not lived up to it's expectations. I have had constant trouble logging in. For some reason my password keeps getting corrupted. I am unable to use all the functions when I do log in. It is just too complicated to get a lens (post) up that I lose patience and there is no real incentive to work through, the community there seem self interested and unwilling to help out. So Squidoo is not a place I like to go.

The other two publishing sites are very good for me.

List My 5 produces a good stream of views, now coming up to 10,000 in six months. I also now have a little income stream coming in from them. My lists are maturing and people are now clicking through on my links.

Prior to the Removal of my Amazon Affilliate status along with all the other California Affilliates my Amazon aStores were doing well with click throughs on List My 5, better than on my blogs or HubPages. I was really hit badly in that area with the closing of my account. But as I say I am seeing increased traffic through pay per click revenue at this time.

Yahoo Contributor network is doing very well. I have a couple of articles under review before posting. These can take a couple of weeks to be processed and one was time sensitive. It is on preparing for school and so evergreen but has missed the boat this year, hopefully it will bring some revenue over the rest of the school year, as there are ongoing improvement tips. But we have to wait for Yahoo! to publish it.

The network is also producing good viewing figures, I have risen in the contributor rankings which will pay me a higher rate per view, if current view rates are maintained by the end of the year.

Most of my articles I post directly. Waiting for review can be frustrating as I mentioned. I am now aiming to have 100 items posted on both List My 5 and YCN by the end of the year. That will triple my number of items and will need to be in addition to all my blog and HubPages work.


For YAHOO! Contributor Network articles   CLICK HERE!

For List My 5 articles     CLICK HERE!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Edit. Re-Write or Leave Alone? What to do with aging hubs.

Recently my friend on HubPages davenmidtown asked about the keyword menu option on his hub pages.

The keyword menu comes up on the edit hub/stats for hub menu.

When you first write a hub the keyword menu is blank, and appears useless. Go back after a couple of months however and you will find the keyword menu full of interesting phrases and words which Google has linked with your hub.

This then raised the question, What do you do with this information?

You can use the information in several ways. You can edit and re-write parts of your hub to include one or two of the keywords and key phrases that Google has provided you with.
You can write a hub on a similar topic and use the keywords already supplied with Googles report.

Personally I like to go back and tweek my hubs after about four months. By this time they are maturing and the longevity is making them appeal to Search Engines they have often been read by several hundred visitors and you can also incorporate some of the comments into the hub to add extra interest or answer questions in the hub itself. This saves the new reader having to look at all your comments for a interesting tit-bit of information.

Sometimes I have found that I have the makings of another hub, the list of keywords is useful to tag the new hub and also build a good framework to expand upon it.

I would always advise looking over older hubs, they are a good source of information to help you find out how Google has seen your hubs. But always use keywords and key phrases sparingly.


Use of Keywords CLICK HERE!


How to use keywords to bring you an audience and ads Think Like a Hunter Click HERE!

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Views Increased since the New Domain Changed.

At the Beginning of July, 2011. I changed my hubpages to incorporate the new sub domain URL.

At the time I was receiving most of my views from within HubPages itsellf, only 9% of my traffic according to Google Aanalytics was coming from the search engines.

Today my search engine traffic has increased to 34% of my overall viewing figures.

This overall improvement in traffic via the search engines has come at a lean time for me as to writing new hubs. I have written just two in the last month due to going on vacation and other time constraints. 

Overall Google itself has produced 59% of my global traffic. Since the changes to HubPages and the sub domain were to counter the effects of the Google PANDA update in April I think this is a good sign that HubPages has done a good job and that traffic volumes are now moving in a positive direction.

Other Search Engine Traffic is also increased overall but to a less marked extent.

If you have not yet updated your HubPages to take advantage of the new sub-domain  I would suggest that you seriously consider doing so. 

  If you need instructions to create your HubPages Sub-Domain CLICK HERE!

Saturday, August 6, 2011

What a Wonderful Day!

There is little doubt when a day like today happens it is wonderful.

As a writer somedays can be tough. Days when doing anything is better than sitting in front of a keyboard and staring at a blank screen with an equally blank mind. Those days are HELL!

Today I woke about 6am, a warm and sunny morning here in the Central Valley of California. The crickets were still chirping their last from the night and the birds were fluttering in the fronds of the palm tree outside my window.

I got up and showered while the coffee brewed. Then came to my computer and logged on to the web.

Late last night I posted my first hub for several weeks. I had seen my hubscore fall from 96 to 86 in the last three weeks.

I knew the answer was to write something but had no firm convictions so I posted answers and comments and watched my hubscore flutter downwards. Ideas in my mind would not become concrete enough to actually do any work on them.

It was a lazy time and I just allowed myself to drift.

Last night energized with one of my hub ideas, I sat down to type and publish. This morning my hubscore had jumped back to 91. First positive. I then wrote to my Cafepress blog to expand on an idea. Then went to Yahoo to write a short piece for them that had been circulating in my mind. That is now waiting to be scrutinized for upfront payment, and I have been back and too to HubPages to post answers and comments. All this while sipping my coffee from my Barcelona Starbucks mug.

There is actually a story behind that particular mug, maybe that could be used in a hub, or maybe just posted as a topic of conversation somewhere.

Anyway today things are good. I think that I have done some good work, I feel happy that things are moving around my brain again. Having been log jammed for a few weeks. It is a really good day.

And the coffee is great too!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Why is Posting To Community Pages Important?

Many people when they join HubPages or Squidoo just concentrate on creating their own pages and ignore the community pages such as Forums and Questions and Answers.

While it is good to get a few hubs or lenses under ones belt. Many newcomers then rapidly complain of a lack of visitors to their pages. Then leave. All too many have ignored the Community pages provided by the major sites.

As with many things the community pages seem to be the poor ugly sister of the online publishing sites, but in reality when properly used the community pages are the Cinderella regions. Posting good quality content to these areas is as important as posting quality content to your hub or lens.

It is not for nothing that Community Postings are given prominent positions on the likes of HubPages. The site providers are giving you a small window to advertise your work. Use it well and use it often.

A good post to someones comment area or to a Forum or Q&A section can bring you lots of traffic. People read your postings in these areas and then click through your links to see if they like the rest of your work.

Using my Google Analytics account, I can see as much as 20% of my traffic has come from postings on other hubbers comment areas and from answers I have posted in the question and answer section.

Remember 20% that is a big chunk of traffic over the long term, and for possibly a lot less work.

REMEMBER

  • Use Community Areas
  • Post Quality Answers.A quick "Good Post" does nothing to add to the posting, make a real comment, explain why you think it is good. In depth answers promote YOU
  • Your comments are important to both you and those commented on. Comments add up in your search engine visability.

Being active in the community areas is important for YOU. They are not provided to fill extra memory on the server. USE THEM!