Great Ideas on Getting Your Hubs Lots of Traffic

I think that, just like me, several people began at Hubpages with dreams of making some serious extra money with their valuable insight, information, and media rich hubs. Every one of us enjoys writing, we enjoy the feedback we get from our writing- but most of all we enjoy knowing that someone is reading our article and is truly interested. There have been other sites that have come and gone and had great pay outs for awhile, yet they faded fast. I am fairly certain that an old Epinionator told me about Hubpages- or maybe I stumbled across it on my own.

At any rate, I will admit that the beginning of the process was someone aggravating. Waiting to be approved by google adsense was taking forever, and I almost gave up a couple of time because I really never though it was going to happen.

When I finally got the news that I was, indeed, approved- I was ecstatic! Visions of me retiring from the grind of my real job and sipping on coffee while writing whimsical articles flowed through my thoughts. I couldn't wait to see what Hubpages was going to pay out. I just knew I would rake it in.

Well.. guess what.. LOL.. the shock and disappointment I received after having adsense was brutal. Pennies a day for all of this hard work didn't seem fair. I started to think of it more as a small hobby and a way to connect to fellow writers and read some interesting articles.

I was content that Hubpages was basically a social media site with some great writers, and I forgot about quitting my day job and frequented this web site a little less often.

I don't know about you- but I have the following number of friends on my social networking sites:

500 facebook friends

150 twitter friends

countless Pinterest friends

countless G+ friends..

So I got the idea to circulate some of my articles in my feeds. Well- this didn't really work either. It seemed as though my friends and family had other things to do on facebook besides reading my boring, tedious articles!

So, then I really got to thinking...

Facebook has a ton of groups for people who are involved in liking and enjoying certain events. My breakthrough was an article I wrote on my Wheaten Terrier, Hannah. I belong to two groups on Facebook which revolve around Wheatens and their owners. So- I posted a link in that group and mentioned that I had written the article and was looking for feedback. I had 2500 hits in one day! I got some very good feedback and posted it to another Wheaten group and got 5000 plus hits on that article. Presto! My numbers were going up and so was my pay. I was getting excited each day to watch how my stats had climbed.

The political spectrum in the USA is buzzing with the election coming up. Every day you hear something about Hillary, Donald Trump, or some other idiot politician vying for support from his/her fellow Americans. Article after article has been published with 'he said, she said' flavour. It seems as though we are eating up this information, regardless if it's great content, or plain garbage.

I got to thinking- even though I am Canadian I DO live in the US, and I have my own opinion about politics in this country (so entertaining!) So, I decided to write an article about how Jeb Bush would be America's next president, and how Trump's idiotic antics would help him get there. I noticed that the article wasn't going anywhere. Unfortunately on Facebook, most of the 'big' political groups are not open for public posting, so I decided to seek popularity elsewhere. I googled some information about hot political message boards and signed up for some. After leaving a few comments to show I am not a casual spammer, I posted a link to my hub about Bush. It got the attention I was craving- and most of it wasn't good feedback- but they were hits to my page nevertheless!

So- in other words- another idea is to write about something that's trending and post it on a popular message board. I made my article sort of 'outrageous' so it would draw attention. Whether the attention is good or bad- it's still attention! Like my Daddy always said 'Wendi, the only thing worse than being talked about, is NOT being talked about!'

Again, going with the 'trending theme,' I had written an article on how I lost weight with my yummy smoothie, soup and juice recipes for my Vitamix and I thought it would get a lot of traffic. It got barely any! I thought a weigh loss article would draw a lot of attention! I remember when I wrote about the Cabbage Soup diet on Epinions, I think I made about $1000.00!

After my failure to gain any feedback or popularity on Hubpages, I decided to take a look and see if I could find some good blogs about healthy eating. I think I searched the term and came up with over 20 million! I spent some time adding links to my article on the Vitamix and low and behold, many people read it, clicked the link, and some even sent me comments!

1) Don't just publish a hub and assume that it will go viral and others will share it and like it so much that they will continue to pass it on. Be proactive.

2) Search facebook and the internet if the topic is something that a group of people like. Again, my example with my Wheaten Terrier was perfect. I had all kinds of Wheaten owners giving me advice on what to cut and what to leave in the article.

3) Try and write articles on subjects that are trending, like weight loss and politics. You can always find tons of message boards with trending hot topics where you can share links and get more hits.

4) Take the time to read the hubs of others that interest you. Comment if you'd like to. Everyone wants to know that their hub has been read, enjoyed (or not), and everyone loves feedback. This will help to get to know the community, the writing styles of different authors, and who is into which topics.

5) Update your hub. Put new information in it because some people are notified when you do so.

6) Always try to post your hubs on your own personal Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets. You may have a friend who really likes what you have to say and perhaps that friends with share with another, and around it goes!

I hope that I am not the last one to figure all of this out! However, I thought I would publish a short article for other 'Dummies for Hubpages' if someone was missing out on doing this.

My biggest pay cheque has been Hannah's story (The tale about my beloved Wheaten Terrier). I sort of marketed it to the other groups who really need to adopt a Wheaten, but I also know I'd make a bit of coin because Wheaten Terrier owners love to read about fellow Wheaties.!

Good luck everyone, Happy Hubbing- and if you have any more tricks for me, I would love to hear them!