10 tips for Hub Newbies
86Newbies :-)
I developed this Hub for Newbies and built two Hubs using some of the pointers offered here around the end of August 06 (when I was a newbie myself). See GlobalTrade in the drop down box as Working Example 1.
GlobalTrade Hub was completed in approx 30 mins so you can build a Hubpage from a standing start in under and hour (provided you have your affiliate codes in place).
I was a Newbie Once
I was a Newbie last week of Aug 06, I guess I'm not a Newbie anymore :-) ..it looked tough to begin with but then the technology is so user friendly (thanks lads) I quickly found myself rising in the rankings.
- It's fun
- it's addictive in a nice way
- it's a challenge
- it's competitive
- the people are friendly & helpful
1. Don't Jump In
..somebody said, only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet..
Like the name says 'Hubpages', this is a Hub, I visualise it as a tree with the homepage as the trunk and then users hubpages as the branches. If you look at the FAQ you will see that to become an 'Expert' you must have an average score of 75-100 and 20 or more Hubs.
You can maximize your traffic and revenue with a little planning.
- decide what your primary & secondary subject areas are going to be
- keep an eye on external news for opportunities
- select the hub level you are seeking to attain
- sketch out your hubs on paper & how they interact
- create a primary hub with links back - branch and branches
- go & 'RTFM' (click Help @ top of page)
2. Get Your External $$ Ducks in a Row
It does not cost anything to sign up as an affiliate with Google, eBay or Amazon for the Hubpages revenue sharing program.
Assuming you would like to generate some revenue from your publishing it is critical that you create accounts with Google adsense, Amazon and eBay. you will not receive the revenue if you do not have your Hubpages account linked so best create these accounts first if you do not already have them.
Adsense can be a challenge, you must supply them with an EIN or SSN for tax purposes and if you select electronic transfer it is difficult to match the user names for a test transfer. (Still working on that myself since they say 3/4 days for the test transfer to show up.)
Essential tool - a hardback password book or index cards since this is only the beginning and computers are vindictive.
When you create your hubs you will see Author Centre in the top left hand corner, click on Manage my hubs, you will see a number of tabs, click My Affiliate Settings, there is help and external links here all relating to current revenue generators.
3. Get Your Internal $$ Ducks in a Row
Again when you create your hubs you will see Author Centre in the top left hand corner, click on Manage my hubs, you will see a number of tabs, click My Referral Tracker, there is help and external links here all relating to current revenue generators.
Hubpages say;-
..."Through our generous revenue sharing policy, you'll get paid each time someone signs up from one of your links, and you'll get a percentage of all the money their Hubs ever generate. The default tracker is all you need, but you can create up to twenty independent trackers with unique names and descriptions, to help you keep tabs on which linking strategies work best for you."
This tracker is not simply your hub address, if you create a custom tracker it looks something like this;-
- This is my link with my default tracker code
I got it by clicking on the Link to this page in the Promote This hub box on the right hand nav bar.
4. Grill Your Hubs (for a little while)
When you register your hub pick your name carefully, it does not want to be marys_long_story_from_last_weekend better to be bloodymarys and then let the title reflect the content.
Do not publish immediately and you will see as you zip back and forward from the manage panel that the score is 50
- cook it too long and it ends up 18
- cook it right and it's 90 out of the box
- you've got your tracker code, right ?
- you're signed up as an affiliate for eBay, Amazon, Google
- you've created Digg, Reddit & Del_icio_us accounts
- you will comment on external blogs, news sites, where relevant
- you will comment on Hubs that you visit, where relevant
- you've added your hubtracker url to your email sig
When I say cook I mean you create the Hub, then you create some content, you add your revenue capsules, you add links, photos.. in between all this you scan your email you read stories closely related to your Hub content. Your hub is gestating as you do this.
Note: this might not help your rating at all... this is all new Newbies.. :-)
Assuming you have txt files ready with more hub publications ready to go and you plan to release them in two's and three's. When you create your second hub go to Edit this Hub, you will see Groups, you can create groups and add Hubs to them, this generates a drop down box at the top of each hub and the previous and next links at the bottom. I never noticed this or knew how to work it until Robin pointed it out, Thanks Robin :-)
5. Tell The World
user derived content is king, provided you remembered to tell anyone.
At least tell your friends
(using a max 4 line sig in your email, everybody knows that it is seriously gauche to have a sig that is 23 lines and your sig has your tracker code in it I assume ?)
post the link on any websites you own
Who Else Am I going to Tell
You will see on the right hand nav bar Promote your hub. Register for Digg, Reddit and Del_icio_us when you click on link to this page you can select the tracker codes you've set up.
There's a few more, any experts not hoarding their knowledge care to contribute?
6. Comment Comment Comment
picture poor hubpages authors slaving over a hot keyboard all day at work and coming home to find no comments... comments are a two or maybe three way street;-
- intra hub comments - it's nice to know if people like something
- its' probably good to know if they don't although traffic will tell you this
- intelligent comments to news items and discussions that are close to your hubpages content will bring you traffic. Often you can leave your hubpage url behind and your email.
How do you find out about this news, well one way for the lazy is google alerts, Sign up for alerts on a specific subject and Google delivers it right to your mailbox ..
6.1 ...get news on a chosen topic
First Steps for Newbies hub
7. Learn to Play Tags
Hubpages Help says;-
"..Tags are keywords and phrases used to describe your Hub. If this help page were a Hub, the tags might include Help, FAQ, HubPages, and Answers. Tags should range from broad to exact and should describe the content of the Hub..."
Pay attention to Tags
When you're considering your hub look at the Tag list on the Home page and then click More Tags, this will take you to the Tag Cloud. I presume (read guess) that big is better in that more traffic or queries or searches about a Tag = bigger visual representation, Ok so Technology won't grow to cover the whole page but you get the idea.
The BIG tags right now (Aug 30th) are;- Business, Technology, Entertainment so think of your Hub from a vertical and horizontal position, try to make sense of your tags or more accurately make your tags sensible and edit them if your Hubpage does not appear on or around your subject area.
7.1 ..Links to the Examples
- Feedburner
- Go Directly to WRC xml Page
- Writers Resource Centre
RSS is on the right had col down at the very bottom !
8. Encourage Visitors to Visit
You must tell prospective visitors what you've got.
The key element for this is the summary. I'm in a hurry and I want the key information fast or I'll move on to another hub. When you're creating your Hub place a txt capsule at the top and write a few sentences describing the Hub, then this automatically becomes the summary.
Hubpages say;-
"..The summary will be shown on listings and search results pages only..."
Where is summary ?
when you're in edit mode you will Summary is one of the Tabs.
There is a balance between offering a nicely rounded 'article' and overload, Hubs are not Blogs, they are 'Blarticles' - this Hub is almost too long. The more complete your hub the more utility is has for visitors and two tools for that are News feed and RSS feed.
RSS & News Set in a Hubpages Context
RSS stands for a few things but in a hub context it's Really Simple Syndication. as an example on my Print on Demand hub I just added a feed from the Writer's Resource Centre listing opportunities for writers. That's it - pretty simple, they are publishing articles I think might be of interest to writers reading up on POD.
How to bring in RSS Feed
When you visit sites with feed you may see a link 'RSS or Feed', when you click on this it takes you to the raw xml page, you can copy this url and paste it into the Rss capsule feed url box and test it to make sure it works... some do some don't - there's a lot of newbies out there <grin>
Obviously if you had your Blog and used something like http://www.feedburner.com/ you could Feed yourself.!
News Feed
News Feed is very straightforward, like eBay or Amazon, you simply add your keywords, preview the news and if like the content hit save and you're done. There is a News Setting tab that is not yet operable so it will pay to read up further on Feeds.
9. Working Example 1 - GlobalTrade
I registered a Working Example called Globaltrade and another called Trade to use as an example, I built them up over an hour and made comments as I went along.
Globaltrade launched at 56 @ 9.40 EST
Trade scored at 51 @ 9.40 EST and launched around midnight.
Globaltrade was first and I 'Grilled' the other one to try to obtain a better score but that didn't work !!
10. Conclusion
There are a number of Must or Should Do's to make publishing your Hub painless
- to generate any real revenue you must generate thousands of hits
- to generate serious traffic you must become a Hubpages missionary
- always include your Tracker code in your Url for longer term revenue
- participate and offer your expertise or tips if possible
- monitor tags and modify yours in tandem with the evolving Cloud
- become an "Expert" on your chosen topic in the Hub environment
- be nice, be politeRemember...
..it's never too late to become what you might have been..
Drax
..the latest poems from Drax..
- Poem - Tomato Boxes
- 6 months ago
- Poem - Living in the Paris Pigalle
- 7 months ago
- Poem - The Peasant Spoon
- 8 months ago
- Poem - The Torture
- 9 months ago
- Poem - Aliens on a Monday
- 8 months ago
- Poem - The Generic Humanoid Carbon Unit
- 9 months ago
....Before You Go...
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do you or would you live dangerously livelonger ?.. the craic's wild with this.. have you seen The Dig Hub? ..Slan Drax
Excellent "how to" for those of us who fit into the category of "newbie."
Lokaine - thank you, I suppose I can't claim to be a newbie anymore, time passes quickly on the Hubpages world...
Hi
I joined hub pages 2 days ago and tried advises in your hub but am unable to edit text capsule of my hub any further after I once edited it, and am confused why this happened?
Any help or suggestion will be highly appreciated.
Thanks
Hi Doc
Click My Account at the top right of the page and log in, you will see all the My Account tabs like My Hubs, My Traffic etc, just below My Hubs you will see;-
* Create a new Hub
Looking at your profile I do not see any hubs at all so maybe create one to be sure.
So click on Create a new hub, give it a name, e.g. docsholiday (the name and the title can be the same for now since you can change them later) and below add some tags holiday, travel and then click continue.
At the next page you will see the capsules - Text, Photo, Comments if you click on the Edit button of the text capsule the editor open up and you can enter text, enter This is a Test for doc Holiday and hit save. now you should see the text box with the words Test for doc Holiday.
If you see this everything is working and you can add the text you want and make other modules as well. When you are finished editing just click done editing and do this every time until you are ready to publish.
I'm a newbie and seriously appreciate the knowledge you're sharing. Thanks!
a Guru Newbie - a almost perfect oxymoron :-) thanks for this, it's great to know that you found this useful... thank you..
Thank you for this page. I am newbie and I need all the advice and tips I can get. My hubs dont seem to be doing very well but I will not give up.
Thanks for the tips!
kkssbbmm ... err you might want to think about a name that is more user friendly before you spend a lot of time promoting this one...
hey Susan Peters... thank you for the thanks.. ....purr... ;-)
Thanks- good info.
glad you liked it Donna.. thanks very much... Drax
Great article! It convinced me to join your fan-club. :)
Greetings from Macedonia.
Hi Locutus,
that's great, thank you and welcome aboard...
Drax
Thanks for the hard work you did on this hub. I'm still new so some things aren't clear to me. I see some of the top hubbers hardly have anything in their hubs and get high scores. Doesn't quite make sense but oh well.
Hi FaireMaid, thankyou for the nice comment. AFAIK scoring is impacted by a number of factors but external traffic is important, as is the number of external links. I must have a good look at this again and make a hub on it - my own score needs some TLC.
Thanks for the info ..Its going to come in handy :)
glad that this can be considerd useful, great name ...CrazyBeautiful..... except it has altered my perception in that the next time I see a beautiful woman I'll think, oh, ...CrazyBeautiful.... maybe this was an inevitable step on my journey..
Great Information for all us Newbies -thanks ! keep up the good work :)
thanks very much Amahdigital
Great info! Very helpful. If you could take a look at my hubs and give me any advice I would be VERY grateful!
recoveringredneck what a brilliant name, watch for relapses... thanks for the comment and I'll take a look at your hubs after my tea... :-)
I'm yet another newbie . And with 233 hubs to your name , I would guess you qualified to give advice to newbies . I'll work on it .
Thanx
Hey thanks Jack, that's good, polish up those pages..... Drax
I just signed up and this is super helpful!!!!
Hi Binny thank you very much for taking the time to comment.... Regards Drax..
I found some good information on this hub, thanks.
that's great Angeltraveler glad you found it useful ,thanks
Drax
Hi Drax,
Missed our morning coffee
Great information, Drax - waiting, as well, for the poem to come out! Perhaps, "Newbies with Spoons?"
Have a great day!
thanks Teeray, time is against me over the next 10 weeks or so, after that it will be much better and I hope to be able to write more poetry for Hubpages ...
Ciao Drax
Tanx for the info. i also got some gud knowlede in this
no probs Nicky, glad it was some help...
Been doing this a while now, but it always helps to come back to a hub like this and "refresh" my memory.
thanks Mark, I need to do that myself some of these days.. :-)
Nice info. Thanks for sharing.
Guidebaba it is very encouraging that this info continues to be of benefit to people.....
I am new to this and appreciate your help. I will continue to write informative hubpages as they do seem to be getting a bit more traffic as I increase the over all content.
Hey SasseGuide thank you for the comment, it's good to look at keywords and phrases in Google and then write hubs that answer key queries, that way traffic is assured... it will take hundreds of hours at the start and less once you get up the rankings...
Thanks for the information, very helpfull to someone who is just starting out on writing articles etc. But there are so many sites to publish on, what is your advice ?
Hi Crayden, I think it is good to focus on a narrow area of writing and become a total expert on that subject. With regard to the sites I think it is best to target the Top 10 in terms of traffic. Also you need the equivalent of Writers Handbook for your country and chae offline sources as well.
Regards..Drax..
Very informative thx. As to the hub missionary is a bit out there what ? I am guessing dedicated ...? Then the reference to tracker code ? you got me there totally oblivious ... an I had no idea there was a way to make money by getting others to sign up here hmmm quite interesting Of such I know thousands but had no idea how to get them here an what way to do so including a linking to me ? hmmm. An answer to that would be very much appreciated . you seem dedicated to answering or commenting back so will look forward to hearing from you . thx for the great article . yup I a newbie dog just digging a hole . hence the name Dirtdog "grins" Cheers
Hey Dirtdog
thanks for the comments, appreciated...
On trackers JimmytheJock has a good Hub about them here;
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-make-good-use-of-UR
Getting people here is the key since external links also count in your score. You should always add your link back with the tracker code to your hubs, say from Facebook, MySpace, Delicious, Blog or other sites you may have.
Here is a great Hub on how to get traffic, from the CEO;-
http://hubpages.com/hub/Places-to-Get-Ideas-for-Hi
and a great Hub from Sandra Rinck on backlinking
http://hubpages.com/hub/Hubpages-backlinking-for-D
and one on Tags from johnr54 in Texas
http://hubpages.com/hub/Hubpages-Traffic-Use-of-Ta
I have picked these few out but if you go to
http://hubpages.com/topics/hubpages/2848
All About HubPages - they have loads of links there, back to the old 1% inspiration 99% pespiration I'm afraid Dog.
There is no shortcut, if you write quality hubs, that are well tagged and cross-linked and then promote them externally keeping an eye on what's hip in search techniques you will get traffic. You need an angle, something hot and topical or something topical and hot.... :-)
Good Luck & Ciao
Drax
Thanks for the tips!
Hey VickiWLopez glad to be of any assistance... thanks Drax.. :-)
Cool hub, I just joined this site and found your tips helpful. Thanks a bunch.
thanks very much Dean, get those new hubs prepared and pump them out, just in perfect time for Christmas... :-)
Good stuff here. Thanks alot, as Im a newbie :)
Hiya Texas Rose... glad that this was of some help to you..
Regards
Drax
This is helpful, and it feels like you really put a lot into it. Thank you very much for taking the time to help us newbies.
thanks very much Mbrundie.. Hubpages is like that, you will only get out of it what you put and so it takes time and a bit of dedication...
thanks for the tips!
Hey Betty, my pleasure, it is great that they are still of interest..
good information thank you will try it.
thanks very much for the comment Openwater diver... :-)
Hi, thanks for the info. I'm new to Hubpages. I haven't had a tracker code or really known about it. I do now, though, so I'm off to get it!
Hey Rcgal thank you for taking the time to comment and glad it was of some help....
thanks for all the tips, i am well and truly a newbie and found this very useful. must admit its all starting to sound a bit daunting for a non techie like me, im hoping i dont turn into a complete internet junkie! i joined because i love to write, but looks like im going to get a whole new insight into the world of internet communities!!!! thanks again, maggie
Great info, Drax. I should have read this when I first started! I just jumped in with no plan, as you mentioned! Anyway, you taught me about groups! I'm now using them. Thanks.
I think this is the best newbie 'how to' I've come across. It's pitched at exactly the right level - not confusing & yet not dumbed down. Thanks and good job! Has definitely helped my thinking / learning.
Awesome information! Thanks a bunch!
Thanks for the information!
Useful Information.
Sorry folks I've been travelling a good bit and missed these comments come in... thanks to everybody for all their nice comments :-)
Very helpful. Thanks!
thanks Denise.. :-)
Thank you for all of the information!
Hi okmom23 thank you for the comment... :-)
Great information. Thanks for sharing.
Learned a lot thanks.
@ Wechito.... thanks for the comment and happy is it of some benefit.. :-)
@ Yvonnie... thanks for the comment..
3 years now, still very helpful
. I am a newbie and thanx a lot.
@ Info Bucket... glad it is still of some help.. :-)
Incredibly useful! Thank you!
@ Writingrobin great that it was so... thanks :-)
awesome hub, thx for the info
Hey MzTaKeN... thank you for the comment... :-)
Great hub!! Very Helpful for a newbie like me :)
Great hub I have bookmarked so I can come back and study. Thank you for the tips. Will rate up
@ Amanda... thanks, it is a little old now but Hubpages is evergreen like that :-)
@gr82bme... thanks very much... !!
Awesome hub! Some amazing tips here.
thanks for the comment Kristen... :-)
Thanks a lot, that's awesome stuff :)
my pleasure Sammyantha... it is good if it is any help...
Regards
Drax
I am a brand new newbie here. Just signed up today so I am still waiting for one of my affiliates to approve me. Right now I am getting all the tips I can from people who have been doing this for a while. Your hub is very helpful. Thank you.
Hi Tammy
this is a little old now and there is great material on Hubpages for Newbies, I would recommend these;-
http://hubpages.com/tag/hubpages/hot
http://learningcenter.hubpages.com/category/gettin
Regards & Thanks
Drax
Drax. Thanks for the info. As a new Hubber, it's easy to get excited about just writing, but as a result of reading this hub, I went back and made a few small tweaks to my newly created hubs. I am glad I found this now rather than too late.
Cheers!
Very Practical Advice.
@akirlew thanks for the comment, it is much easier to make the tweaks a the start...
@devsir ...thanks Devsir, I must try to write more of these...
Great information! Thanks for sharing!
Hi Vicki... thanks for the comment...
Very useful information. Bookmarked. Thanks!
You are a star! I spent ages trying to figure out how to group hubs. Thank you SO MUCH for sharing how to do that.
hey Mizz Eb. thanks very much.., but more like a comet threatening to burn out any day.. my time is limited... it comes with the territory...
Thank you for the great tips for hub newbies like me :-)
Thanks very helpful
Great hub, thanks!
@viden ..thanks, it is very nice that it was of help to you...
@MortgageGuy ... glad you liked it :-)
@TilenHrovatic ..thanks for the positive comment :-)
Thanks for sharing-I am still in Learning process here--was not sure how to add Tracking code---adding all the codes can be so confusing-like where exactly to add them..Thank you again! Happy New Year!!
Hi IN2Deep glad you are participating in Hubpages... and thanks for the comment... Happy New Year.. !!
Awesome hub. Thanks so much for all these tips :}
thanks very much jorjaclare :-)
very nice hub...I found it very useful..
I am glad it was of use to you Sumitparihar... thanks for the comment..
Thanks for your help, I am definitely still a newbie. I know I have important information to spread, so hopefully it all works out!
Thanks so much for the info. I was really curious about the number:). I am a brand new hubpage newbie and its really great that you have shared some experience with us.
@drufrano2010 ... sorry tied with work and stuff... thanks for the comment and your great hub on writing poetry...
@KoraleeP ... Hi thanks for the comment... it is always exciting to be a Newbie.. jump in roll out those hubs... :-)
very Helpful
OMG...to be able to help an alphagirl... :-) great name and thanks for the comment..
Thanks for the info, Drax! This was my first intro to Hubs and I found a lot of useful pointers. Considering this is four years old, I was wondering if you had any new tips? Excited to join the community... Karla
..so welcome to Hubpages then Karla... :-) I will take a good look at all the techniques again myself and make a hub around that, good idea... thanks !!
good article, i will benefit from it!
Hi Rosika... thanks for the comment... and get that hub machine cranked up !!
Since you are a poet Drax, could you stop by and take a look at mine?
of course I will MME... thanks :-)
nice post
Friends and you’ll see your Friend Lists there. e have a funny one to end on — a way to play an amusing trick on your Facebook buddies.
great job
block filter
but Coolface... why post it here ?
Wonderful hub. Hub Newbies must read this.
@jamterrell thanks for the vote of confidence... :-)
that's excellent sir, thanyou for the guidance. (I didn't know you could cook hubs)
Hi Nurfninja.. thanks, this is dated now and I am not sure if not publishing immediately makes any difference any more, I think it is always more important to write a real quality Hub since this will always bring traffic in the longer term.
Bookmarked Drax,
I could have done with this 2 months ago buy hey! what the heck I have it now. Thanks.
Hi Molometer... great name !! this is inevitable alas, so much material it is impossible to see it all or even read it all... Thanks !!
Great post, this explained so much to me. I am very much a newbie and appreciate the concise and easy to follow manner in which you wrote this. Thank you!!
Hi Rachael... thanks very much... there is lots of material here on Hubpages and I must go and brush up on techniques myself in the New Year... :-)
Years later but still good information for a newb.
@Texaswheels... thanks for the comment, yes it still survives :-)
livelonger Level 6 Commenter 5 years ago
Good craic, Drax!