As many of you already know, I’ve been digging into Hub Pages to see how it compares to Squidoo. At first, it was SO confusing. I understand why so many people have abandoned it or given up.
But once you learn the ropes, it’s not hard at all, and in fact I’m starting to love my Hub building efforts. One reason I really like it is that I’ve seen my Hubs get indexed in just a couple of hours – like 2-4 hours, delivering Google traffic right away.
I also like that I can have Google Analytics on my Hubs. While Squidoo shows me a dashboard of keywords, Analytics shows a bit more, like how much time people are spending on the site.
Each site has its pros and cons. Like Squidoo is a bit slower, but it has so much more to offer in the creative process with the supply of modules. Hub Pages might not be as liberal with marketing, but they do allow it, which is better than many social networks.
I’m really seeing some great results on Hub Pages for getting indexed, so if you’re not using it yet, you might sign up and give it a test drive:
I like how the capsules are small, with alternating photos and Amazon or eBay capsules aligned next to the text.
To align, add the money capsule or photo capsule above the text capsule. Then click the right arrow on that capsule and it will line it up beside your text. I created a video about it here:
Since I started using Hub Pages, I’ve come to realize that in this community, it’s not just ‘netiquette rules that say you should have an even mix of personal and self promotional pages. The Hub staff have a trick up their sleeve!
If every one of your Hub Pages links to your domain (even if it adheres to the rule of no more than 2 links to a single domain), they’ll initiate a nofollow tag in your page, so that all that link love you were hoping to get across the board is disabled!
This is reason enough to add an even balance of Hub Pages that are just good, valuable content (with no outgoing links). But aside form that, it’s just the right thing to do socially, and this is a social network.
Not only will the community itself see you as a spammy type if all your Hubs link out to promote your domain, but your own visitors who go looking around your Hub account will view you that way, too. People like to be given a bone once in awhile.
It’s the same when you have a list of subscribers. You can’t sell, sell, sell 100% of the time. You have to give, give, give! This goes for everything you do online. Your Squidoo lenses, your forum posts (do you always ask for help but never give)? Make sure you’re doing your part to make the World Wide Web an information resource and not just one big marketing campaign.
Wow. I am used to getting indexed about 24 hours or a few days later, but my latest Hub that I created around the keyword phrase lasik fort worth got indexed in hours (I created it today), and I already got Google traffic!
I’m finding it very easy to cross-promote my Squidoo lenses and Hub Pages as this customer is doing.
You can have an rss feed, or link in a link capsule or hyperlink some text. All 3 methods work.
Tiff
