How To Revise A Hub

Revising an article so that it can find a new light within the search engines can be a daunting task. However, it is sometimes a necessary task when the article, in its current structure, is not producing the returns that it should be. And you know it’s not producing its potential because you did your homework prior to writing it. For me, I use the Google Keyword tool to find topics and related keywords. I look for a keyword or keyword phrases that get over 10,000 global searches or 1000 local searches, but also have less than 100,000 pages of competition on the Google search engine results page. Some people have a much narrower range and it really depends on the topic, but I use the above as a general starting point.

I’m writing this article to chronicle my attempt to revise my worst HUB on the day of this writing, which is currently titled ‘Qwirkle - Cool Kids Toys.’ This Hub was first published on November 10, 2009 and was a part of the November Hub Challenge where we as authors challenged ourselves to write and publish 30 Hubs in 30 days. I did very minimal research, selected keywords without much effort, and comprised a short, yet informative, hub that is no where near its full potential. As of this writing on 1/21/12, this hub has had a total of 93 page views, and since all of the social counters were reset they are all sitting at a big fat ZERO, and quite honestly, I don’t think they have ever been Facebook Liked or Tweeted.

Before running off half-cocked into a full revision, it would be advisable to jot down some goals. This is not as easy as it may seem. Sure a generic “I want more traffic” or “I want it to earn more money” may seem like reasonable goals but it really depends on the subject and type of hub it is because hubs come in all shapes and sizes, and are meant for different audiences. I should note here that I have no idea on how to revise Poetry or Short Story hubs; informational and product hubs are my forte so keep that in mind if you choose to finish reading this hub. However, some of the steps I’m going to take to reach my goals should be a benefit to ALL types of hubs.

My specific goals for my chosen hub revision are:

• Increase Traffic
• Increase position within the SERP's
• Increase the social values associated with this hub
• Earn more Adsense and Ebay revenue from this hub

Note that the hub score is a 61, which is the lowest score of my over 200 hubs and that there are no social values assigned to this hub. Also note that there are unrelated Google ads being served on this hub. Google ads should be relatively similar to the topic of your article.

By using the Google Keyword tool, I used the brand name of the product I am writing about then selected “exact” as my parameters. This gave me a selection of related keywords that I chose to use as some of my tags, with the idea that I would also incorporate them into the body of the article at some point. Just putting in tags without implementing them in the hub will not offer much of a benefit. Also, the tags need to be related. Before I took the above screen shot I had many tags that were unrelated to my article but at the time of the original writing they related to a series of hubs that I was writing for the November 30 day challenge, such as “coolest kids toys” or “cool toys for kids.” So for the first part of this revision, I eliminated all the unrelated tags and only chose tags that I could also incorporate as keywords into my article.

Just a quick glance at this hub and I can recognize several revisions I need to make so that this hub can gain rank. I wrote a hub called Google Front Page Tactics where I spell out many parameters that one should be aware of in order to get the best search engine ranking. Many of the parameters require that you own the site, but there are many on page tweaks and off page tweaks that you can make to increase your chances of success with a given article, blog post, or hub.

Firstly, the URL is important but not so important that you can forsake all the other elements on the page. Optimally, your keyword should be in your URL and as close to the http as possible. Unfortunately, here on Hubpages you cannot change your URL once your hub is published. You have two choices, leave it alone and worry about the things you can change or delete the hub and start all over with a new and optimal URL. The latter is only advisable if you have completely missed the mark, meaning you have no keyword in it or it is completely unrelated to the topic of your hub or article.

Other parameters you need to be aware of are:

• Your Title
• Heading Tags
• Outgoing Links
• Body Content

Off page tweaks would include:

• Backlinks
• Social Networking
• Social Media

As I stated above, this is going to be a chronical of my tweaks to the above chosen hub and I will be updating this hub over the next 90 days to report back what tweaks I have made and when and how it has affected the overall performance. Check back regularly for my updates which I will post immediately below.

1/21/12 - I eliminated several unrelated tags and then added a few tags that I found using the Google keyword tool. Tags are not the same as keywords. On Hubpages, tags are used for internal linking of similar hubs which create a tag page. Those pages can gain page rank which can be passed on to your hub if you use those tags. To use these tags as keywords they need to be implemented into the hub.

I also changed the title of the hub because the original title was used along with keywords that I also used as tags for a series of hubs that I wrote during the November 09' hubchallenge. They are no longer relevant, so I used terms in the title that are completely relevant to the topic of the hub.

1/22/12 - I did some layout changes by moving the first image down and to full width so that that when the searcher lands on my page s/he finds content instead of ads or ad blocks.

The original Hub had only 238 words, which is too short to get much traction. I added 322 more words of content so the Hub is sitting at 560. I think this is just enough for this type of Hub. I also encouraged the sale of the product through ebay links and challenged the reader to engage their social networks by questioning them about the product.

I also reduced the total number of products being offered in the ebay modules.

I'm Tweeting the newly revised hub to my 2000+ followers and then retweet using a few of my other Twitter accounts. I'm also placing links on certain Facebook pages that I follow. NOTE: I do not spam links to my friends and family on my personal Facebook account, I find related fanpages and groups and place the links where they are most appropriate.

2/5/12 - Well, in 2 weeks the hubscore has increased minimally to a 69 which is far better than where it was but not quite where I would like it. I would like it sitting in the mid 70's. The social values are now showing a few retweets and likes on facebook and google + I haven't done much more to the hub other than bookmarking it to about 10 sites that I use and adding about 5 more images from Flickr. Traffic has picked up by about 5 per week and is still not where I would like it. It is not showing up on the first 6 pages of google serps thought there is another hubpage showing on page 6 with the same topic but by another author. Funny thing is, my page has 3 times the written content and many more images.

2/8/12 - As you can see in the above image, the hub score has increased by 14 points. When first started on the revision this hub was sitting at the very bottom of my account and now it has moved up near the middle. You can also see that there are but a few social shares, none of my own, but quite possibly from those that are in my social networks.

As you can see from the image grabbed from my 'my account' page, the number of visits in the past 2 and a half weeks since starting on this revision is nearly double of the total visits since its first publication. I accredit the increase to the visitors from my social networks.

I am seeing some very good results with this test on how to revise an article, however, the cap on this test will be the position of this hub in Google's SERP's for the keywords I have chosen. So far, they are nowhere to be seen. I'll keep working.