Effect of the Loss of the HubPages RSS Feed

It is just about a month now since HubPages removed the RSS feed capsules from the sites web pages.

There is some loss of traffic to my blogs from that source. I had expected that my blogs would suffer a loss of views with the removal of the feeds to particular hubs.

Before the removal some of my blogs were receiving 70% of views from HubPages via the feeds. Now HubPages shows up as a source site in about 5% of statistical reports. So I am getting less traffic directed from there, but the real surprise from my point of view is that views have only declined by about 10% from  on some blogs 30 views per day to just 27.

The majority of traffic is now coming from Google and other search engines and more of myviews  are from non-US sources. The trend to increasing views outside the US is very strong and remains positive even after one month.

Having considered the removal of RSS Feed capsules in the light of these figures, I am changing my feelings towards HubPages.

It seems that they wanted to remove the capsules not in order to clean up the site, it seems to me that their idea was to hold readers on the site.

While my viewing figures on HubPages are rapidly declining, my blog figures are climbing.

So from here on in. I will remain as a blogger looking to control my own destiny rather than feed HubPages with posts  to promote their site over my own.

So Thank you HubPages for removing the RSS capsules. You have made my life much easier.

Google Searches or Links? Which bring You MORE Views?

We have all heard the cry "How do I get top ranking on Google searches?" Maybe you have even asked that very question yourself?

Well I know I used to ask that very question. I bought the books advising on Search Engine Optimization and How to promote your sites.

They were useful in that they talked about building links and creating an RSS Feed etc. But over the last year I have come to realise that Google search engine page location is not all it is made up to be.

I regulary look up my stats on my blog, they show some very interesting figures. Of all views only 3% come from Google searches.

1% come drom other search engines but a massive 96% come from posting links to places such as HubPages and Yahoo! Voices, The largest source at 70% of all traffic comes from HubPages and my RSS feeds there.

So that tells me that people who have read my content on HubPages are clicking through my RSS feed to come here.

OK So I don't get any revenue because I don't advertise on my blog. I don't mind that, this blog is to share information with you.

But in that there is opportunity for you. If you have a monetized blog, link it to your hubpage hubs on related subjects and you will gain traffic from people who already enjoy your style of writing.

Also link back to other hubs to drive traffic back there so you can benefit from your HubPages CPM revenue.

Remember. Google ranking is not the only way to gain traffic. But once you have your reader keep them reading your pages by linking to your own work when you can.

Be patient though. building a network takes time. You won't see a difference overnight, it has taken me one year so far, unless you hit a hot topic. The idea is to plan for the  long term. Then over time you will see a marked improvement in traffic.

Use RSS Feeds to increase traffic across websites and pages.

As you increase your numbers of pages, with HubPages, Squidoo and your blog posts you should consider Really Simple Syndication(RSS).
For a while now I have used RSS feeds from my HubPages account to feed to this blog. It initially increased my traffic to my HubPages account by 10%. That is a good return for two minutes work setting up an RSS feed. Of course without a twin site with no RSS feed I cannot tell the effect on subsequent viewing figures.

Today I entered a new phase, linking some of my blogs to relevent hubs. Those hubs will now receive an updated through my RSS feeds as I add to my blogs.

Blog traffic on some blogs has increased ten fold in a few short hours. This blog hasn't seen that increase but it has doubled its viewers.

These views may also not be human views, they may be a rush of "Spiders" checking for relevence But spiders are good because they mean the Search Engines are following the links. Increasing SEO.

We will need to see if the spike of views today mean an increase of voews in the long term.

I will keep you posted on this technique.